Technology Advances:
Technology influences human existence by bringing new risks as well as improvements to our lives. To try to minimize the likelihood of unwanted side effects of a new technology, humans will employ risk analysis. You can use the resources found here to help you understand how technology influences human existence by examining the benefits and risks of different biotechnological advances.
Primary Source:
1982
IBM PC: Computers as a low-cost assemblage of electronic Lego parts made every neighborhood electronics geek a computer technician and every small office and home work room a .
1983
GPS/GIS: The Global Positioning System was opened for use by civilian aircraft in 1983, beginning a trend that ' combined with great advances in geographic information systems and mapping tools ' led to agency data visualized in layered maps and cars telling their drivers where to turn.
1984
CD-ROM for computers: Flattened two entire industries, data storage and music dissemination.
FLASH MEMORY: Invented in 1984 at Toshiba, it found its place in small devices.
Smart phones, digital cameras, other devices (and, soon, laptops) all rely on Flash.
1985
NETWORK FILE SYSTEM: The file system that brought us to the age of network storage. No longer would your data be hostage to the computer in which it was created ' or to backup tape.
1987POWERPOINT: The one you love to hate. All the knowledge in the world boiled down to easy, succinct, bullet-pointed meaninglessness.
1989WORLD WIDE WEB: Invented by Tim Berners-Lee, it would soon change the way governments, business and people operate.
Technological advances changed nearly every aspect of life in the nineteenth century. A farmer using a wooden cradle in 1830 could cut four times more wheat than his counterpart in 1800 using a sickle. After the introduction of Cyrus McCormick’s reaper in the 1840s, the same farmer tripled his wheat harvest. Steel manufacturing was a new industry made possible by technological developments in England and the United States. The Bessemer process, developed in the 1850s, increased both the quantity and quality of steel and transformed the manufacturing and construction industries.