P:TECH
The Technology Portal
Technology is the application of conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word technology can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible tools such as utensils or machines, and intangible ones such as software. Technology plays a critical role in science, engineering, and everyday life.
Technological advancements have led to significant changes in society. The earliest known technology is the stone tool, used during prehistory, followed by the control of fire—which in turn contributed to the growth of the human brain and the development of language during the Ice Age, according to the cooking hypothesis. The invention of the wheel in the Bronze Age allowed greater travel and the creation of more complex machines. More recent technological inventions, including the printing press, telephone, and the Internet, have lowered barriers to communication and ushered in the knowledge economy. (Full article...)
Recognized articles -
Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.
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East Taunton station is a not-yet-opened MBTA Commuter Rail station in East Taunton, Massachusetts adjacent to the interchange between the Route 24 expressway and County Street (Route 140). It is planned to open in 2025 as part of the first phase of the South Coast Rail project.
A former East Taunton station, located to the east on a different line, was served by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and several predecessors until 1927. In 2009, South Coast Rail planning identified Taunton Depot, just north of Middleborough Junction (Cotley Junction), as a preferred station site. A 2017 re-evaluation of the project recommended an interim route through Middleborough, with East Taunton station located just south of the junction. A construction contract was issued in 2020; the station was completed in October 2024. (Full article...)
On March 22, 2016, software engineer Azer Koçulu took down the
Several hours after the package was removed from npm, the company behind the platform, npm, Inc, manually restored the package. Later, npm disabled the ability to remove a package if more than 24 hours have elapsed since its publishing date and at least one other project depends on it. The incident drew widespread media attention and reactions from people in the software industry. The removal of
left-pad package that he had published to npm (a JavaScript package manager). Koçulu deleted the package after a dispute with Kik Messenger, in which the company forcibly took control of the package name kik. As a result, thousands of software projects that used left-pad as a dependency, including the Babel transcompiler and the React web framework, were unable to be built or installed. This caused widespread disruption, as technology corporations small and large, including Facebook, PayPal, Netflix and Spotify, used left-pad in their software products. Several hours after the package was removed from npm, the company behind the platform, npm, Inc, manually restored the package. Later, npm disabled the ability to remove a package if more than 24 hours have elapsed since its publishing date and at least one other project depends on it. The incident drew widespread media attention and reactions from people in the software industry. The removal of
left-pad has prompted discussion regarding the intentional self-sabotage of software to promote social justice and brought attention to the elevated possibility of supply chain attacks in modular programming. (Full article...)
Lysaker Station (Norwegian: Lysaker stasjon) is a railway station on the Drammen Line and Asker Line situated at Lysaker in Bærum, Norway. Located 7.00 kilometers (4.35 mi) from Oslo Central Station, Lysaker is served by a mix of Vy express, regional and Oslo Commuter Rail trains, as well as Flytoget. The station is elevated and features two island platforms with four tracks. It's the terminus of the Asker Line.
Lysaker was one of two original Drammen Line station in Bærum, opening on 7 October 1872. The original station building, designed by Georg Andreas Bull, burned down in 1914 and was replaced by a new station Adalbert Kielland. In the following years the elevated and double-track layout was introduced. This station arrangement was demolished in 1987 to make way for a station designed by Arne Henriksen. Traditionally only served by commuter trains, the station was branded as Lysaker/Fornebu from 1990 to 2000 because of its vicinity to Oslo Airport, Fornebu. The station was rebuilt again from 2006 to 2009 in which it was expanded from two to four tracks. It became connected to the Asker Line in 2011. (Full article...)
Business M-28 (Bus. M-28) was a state trunkline highway in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It served as a business route running for 9.010 miles (14.500 km) through the Newberry area. The business loop followed a U-shaped routing to connect downtown Newberry with M-28 south of town. It ran west of the city of Newberry, passing through the community of Dollarville before entering downtown, turning south and ending near the county airport.
Bus. M-28 was originally a section of M-28 before the latter was realigned in the late 1930s. The highway carried the M-28A designation before it was redesignated as Bus. M-28 in 1950. The trunkline was partially turned back to local control in 1953, and the business loop designation was removed at that time. The section of the roadway in downtown Newberry has carried several different designations in addition to the original M-28. (Full article...)
Bus. M-28 was originally a section of M-28 before the latter was realigned in the late 1930s. The highway carried the M-28A designation before it was redesignated as Bus. M-28 in 1950. The trunkline was partially turned back to local control in 1953, and the business loop designation was removed at that time. The section of the roadway in downtown Newberry has carried several different designations in addition to the original M-28. (Full article...)
Symphony station, formerly University Street station, is a light rail station that is part of the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel in Seattle, Washington, United States. The station is located under 3rd Avenue at University Street, near Benaroya Hall, and is served by Sound Transit's 1 Line. It is located between Westlake and Pioneer Square stations and has surface connections to buses operated by King County Metro and other providers.
The station consists of two side platforms situated under street level, with two mezzanines connecting to the surface. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture and includes several pieces of public art added during construction and later additions. Trains serve the station twenty hours a day on most days and the headway between light rail trains is six minutes during peak periods, with less frequent service at other times. (Full article...)
Highway 142 (AR 142) is a north–south state highway in Chicot County, Arkansas. The route starts its southern terminus at Levee Road near Lakeport. The road then travels north, passing through the Lakeport Plantation. It ends at its northern terminus at U.S. Route 82 (US 82) and US 278 in Shives. AR 142 was designated in 1931, from US 61 to the Mississippi River, and part of the route was redesignated as part of US 82 in 1940. The route was paved in asphalt by 1962. The route is maintained by the Arkansas Department of Transportation (ArDOT). (Full article...)
State Route 174 (SR 174) is a 40.66-mile (65.44 km) long state highway that traverses Douglas, Grant and Lincoln counties in Washington. SR 174 begins at a junction with SR 17 in Leahy and travels eastward to Grand Coulee, near the Grand Coulee Dam, to intersect SR 155. From Grand Coulee, the roadway travels southeast to end at SR 21 northwest of Wilbur.
Prior to the establishment of SR 174 in a 1964 renumbering, it had been county roads and two highways, Secondary State Highway 10B (SSH 10B) and Secondary State Highway 4C (SSH 4C) from 1937 until 1964. The two highways merged to form SR 174 in 1964 and a branch of SSH 10B became the Crown Point spur of SR 174. A second spur route, located in Leahy, was added in 2009. (Full article...)
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Photograph: Katsuhiko Tokunaga/SuperJet InternationalThe Sukhoi Superjet 100 is a modern fly-by-wire twin-engine regional jet with 8 to 108 passenger seats. Development began in 2000; the aircraft had its maiden flight on 19 May 2008 and entered commercial service on 21 April 2011. This aircraft is seen flying off the coast of Italy near Sanremo. -
The Trojan Room coffee pot was the inspiration for the world's first webcam. The coffee pot was located in the corridor just outside the so-called Trojan Room within the old Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge. The webcam was created in 1991 to help people working in other parts of the building avoid pointless trips to the coffee pot by providing, on the user's desktop computer, a live 128×128 pixel greyscale picture of the state of the coffee pot. The webcam was shut down on 22 August 2001, following the Computer Laboratory's move to the William Gates Building. -
A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axial bearing. The wheel is one of the main components of the wheel and axle which is one of the six simple machines.
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Image credit: Michael OttoA pastoral scene of a lone house, composed using Blender, an open source 3D computer graphics software. Blender can be used for a number of applications and is available for a wide variety of operating systems. -
Credit: Mike McGregorThe OLPC XO-1 is an inexpensive subnotebook laptop computer intended to be distributed to children in developing countries. -
An overhead power line is a structure used in electric power transmission and distribution to transmit electrical energy along large distances. It consists of one or more conductors suspended by towers or utility poles.
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Photograph: Raimond SpekkingBucket-wheel excavators (BWEs) are heavy equipment used in surface mining. The primary function of a BWE is to act as a continuous digging machine in large-scale open pit mining operations. These BWEs were photographed at the Garzweiler surface mine in Germany. -
This photo of the International Space Station (ISS) was taken during STS-119, a Space Shuttle mission that delivered and assembled the fourth starboard Integrated Truss Segment, and the final set of solar arrays and batteries to the station. Construction of the ISS is still ongoing and is scheduled to complete in December 2011. -
Image credit: Prolineserver/TomiaThis diagram of four pulley systems illustrates how increasing the number of pulleys increases the mechanical advantage, making the load easier to lift. MA is the factor by which a mechanism multiplies the force put into it. In this diagram, 100 newtons is required to lift the weight off the ground. Each additional pulley increases the MA such that the four-pulley system only needs 25 newtons to accomplish the same task, but the rope must be pulled four times as far. -
Photograph: ULPower Aero EnginesThe ULPower UL260i, a flat-four engine produced by ULPower Aero Engines of Belgium. Flat-four engines are flat engines with four cylinders arranged horizontally in two banks of two cylinders on each side of a central crankcase; they can be used in cars, motorcycles, or aircraft. This type of engine tends to be well-balanced and have efficient cooling, but is expensive to manufacture and considerably wider than other engines. -
A billet of enriched uranium, which is uranium where the percent composition of uranium-235 (U) has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Enriched uranium is a critical component for both civil nuclear power generation and military nuclear weapons. -
Photograph: Julia Margaret Cameron; restoration: Adam CuerdenJohn Herschel was an English mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, and experimental photographer. He named seven moons of Saturn and four moons of Uranus, invented the cyanotype and actinometer, and wrote extensively on topics including meteorology, physical geography and the telescope. -
Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech Ring is a 1943 painting by the British painter Laura Knight depicting a young woman, Ruby Loftus (1921–2004), working at an industrial lathe as part of the British war effort in World War II. The painting was commissioned by the War Artists' Advisory Committee, and is now part of the Imperial War Museum's art collection. The painting brought instant fame to Loftus, and has been likened to the American figure of "Rosie the Riveter". -
Credit: Berthold WernerA telephone, or phone, is a telecommunications device that converts sound, typically the human voice, into electronic signals suitable for transmission via cables or other transmission media over long distances through satellite. -
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Photograph: Donald Y TongBurj Khalifa is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and currently the tallest man-made structure in the world, at 829.8 m (2,722 ft). It was designed to be the centerpiece of a large-scale, mixed-use development known as Downtown Dubai. Construction took over five years, and the skyscraper was officially opened in January 2010. -
Photo credit: Michael ReevePitstone Windmill, believed to be the oldest windmill in the British Isles
A windmill is an engine powered by wind energy. In Europe, windmills have been used since the Middle Ages. They were developed from the 12th century, apparently from technology gained by crusaders who came into contact with windmills in the Middle East. Persian sources indicate windmill use as early as the 7th century BC. In the United States, the development of water-pumping windmills was a major factor in allowing the farming of vast areas of North America. -
Image credit: Joaquim Alves GasparAn animation showing how to use a vernier caliper, which is a caliper that uses a vernier scale to interpolate linear measurements. Vernier calipers can measure internal and external dimensions using, respectively, the uppermost and lower jaws, and also depths, using the depth probe (located at the right end). In this example, the first two digits (2.4) are decided by the location of the zero of the vernier scale in the centimeter scale, and the last digit (0.07), by the first line of the vernier scale that exactly matches a line of the centimeter scale above. -
A transit map of the New York City Subway, one of the oldest and most extensive public transportation systems in the world. Operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York, it has 468 stations in operation on 209 mi (337 km) of routes, with 842 miles (1,355 km) of track. It is the busiest rapid transit rail system by annual ridership in the Western Hemisphere, and fifth busiest in the world. Its stations are located throughout the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. Staten Island has its own rail line which is not part of the system, but is included in the map as well. -
Photograph: UberprutserA windmill is a mill that converts the energy of wind into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades. Traditional windmills were often used to mill grain, pump water, or both. Most modern windmills take the form of wind turbines used to generate electricity, or windpumps used to pump water, either for land drainage or to extract groundwater.
Here, the smock mill Goliath is viewed in front of the wind farm Growind in Eemshaven in the Netherlands.
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General images -
The following are images from various technology-related articles on Wikipedia.
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3D printer (from Emerging technologies) -
Eric M. C. Tigerstedt (1887–1925) was known as a pioneer of sound-on-film technology. Tigerstedt in 1915. (from Invention) -
'BUILD YOUR OWN TELEVISION RECEIVER.' Science and Invention magazine cover, November 1928 (from Invention) -
A water-powered mine hoist used for raising ore, ca. 1556 (from History of technology) -
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Tech history timeline (from History of technology) -
A rare 1884 photo showing the experimental recording of voice patterns by a photographic process at the Alexander Graham Bell Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Many of their experimental designs panned out in failure. (from Invention) -
Design for a flying machine (c.1488) by da Vinci (from History of technology) -
Ford assembly line, 1913. The magneto assembly line was the first. (from History of technology) -
Walls at Sacsayhuaman (from History of technology) -
A late Bronze Age sword or dagger blade (from History of technology) -
Edison electric light bulbs 1879–80 (from History of technology) -
Clock from Salisbury Cathedral, ca. 1386 (from History of technology) -
Johannes Gutenberg's printing press was voted the most important invention of the second millennium. (from Invention) -
Alessandro Volta with the first electrical battery. Volta is recognized as an influential inventor. (from Invention) -
Top 30 AI patent applicants in 2016 (from Emerging technologies) -
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Agriculture preceded writing in the history of technology. (from History of technology) -
Pont du Gard in France, a Roman aqueduct (from History of technology) -
The wheel, invented sometime before the 4th millennium BC, is one of the most ubiquitous and important technologies. This detail of the "Standard of Ur", c. 2500 BCE., displays a Sumerian chariot. (from History of technology) -
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Newcomen steam engine for pumping mines (from History of technology) -
The compartmented water wheel, here its overshot version (from History of technology) -
A variety of stone tools (from History of technology) -
Thomas Edison with his second phonograph, photographed by Levin Corbin Handy in Washington, April 1878 (from History of technology) -
The preserved Rocket (from History of technology) -
Self-replicating 3D printer (from Emerging technologies) -
Dome of Florence Cathedral (from History of technology)
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that touch-screen technology, pay-at-the-pump, car phones, and Coca-Cola Cherry were shown at the 1982 World's Fair?
- ... that Henry E. Sigerist felt "depressed" after reading A History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy in the 16th and 17th Centuries?
- ... that Thomas Hall made an electric train that received power from the rails on which it travelled instead of onboard batteries, a new technology at the time?
- ... that Flathead Lake Biological Station can detect invasive aquatic species in real-time using eDNA technology?
- ... that Criccieth Castle combined the "latest advances in military technology" with the "haphazard Welsh castle building style"?
- ... that Kathanar – The Wild Sorcerer is being shot on a custom-built studio spanning 45,000 square feet (4,200 m), utilizing the virtual production technology?
- ... that Peter Corby's electric trouser press used technology designed for Concorde?
- ... that OPTi Inc. won a patent suit against Apple for unauthorized use of "predictive snooping" technology?
Top 10 WikiProject Technology popular articles of the month
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Elon Reeve Musk (/ˈiːlɒn/; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman known for his key roles in the space company SpaceX and the automotive company Tesla, Inc. He is also known for his ownership of X Corp. (the company that operates the social media platform X, formerly Twitter), and his role in the founding of the Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink, and OpenAI. Musk is the wealthiest individual in the world; as of December 2024, Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$439 billion. (Full article...)
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim, three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States, it is the second-most-visited website in the world, after Google Search. In January 2024, YouTube had more than 2.7 billion monthly active users, who collectively watched more than one billion hours of videos every day. As of May 2019, videos were being uploaded to the platform at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute, and as of 2023, there were approximately 14 billion videos in total. (Full article...)
ChatGPT is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched in 2022. It is currently based on the GPT-4o large language model (LLM). ChatGPT can generate human-like conversational responses and enables users to refine and steer a conversation towards a desired length, format, style, level of detail, and language. It is credited with accelerating the AI boom, which has led to ongoing rapid investment in and public attention to the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Some observers have raised concern about the potential of ChatGPT and similar programs to displace human intelligence, enable plagiarism, or fuel misinformation. (Full article...)
Bluesky is a microblogging social media service. Similar to Twitter, users can share short text messages, images, and videos in short posts colloquially known as "skeets". It is owned by Bluesky Social PBC, a public benefit corporation based in the United States. (Full article...)
WhatsApp (officially WhatsApp Messenger) is an instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by technology conglomerate Meta. It allows users to send text, voice messages and video messages, make voice and video calls, and share images, documents, user locations, and other content. WhatsApp's client application runs on mobile devices, and can be accessed from computers. The service requires a cellular mobile telephone number to sign up. In January 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone business app called WhatsApp Business which can communicate with the standard WhatsApp client. (Full article...)
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became highly influential in the rise of personal computers through software like Windows, and the company has since expanded to Internet services, cloud computing, video gaming and other fields. Microsoft is the largest software maker, one of the most valuable public U.S. companies, and one of the most valuable brands globally. (Full article...)
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by American technology conglomerate Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name derives from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities. Since 2006, Facebook allows everyone to register from 13 years old, except in the case of a handful of nations, where the age limit is 14 years. As of December 2022, Facebook claimed almost 3 billion monthly active users. As of November 2024, Facebook ranked as the third-most-visited website in the world, with 23% of its traffic coming from the United States. It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s. (Full article...)
Google LLC (/ˈɡuːɡəl/ , GOO-gəl) is an American-based multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial intelligence (AI). It has been referred to as "the most powerful company in the world" and is one of the world's most valuable brands due to its market dominance, data collection, and technological advantages in the field of AI. Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., is one of the five Big Tech companies, alongside Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft. (Full article...)
