Examples of Technology are computers, telephones, cell phones, wireless phones, the Internet, iPODS, e-mail, MP3 Players, watches, calculators, digital cameras, etc. The use of computers and the Internet together – the ability to do basic computing operations much faster together allows for increased organization, science and commerce. The Internet also allows for the sharing of data and information. There are many people that have never even heard of the term “technology”, but it is an important one.
According to the Merriam Webster’s dictionary the term technology is “the application of modern science to improve the means of doing things (including communication, information processing, performance, and organization)”. Other synonyms for technology are technology, apparatus, procedure, machine, design, ideas, and program. In German the term is Gegenkarten, which translates as “world society”.
According to the encyclopedia of the history of technology, the term “technology” first appears in 1844 in a paper by J. S. Bach and is described as “the improvement of certain physical, chemical, and mechanical procedures by new methods or techniques”. In its earliest form, technology refers to those technological systems and inventions that enable human activity to be carried on with greater facility, speed and accuracy than at present. For example, in its most basic form, all electrical appliances function by using the energy radiated from electrical sources and transformed to mechanical energy, which is then used to do work.
In more technical usage, technology is used to refer to a range of human activities and inventions that enable the operation of an enterprise more effectively, more thoroughly and efficiently than would be possible without the use of new tools and techniques. Technological progress is sometimes viewed in terms of a progressive movement in a particular field: new tools and techniques for the production, management, handling, and distribution of goods and services are called “towards”, “pasts” or “future times”. Some sociologists also speak of the “technological revolution” as a tendency towards increased scale of technological change and specialization within a given industry, coupled with increased entrepreneurial activity and interaction between technology and society.
Technology can be considered to have emerged as a dynamic force in the early modern period in the form of new scientific concepts and naturalisations of previously known technologies. The basis for this was the desire to make things simpler, in order that work could be done more cheaply and easily, and so that new benefits could be gained by applying knowledge more widely and making it available to wider sections of society. Some of the most important technological developments of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were the double-box engine and the automatic shuttle system. In the latter, double-box engines made efficient shuttle system based on reciprocating motion, a first; and, though eventually superseded by steam-powered engines, the double-box engine gave birth to the idea of the internal combustion engine, which dominates the technical landscape of the modern era.
In the modern era, there has been a global proliferation of technological objects. They range from computer systems to mechanical toys, from common household items like the clothes dryer to highly complex machines used in manufacturing industries. These objects have generated a wide range of opportunities and advancements, some of which have contributed to economic growth and the political stability of societies. However, as in any growing market, technology has also opened up new possibilities for competition, widening the scope of market share for certain technologies and products. Thus, even while some areas of human life are left untouched by technological evolution, others have experienced major transformations brought about by new technologies.