Portal:Technology
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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ScienTOMogy was a New Zealand–based parody site lampooning actor Tom Cruise's involvement with Scientology. Initially hosted at the domain name scientomogy.info, the site was created in 2005 in response to the extensive media publicity surrounding Cruise's appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Today Show.
ScienTOMogy gained press attention after the site proprietor was contacted by the Church of Scientology with a cease and desist letter, alleging copyright infringement by claiming the word "Scientomogy" was too close to the word "Scientology." The proprietor initially agreed to relent to the Church's demands, but then decided to keep the site after consulting with attorneys. Internet traffic to the site later increased dramatically as a result of the media attention surrounding the Church of Scientology's allegations of copyright infringement. (Full article...)
Ellen Southard was an American full-rigged merchant ship from Bath, Maine that was built in 1863 by prominent shipbuilder T.J. Southard. She plied international trade routes for twelve years, calling at ports as far away as Sydney.
On 27 September 1875, the ship wrecked in the mouth of the Mersey River at Liverpool during a hurricane-strength storm. Shore-based lifeboats crewed mainly by volunteers set out from several lifeboat stations to the aid of the distressed ship after it foundered on a sandbank. One of the lifeboats capsized in heavy seas after picking up the ship's crew, resulting in nine people from the ship as well as three rescuers losing their lives. (Full article...)
Oxford Circus is a London Underground station serving Oxford Circus at the junction of Regent Street and Oxford Street, with entrances on all four corners of the intersection. The station is served by three lines: Bakerloo, Central and Victoria. As of 2023, it was the fourth-busiest station on the London Underground., and as such access to the station is frequently restricted at peak times. On the Bakerloo line the station is between Regent's Park and Piccadilly Circus stations, on the Central line it is between Bond Street and Tottenham Court Road stations, and on the Victoria line it is between Green Park and Warren Street stations. The station is in Travelcard Zone 1.
The Central line station opened on 30 July 1900, and the Bakerloo line station on 10 March 1906. Both are Grade II listed. The station was rebuilt in 1912 to relieve congestion. Further congestion led to another reconstruction in 1923. Numerous improvements were made as part of the New Works Programme and as a flood protection measure. To accommodate additional passengers on the Victoria line, a new ticket hall was built. The Victoria line platforms opened on 7 March 1969, including cross-platform interchange with the Bakerloo line. (Full article...)
Route 92 was a 6.7-mile (10.8 km) proposed branch of the New Jersey Turnpike that would have run from west to east, beginning at U.S. Route 1 just north of Ridge Road (old CR 522) in South Brunswick Township, east along Route 32, to Exit 8A in Monroe Township. Route 92 was also assigned in the 1953 renumbering and by the late 1950s it was named the Princeton–Hightstown Bypass, a freeway planned to connect the Somerset Freeway (an unbuilt section of Interstate 95) in Montgomery Township (near Skillman), with Route 33 in East Windsor Township (east of Hightstown). In 1987, the planned Route 92 was truncated to only run east from U.S. Route 1 near Kingston. New plans were announced in 1994, this time running to US 1 near Princeton. After public hearings found opposition was still strong, the planned route was truncated to a much shorter bypass of Hightstown only and numbered Route 133. Construction on the road, the first project awarded under New Jersey's modified Design-build program, began on September 20, 1996 and was opened November 30, 1999.
The first plans for Route 92's new alignment, running from exit 8A of the New Jersey Turnpike (rather than exit 8) west to U.S. Route 206 near Rocky Hill, were made in 1988, using funds from the canceled Somerset Freeway. In 1992, the plans were formally transferred to the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, which announced the new plans in 1994, again dropping the segment west of US 1. All but $6.5 million of the $400 million project was reassigned in November 2005 to widen the Turnpike in southern New Jersey. (Full article...)
Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus of the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem, Hudson and New Haven Lines, serving the northern parts of the New York metropolitan area. It also contains a connection to the Long Island Rail Road through the Grand Central Madison station, a 16-acre (65,000 m) rail terminal underneath the Metro-North station, built from 2007 to 2023. The terminal also connects to the New York City Subway at Grand Central–42nd Street station. The terminal is the third-busiest train station in North America, after New York Penn Station and Toronto Union Station.
The distinctive architecture and interior design of Grand Central Terminal's station house have earned it several landmark designations, including as a National Historic Landmark. Its Beaux-Arts design incorporates numerous works of art. Grand Central Terminal is one of the world's ten most-visited tourist attractions, with 21.6 million visitors in 2018, excluding train and subway passengers. The terminal's Main Concourse is often used as a meeting place, and is especially featured in films and television. Grand Central Terminal contains a variety of stores and food vendors, including upscale restaurants and bars, a food hall, and a grocery marketplace. The building is also noted for its library, event hall, tennis club, control center and offices for the railroad, and sub-basement power station. (Full article...)
The distinctive architecture and interior design of Grand Central Terminal's station house have earned it several landmark designations, including as a National Historic Landmark. Its Beaux-Arts design incorporates numerous works of art. Grand Central Terminal is one of the world's ten most-visited tourist attractions, with 21.6 million visitors in 2018, excluding train and subway passengers. The terminal's Main Concourse is often used as a meeting place, and is especially featured in films and television. Grand Central Terminal contains a variety of stores and food vendors, including upscale restaurants and bars, a food hall, and a grocery marketplace. The building is also noted for its library, event hall, tennis club, control center and offices for the railroad, and sub-basement power station. (Full article...)
The Bayshore Route (湾岸線, Wangan-sen) signed as Route B, is one of the routes of the tolled Shuto Expressway system in the Greater Tokyo Area. The Bayshore Route is a 62.1-kilometer (38.6 mi) stretch of toll highway that runs from the Kanazawa ward of Yokohama in the west, northeast to the city of Ichikawa in Chiba Prefecture in the east. Opened in phases beginning in 1976 and ending in 2001, it is an important route that runs between the artificial islands lining the western shore of Tokyo Bay by way of bridges and sub-sea tunnels that bypass central Tokyo. (Full article...)
JAL Express Co., Ltd. (JEX) (株式会社ジャル エクスプレス, Kabushiki-gaisha Jaru Ekusupuresu), was an airline with its headquarters at Tokyo International Airport and in Ota-ku, Tokyo, Japan, and its main hub at Tokyo International Airport. It also maintained offices in the Japan Airlines Building in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its operations included scheduled and non-scheduled passenger services to eight regional destinations across Japan. It also served 15 additional destinations in Japan, and two in the People's Republic of China on behalf of Japan Airlines, under a wet-lease agreement.
JAL Express was a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan's flag carrier, Japan Airlines and an affiliate member of the Oneworld alliance. It was founded April 1, 1997, and began operations with a Boeing 737-400 on July 1, 1998. It celebrated its tenth anniversary and first flight in April 2007 and July 2008, respectively. It operated its first international flight in May 2009, and flew to Hangzhou and Shanghai. In the fiscal year ending March 31, 1999, JAL Express, together with its sister airlines within the JAL Group, carried over 32 million passengers and over 1.1 million tons of cargo and mail. (Full article...)
JAL Express was a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan's flag carrier, Japan Airlines and an affiliate member of the Oneworld alliance. It was founded April 1, 1997, and began operations with a Boeing 737-400 on July 1, 1998. It celebrated its tenth anniversary and first flight in April 2007 and July 2008, respectively. It operated its first international flight in May 2009, and flew to Hangzhou and Shanghai. In the fiscal year ending March 31, 1999, JAL Express, together with its sister airlines within the JAL Group, carried over 32 million passengers and over 1.1 million tons of cargo and mail. (Full article...)
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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. -
Photograph credit: Stefan KrauseThe BMW S1000RR is a sport bike made by BMW Motorrad. It was introduced in 2008, initially for competition in the 2009 Superbike World Championship, and has been in commercial production since then. Powered by a 999 cc (61.0 cu in) four-cylinder engine, redlined at 14,200 rpm, it delivers 133.6 kW (179.2 hp; 181.6 PS) to the rear wheel, making it the most powerful motorcycle in the class. Rubén Xaus and Troy Corser rode the bike for its inaugural Superbike World Championship in 2009, gaining highest finishes of fifth and seventh respectively, but it achieved greater success in the 2010 FIM Superstock 1000 championship season, with rider Ayrton Badovini winning every single race but one on the S1000RR. -
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. -
Photo credit: L Cpl. Samantha L. Jones, USMCNine Marines from Mike Battery, 4th Battalion, 14th Marines operate the 155mm M198 howitzer in November 2004. The battery was based at Camp Fallujah, Iraq and was supporting Operation Phantom Fury. All nine members of the M198 crew are present. -
Photo credit: Eric PierceThe four-stroke cycle of an internal combustion engine is the cycle most commonly used for automotive and industrial purposes today, including cars, trucks, and generators.
The cycle was invented by Nikolaus Otto in 1876, and is also called the Otto cycle. The cycle is characterized by four strokes, or straight movements in a single direction, of the piston. -
Photograph credit: Michael MainieroThe SOCATA TBM (now Daher TBM) is a family of high-performance single-engine turboprop business and utility light aircraft manufactured by Daher. This SOCATA TBM 900 was photographed in flight during the 2015 EAA AirVenture Oshkosh airshow in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The aircraft features a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-64 engine, and a five-blade carbon-fiber propeller, which increases performance and decreases cabin noise. In a passenger configuration, the pressurized cabin is typically fitted with highly finished interiors, featuring luxury materials such as leather and wood veneers. -
A disc of copper made by continuous casting, the process whereby molten metal is solidified into a "semifinished" state for subsequent rolling in the finishing mills. Continuous casting replaced the creation of ingots using stationary moulds. The process allows lower-cost production of metal sections with better quality, due to the inherently lower costs of continuous, standardised production of a product, as well as providing increased control over the process through automation. After casting, this disc was then etched to achieve its final state. -
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. -
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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. -
The GameCube is a sixth generation video game console released by Nintendo beginning in 2001. Meant as a successor to the Nintendo 64, the GameCube sold approximately 22 million units worldwide. It was the third most-successful console of its generation, behind Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox. The GameCube was succeeded by the Wii in 2006. -
Credit: Mike McGregorThe OLPC XO-1 is an inexpensive subnotebook laptop computer intended to be distributed to children in developing countries. -
Photo: Arthur Rothstein; Restoration: Lise BroerA portrait of George Washington Carver, American scientist, botanist, educator and inventor, from 1942. Much of Carver's fame is based on his research into and promotion of alternative crops to cotton, such as peanuts and sweet potatoes. In addition to his work on agricultural extension education for purposes of advocacy of sustainable agriculture and appreciation of plants and nature, Carver's important accomplishments also included improvement of racial relations, mentoring children, poetry, painting, and religion. One of his most important roles was in undermining, through the fame of his achievements and many talents, the widespread stereotype of the time that the black race was intellectually inferior to the white race. -
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. -
Image credit: WikipedianProlificAn animated cut-away diagram of a typical fuel injector, which is used to spray controlled amounts of petrol (gasoline) into an internal combustion engine. A solenoid is activated when fuel is intended to be delivered to the engine, causing the plunger to become pulled toward the solenoid by magnetic force. This uncovers the valve opening, allowing fuel to flow into the atomiser and out the spray tip. The route of fuel is shown in orange; grey/blue indicates no fuel present. -
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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Image credit: Lewis HineA structural worker bolts beams on the framework during the construction of the Empire State Building in New York City. The 1,250-foot (380 m) building opened on May 1, 1931, at the time the tallest building in the world, overtaking the Chrysler Building (seen to the right), which had just been completed the year before. The addition of a pinnacle and antennas later increased its overall height to 1,472 feet (449 m). -
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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Photograph: Diego DelsoThe Assut de l'Or Bridge is a white single-pylon cable-stayed bridge in the City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia, Spain. Completed in 2008, it was designed by Valencian architect and civil engineer Santiago Calatrava as a variant of his cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge in Seville. -
Photograph: NASATwo Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers stand with three vehicles, providing a size comparison of three generations of Mars rovers. Front and center is the flight spare for the first Mars rover, Sojourner, which landed on Mars in 1997 as part of the Mars Pathfinder Project. On the left is a Mars Exploration Rover test vehicle, a working sibling to Spirit and Opportunity, which landed on Mars in 2004. On the right is a test rover for the Mars Science Laboratory, which landed Curiosity on Mars in 2012.
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General images -
The following are images from various technology-related articles on Wikipedia.
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A variety of stone tools (from History of technology) -
Top 30 AI patent applicants in 2016 (from Emerging technologies) -
The preserved Rocket (from History of technology) -
A water-powered mine hoist used for raising ore, ca. 1556 (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) -
A late Bronze Age sword or dagger blade (from History of technology) -
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Alessandro Volta with the first electrical battery. Volta is recognized as an influential inventor. (from Invention) -
Johannes Gutenberg's printing press was voted the most important invention of the second millennium. (from Invention) -
Ford assembly line, 1913. The magneto assembly line was the first. (from History of technology) -
Clock from Salisbury Cathedral, ca. 1386 (from History of technology) -
Walls at Sacsayhuaman (from History of technology) -
Eric M. C. Tigerstedt (1887–1925) was known as a pioneer of sound-on-film technology. Tigerstedt in 1915. (from Invention) -
3D printer (from Emerging technologies) -
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) -
Pont du Gard in France, a Roman aqueduct (from History of technology) -
Edison electric light bulbs 1879–80 (from History of technology) -
Newcomen steam engine for pumping mines (from History of technology) -
'BUILD YOUR OWN TELEVISION RECEIVER.' Science and Invention magazine cover, November 1928 (from Invention) -
Agriculture preceded writing in the history of technology. (from History of technology) -
Dome of Florence Cathedral (from History of technology) -
Self-replicating 3D printer (from Emerging technologies) -
The compartmented water wheel, here its overshot version (from History of technology) -
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Thomas Edison with his second phonograph, photographed by Levin Corbin Handy in Washington, April 1878 (from History of technology) -
Design for a flying machine (c.1488) by da Vinci (from History of technology)
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... 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 Peter Corby's electric trouser press used technology designed for Concorde?
- ... that Flathead Lake Biological Station can detect invasive aquatic species in real-time using eDNA technology?
- ... that several science fiction critics praised "Rock Diver", the first short story by American writer Harry Harrison, for its compelling take on technology for passing through matter?
- ... that it was Caltech experimental physicist Rana X. Adhikari's idea to build a gravitational-wave observatory in India?
- ... 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 ice XVII (structure shown) potentially has a use in green technology as a medium for storing hydrogen?
Top 10 WikiProject Technology popular articles of the month
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Elon Reeve Musk (/ˈiːlɒn mʌsk/; 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 January 2025, Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$421 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, 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...)
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...)
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by U.S. 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 requirement is 14 years. As of December 2023, Facebook claimed almost 3.07 billion monthly active users worldwide. 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 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...)
Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple languages. (Full article...)
