Technology

Technology, the application of scientific knowledge to the practical aims of human life or, as it is sometimes phrased, to the change and manipulation of the human environment. The subject of technology is treated in a number of articles. For general treatment, see technology, history of; hand...

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  Steve Jobs
  Steve Jobs, cofounder of Apple Computer, Inc. (now Apple Inc.), and a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer era. Jobs was raised by adoptive parents in Cupertino, California, located in what is now known as Silicon Valley. Though he was interested in engineering, his passions of youth…
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  Bill Gates
  Bill Gates, American computer programmer and entrepreneur who cofounded Microsoft Corporation, the world’s largest personal-computer software company. Gates wrote his first software program at the age of 13. In high school he helped form a group of programmers who computerized their school’s…
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  Apple Inc.
  Apple Inc., American manufacturer of personal computers, computer peripherals, and computer software. It was the first successful personal computer company and the popularizer of the graphical user interface. Headquarters are located in Cupertino, California. Apple Inc. had its genesis in the…
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  Nikola Tesla
  Nikola Tesla, Serbian American inventor and engineer who discovered and patented the rotating magnetic field, the basis of most alternating-current machinery. He also developed the three-phase system of electric power transmission. He immigrated to the United States in 1884 and sold the patent…
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  Thermonuclear bomb
  Thermonuclear bomb, weapon whose enormous explosive power results from an uncontrolled, self-sustaining chain reaction in which isotopes of hydrogen combine under extremely high temperatures to form helium in a process known as nuclear fusion. The high temperatures that are required for the…
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  Alan Turing
  Alan Turing, British mathematician and logician, who made major contributions to mathematics, cryptanalysis, logic, philosophy, and mathematical biology and also to the new areas later named computer science, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and artificial life. The son of a civil…
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  Unmanned aerial vehicle
  Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), military aircraft that is guided autonomously, by remote control, or both and that carries sensors, target designators, offensive ordnance, or electronic transmitters designed to interfere with or destroy enemy targets. Unencumbered by crew, life-support systems, and…
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  Cloud computing
  Cloud computing, method of running application software and storing related data in central computer systems and providing customers or other users access to them through the Internet. The origin of the expression cloud computing is obscure, but it appears to derive from the practice of using…
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  Wi-Fi
  Wi-Fi, networking technology that uses radio waves to allow high-speed data transfer over short distances. Wi-Fi technology has its origins in a 1985 ruling by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission that released the bands of the radio spectrum at 900 megahertz (MHz), 2.4 gigahertz (GHz), and…
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  USB
  USB, technology used to connect computers with peripherals, or input/output devices. First introduced in 1995, the USB standard was developed by a number of American companies, including IBM, Intel Corporation, and Microsoft Corporation, as a simpler way of connecting hardware to personal computers…
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  Rothschild family
  Rothschild family, the most famous of all European banking dynasties, which for some 200 years exerted great influence on the economic and, indirectly, the political history of Europe. The house was founded by Mayer Amschel Rothschild (b. February 23, 1744, Frankfurt am Main—d. September 19, 1812,…
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  Thomas Edison
  Thomas Edison, American inventor who, singly or jointly, held a world record 1,093 patents. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial research laboratory. Edison was the quintessential American inventor in the era of Yankee ingenuity. He began his career in 1863, in the adolescence of…
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  Computer
  Computer, device for processing, storing, and displaying information. Computer once meant a person who did computations, but now the term almost universally refers to automated electronic machinery. The first section of this article focuses on modern digital electronic computers and their design,…
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  IPhone
  IPhone, a multipurpose handheld computing device combining mobile telephone, digital camera, music player, and personal computing technologies. After more than two years of development at Apple Inc., the device was first released in the United States in 2007. The iPhone was subsequently released in…
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  Bluetooth
  Bluetooth, technology standard used to enable short-range wireless communication between electronic devices. Bluetooth was developed in the late 1990s and soon achieved massive popularity in consumer devices. In 1998 Ericsson, the Swedish manufacturer of mobile telephones, assembled a consortium of…
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  B-52
  B-52, U.S. long-range heavy bomber, designed by the Boeing Company in 1948, first flown in 1952, and first delivered for military service in 1955. Though originally intended to be an atomic-bomb carrier capable of reaching the Soviet Union, it has proved adaptable to a number of missions, and…
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  Operating system
  Operating system (OS), program that manages a computer’s resources, especially the allocation of those resources among other programs. Typical resources include the central processing unit (CPU), computer memory, file storage, input/output (I/O) devices, and network connections. Management tasks…
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  Galileo
  Galileo, Italian natural philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who made fundamental contributions to the sciences of motion, astronomy, and strength of materials and to the development of the scientific method. His formulation of (circular) inertia, the law of falling bodies, and parabolic…
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  Howard Hughes
  Howard Hughes, American manufacturer, aviator, and motion-picture producer and director who acquired enormous wealth and celebrity from his various ventures but was perhaps better known for his eccentricities, especially his reclusiveness. In 1909 Hughes’s father, Howard R. Hughes, Sr., invented a…
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  AK-47
  AK-47, Soviet assault rifle, possibly the most widely used shoulder weapon in the world. The initials AK represent Avtomat Kalashnikova, Russian for “automatic Kalashnikov,” for its designer, Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov, who designed the accepted version of the weapon in 1947. Almost from the…
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  Artificial intelligence
  Artificial intelligence (AI), the ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings. The term is frequently applied to the project of developing systems endowed with the intellectual processes characteristic of humans, such as…
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  HTML
  HTML, a formatting system for displaying text, graphics, and audio retrieved over the Internet on a computer monitor. Each retrieval unit is known as a Web page (from World Wide Web), and such pages frequently contain hypertext links that allow related pages to be retrieved. HTML is the markup…
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  Ecstasy
  Ecstasy, MDMA (3,4, Methylenedioxymethamphetamine), a euphoria-inducing stimulant and hallucinogen. The use of Ecstasy, commonly known as “E,” has been widespread despite the drug’s having been banned worldwide in 1985 by its addition to the international Convention on Psychotropic Substances. It…
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  Cocaine
  Cocaine, white, crystalline alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant (Erythroxylum coca), a bush commonly found growing wild in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador and cultivated in many other countries. The chemical formula of cocaine is C17H21NO4. Cocaine acts as an anesthetic because…
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  LED
  LED, in electronics, a semiconductor device that emits infrared or visible light when charged with an electric current. Visible LEDs are used in many electronic devices as indicator lamps, in automobiles as rear-window and brake lights, and on billboards and signs as alphanumeric displays or even…
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  Larry Page
  Larry Page, American computer scientist and entrepreneur, who, with Sergey Brin, created the online search engine Google, one of the most successful sites on the Internet. Page, whose father was a professor of computer science at Michigan State University, received a computer engineering degree…
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  Nuclear weapon
  Nuclear weapon, device designed to release energy in an explosive manner as a result of nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, or a combination of the two processes. Fission weapons are commonly referred to as atomic bombs. Fusion weapons are also referred to as thermonuclear bombs or, more commonly,…
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  Marijuana
  Marijuana, crude drug composed of the leaves and flowers of plants in the genus Cannabis. The term marijuana is sometimes used interchangeably with cannabis; however, the latter refers specifically to the plant genus, which comprises C. sativa and, by some classifications, C. indica and C.…
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  Jeff Bezos
  Jeff Bezos , American entrepreneur who played a key role in the growth of e-commerce as the founder and chief executive officer of Amazon.com, Inc., an online merchant of books and later of a wide variety of products. Under his guidance, Amazon became the largest retailer on the World Wide Web and…
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  Methamphetamine
  Methamphetamine, potent and addictive synthetic stimulant drug that affects the central nervous system (the spinal cord and brain). Methamphetamine is prescribed for the treatment of certain medical conditions, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), narcolepsy, and obesity. In…