Portal:Technology

The Technology Portal

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

Technology is the application of knowledge for achieving practical goals 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 prehistoric times, followed by the control of fire, which contributed to the growth of the human brain and the development of language during the Ice Age. 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...)

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Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.

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State Route 360 (SR 360) is a short east–west route in Buckeye Lake, Ohio. SR 360 starts and ends at SR 79, paralleled to the shore of Buckeye Lake. The route was designated in 1938, and has not changed significantly since. (Full article...)
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US Highway 10 (US 10) is a part of the United States Numbered Highway System that runs from West Fargo, North Dakota, to the Lower Peninsula of the US state of Michigan. The highway enters Michigan on SS Badger, which crosses Lake Michigan between Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and Ludington. As the highway crosses the state, it is a two-lane undivided highway between Ludington and Farwell and a freeway from Farwell east to the highway's terminus in Bay City. US 10 runs concurrently with US 127 in the Clare area along a section of freeway that includes a welcome center in the median. Outside of the Clare and Midland areas, US 10 runs through rural areas of West and Central Michigan in a section of the Manistee National Forest as well as farmfields.

As part of the original US Numbered Highway System, US 10 was first designated in Michigan in 1926. It replaced three state trunkline highways of the day: M-20, M-24, and M-10, running between Ludington on Lake Michigan and downtown Detroit. It also ran concurrently with US 23 between Saginaw and Flint. The highway has been realigned several times during the construction of Interstate 75 (I-75) in southeast Michigan, even being temporarily designated "TO I-75" to connect segments of the I-75 freeway. The US 10 freeway between Clare and Midland was opened in the early 1960s. The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) truncated the highway to Bay City in 1986, removing it from I-75 and the Lodge Freeway. (Full article...)
Image 3
Y1 railcar at Skien Station

Timetoget Bratsbergbanen AS, trading as Timetoget ("the Hourly Train"), is a defunct railway company that tried to start operating passenger trains on the Bratsberg Line in Norway. The concept was launched in 1998, and in 1999 an agreement was made with the incumbent, Norwegian State Railways (NSB), to start operation in 2000. The founders were Gjermund Jamtveit and Halvor Grene, while NSB owned a third of the company. The company bought three used Y1 railcars from Sweden.

NSB soon bought all the shares of the company, and also made an agreement that operations on the Arendal Line would be taken over by Timetoget. However, the new company tried to take a short-cut in giving engineers only a six-week training program, instead of the usual 18 months. This made NSB want to discontinue operations. They bought out the rest of the shareholders, and liquidated the company. Timetoget never ran anything but trials on the Bratsberg Line. (Full article...)
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U.S. Highway 161 (US 161) was a U.S. Highway in Iowa that ran from Keokuk to Dubuque by way of Cedar Rapids. It was designated in 1925 and signed in 1926 along two primary highways. The route began at the Mississippi River with US 61 southwest of Keokuk ran north through Mount Pleasant and Iowa City to Cedar Rapids. There, it turned to the northeast through Anamosa and Monticello towards Dubuque. The route ended at US 61 in Key West, a few miles west of Dubuque.

The route changed very little while it was in service. It was paved from end to end by the summer of 1932. In January 1938, it was removed from the US Highway System. From Keokuk to Cedar Rapids, it was replaced by US 218, which was extended southward. From Cedar Rapids to Key West it was replaced by US 151, which was extended westward. (Full article...)
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M-146 was a state trunkline highway in the US state of Michigan that initially served as a bypass for traffic going around Port Huron and as a short cut for traffic between U.S. Highway 25 (US 25) and M-21. Later it connected to the Blue Water Bridge before it was truncated to its final form. Segments of M-146 still exist today as state highways as part of Interstate 94 (I-94) and I-69 and the Lapeer Connector. (Full article...)
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Platform level

The 72nd Street station is a station on the first phase of the Second Avenue Line of the New York City Subway. Located at the intersection of Second Avenue and 72nd Street, in the Lenox Hill section of the Upper East Side in Manhattan, it opened on January 1, 2017. The station is served by the Q train at all times, limited southbound rush hour N trains, and one northbound A.M. rush hour R train.

72nd Street has two tracks and one island platform; when planning for the line started in the early 2000s, the station was originally proposed with 3 tracks and 2 island platforms, but this was cut back due to the line's rising costs. This is the southernmost station on the first phase of the Second Avenue Line; south of this station, the BMT 63rd Street Line diverges to the west, towards the Lexington Avenue–63rd Street station, and bellmouths exist for a future extension to Second Avenue–Houston Street and Hanover Square. (Full article...)
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SAS (previously "Statistical Analysis System") is a statistical software suite developed by SAS Institute for data management, advanced analytics, multivariate analysis, business intelligence, criminal investigation, and predictive analytics.

SAS was developed at North Carolina State University from 1966 until 1976, when SAS Institute was incorporated. SAS was further developed in the 1980s and 1990s with the addition of new statistical procedures, additional components and the introduction of JMP. A point-and-click interface was added in version 9 in 2004. A social media analytics product was added in 2010. (Full article...)

Selected picture

Image 1
Windmill
Photo credit: Michael Reeve
Pitstone 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 2
Laptop computer
Credit: Mike McGregor
The OLPC XO-1 is an inexpensive subnotebook laptop computer intended to be distributed to children in developing countries.
Image 3
Burj Khalifa
Photograph: Donald Y Tong
Burj 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 4
New York City Subway
Map: CountZ
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.
Image 5
Semi-submersible
Photo: Agência Brasil
The semi-submersible oil platform P-51, operated by Brazilian energy company Petrobras, being positioned by tugboats. Semisubs sit on pontoons located under the ocean surface, with the operating deck atop columns, above the sea level. In this manner, they are relatively protected from wave action.
Image 6
Telephone
Credit: Berthold Werner
A 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.
Image 7
Australia Telescope Compact Array
Photograph credit: John Masterson, CSIRO; restored by Bammesk
The Australia Telescope Compact Array is a radio telescope operated by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) at the Paul Wild Observatory, 25 km (16 mi) west of the town of Narrabri in New South Wales, Australia. The telescope is an array of six identical dishes each 22 metres (72 ft) in diameter, which commonly operate in aperture synthesis mode to produce images from radio waves. Five of the dishes can be moved along a 3-kilometre (2 mi) railway track; the sixth is situated three kilometres west of the end of the main track. Each dish weighs about 270 tonnes (270 long tons; 300 short tons).

This photograph, showing five of the Australia Telescope Compact Array's dishes, was taken around 1984, in the late phase of the construction process. It is a long-exposure photograph taken in darkness in the late evening; during the exposure, the photographer, John Masterson, walked around the dishes firing off over 130 flashes using a hand-held flash gun.
Image 8
Rigger
Photo credit: Alfred T. Palmer
"Big Pete" Ramagos, rigger at work on Douglas Dam, Tennessee, June 1942. A rigger is a person or company which specializes in the lifting and/or moving of extremely large and/or heavy objects. Riggers use equipment expressly designed for moving and lifting objects where ordinary material handling equipment cannot go.
Image 9
Escalator
Credit: Stig Nygaard
An escalator is a moving staircase for carrying people between floors of a building. The device consists of a motor-driven chain of individual, linked steps that move up or down on tracks, allowing the step treads to remain horizontal.
Image 10
Hybrid-propellant rocket
Photograph credit: Matt Steiner and Kees08
A hybrid-propellant rocket is a rocket with an engine that uses propellants in two different phases, one solid and the other gaseous or liquid. The concept can be traced back to at least the 1930s.

This picture shows a transparent 3D-printed hybrid-rocket fuel grain with dual helical fuel ports, a post-combustion chamber, and a de Laval nozzle, photographed prior to the hot-fire test. The motor used nitrous oxide as the oxidizer and Pyrodex pellets for the igniter.
Image 11
Wheel
Credit: fir0002
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.
Image 12
Thorntonbank Wind Farm
Photo credit: Hans Hillewaert
Wind turbines belonging to the Thorntonbank Wind Farm located in the North Sea, 28 km (17 mi) off the coast of Belgium. Electricity generation started in early 2009, with an initial capacity of 30 MW, and that number is expected to rise to 300 MW by 2015. A 37 km (23 mi) 150 kV undersea cable connects the wind farm to the shore.
Image 13
STS-119
Photo: NASA
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 14
MS Majesty of the Seas
Photo credit: UpstateNYer
MS Majesty of the Seas is a Sovereign class cruise ship owned and operated by Royal Caribbean International, a cruise line based in Miami, Florida. Her sister ship MS Sovereign of the Seas was the largest cruise ship in the world at the time of its completion in 1988.
Image 15
Eiffel Tower
Photo: Benh Lieu Song
The Eiffel Tower as seen from the Champ de Mars. At 324 metres (1,063 ft) tall, the tower, an iron lattice tower, is the tallest building in Paris, the most-visited paid monument in the world, as well as one of the most recognizable structures in the world. Named after its designer, Gustave Eiffel, it was built as an entrance arch for the 1889 Exposition Universelle and has since become the most prominent symbol of both Paris and France.
Image 16
Overhead power line
Credit: Simon Koopmann
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.
Image 17
Union Pacific 844
Photo: Drew Jacksich; edit: Bruce1ee
Union Pacific 844 at Painted Rocks, Nevada, on a run from Elko to Sparks, on September 15, 2009. Built in 1944, it was the last steam locomotive delivered to Union Pacific and is the only steam locomotive never retired by a North American Class I railroad.
Image 18
Wiesen Viaduct
Photograph: David Gubler
The Wiesen Viaduct is a single-track railway viaduct (concrete blocks with dimension stone coverage) which spans the Landwasser southwest of the hamlet of Wiesen, Switzerland. Designed by Henning Friedrich, then the chief engineer of the Rhaetian Railway, it was built between 1906 and 1909 by the contractor G. Marasi (Westermann & Cie, Zürich) under the supervision of P. Salaz and Hans Studer (RhB). The Rhaetian Railway still owns and uses the viaduct today for regular service with 29 passenger trains per day. An important element of the Davos–Filisur railway, the viaduct is 88.9 metres (292 ft) high, 210 metres (690 ft) long, and has a main span of 55 metres (180 ft). In 1926, the viaduct was the inspiration for Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's painting Brücke bei Wiesen.
Image 19
John Herschel
Photograph: Julia Margaret Cameron; restoration: Adam Cuerden
John 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.
Image 20
Nice tramway
Photograph: Myrabella
The Nice tramway crossing Place Garibaldi, Nice, where it lowers its pantograph and is powered by batteries. This 8.7-kilometre (5.4 mi), single-line tramway is operated by Veolia Transdev. It opened on 24 November 2007, replacing bus lines 1, 2, 5 and 18.

Main topics

General images -

The following are images from various technology-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1NASA Fuel cell stack
Direct-methanol cell. (from Emerging technologies)
Image 2A water-powered mine hoist used for raising ore, ca. 1556 (from History of technology)
Image 3A 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)
Image 4An axehead made of iron, dating from the Swedish Iron Age (from History of technology)
Image 5Solid-state air batteries
Li-Air composition (from Emerging technologies)
Image 6The preserved Rocket (from History of technology)
Image 7'BUILD YOUR OWN TELEVISION RECEIVER.' Science and Invention magazine cover, November 1928 (from Invention)
Image 8The 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)
Image 9The compartmented water wheel, here its overshot version (from History of technology)
Image 10Edison electric light bulbs 1879–80 (from History of technology)
Image 11Ford assembly line, 1913. The magneto assembly line was the first. (from History of technology)
Image 12Artificial intelligence (from Emerging technologies)
Image 13The Gutenberg press was voted the most important invention of the second millennium. (from Invention)
Image 14Clock from Salisbury Cathedral, ca. 1386 (from History of technology)
Image 15Design for a flying machine (c.1488) by da Vinci (from History of technology)
Image 16The Mars Exploration Rovers provided huge amounts of information by functioning well beyond NASA's original lifespan estimates. (from History of technology)
Image 17Alessandro Volta with the first electrical battery. Volta is recognized as an influential inventor. (from Invention)
Image 183D printer (from Emerging technologies)
Image 19Eric M. C. Tigerstedt (1887–1925) was known as a pioneer of sound-on-film technology. Tigerstedt in 1915. (from Invention)
Image 20Walls at Sacsayhuaman (from History of technology)
Image 21Self-replicating 3D printer (from Emerging technologies)
Image 22Agriculture preceded writing in the history of technology. (from History of technology)
Image 23Top 30 AI patent applicants in 2016 (from Emerging technologies)
Image 24Newcomen steam engine for pumping mines (from History of technology)
Image 25Pont du Gard in France, a Roman aqueduct (from History of technology)
Image 26A variety of stone tools (from History of technology)
Image 27Dome of Florence Cathedral (from History of technology)
Image 28A late Bronze Age sword or dagger blade (from History of technology)

Portal:Technology/ox-footer

Did you know (auto-generated) -

... that ice XVII (structure shown) potentially has a use in green technology as a medium for storing hydrogen?
... that Peter Corby's electric trouser press used technology designed for Concorde?
... that it was Caltech experimental physicist Rana X. Adhikari's idea to build a gravitational-wave observatory in India?
... that Turkey's Anadolu Shipyard signed a contract with India's Hindustan Shipyard to transfer technology for the building of five fleet support ships for the Indian Navy?
... 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 Karlin Lillington, long-time technology writer for Ireland's newspaper of record, The Irish Times, holds a PhD on the poetry of Seamus Heaney?
... that when Chorus Systèmes SA was founded in 1986, French technology start-up companies were rare?
... that Research Policy is regarded as the leading journal in the field of innovation studies?

News

See also: 2023 in science and technology

October 24, 2023 –: The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of China votes to remove several state council members from their positions, including defense minister Li Shangfu, finance minister Liu Kun, and science minister Wang Zhigang. (Reuters via CNA)
October 16, 2023 –: Australia's internet safety commissioner fines American technology company X Corp. for AU$610,500 (US$385,000) for inadequately addressing child sexual abuse content on Twitter. (AFP via The Manila Times)
October 2, 2023 –: Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman are awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for developing technology that resulted in mRNA vaccines for COVID-19. (BBC News)
August 23, 2023 –: Southwark Crown Court in London, United Kingdom, rules that two teenagers were part of the hacking group Lapsus$ and participated in a blackmail campaign against technology companies, including Rockstar Games, the maker of the Grand Theft Auto video game series. (AP)
August 1, 2023 – Foreign relations of Burundi, Foreign relations of Russia: Burundi and Russia sign a memorandum of cooperation on sharing nuclear technology for peaceful purposes at the Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. (World Nuclear News)

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