Portal:Technology

The Technology Portal

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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...)

Outline of technology

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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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King's Highway 400, commonly referred to as Highway 400, historically as the Toronto–Barrie Highway, and colloquially as the 400, is a 400-series highway in the Canadian province of Ontario linking the city of Toronto in the urban and agricultural south of the province with the scenic and sparsely populated central and northern regions. The portion of the highway between Toronto and Lake Simcoe roughly traces the route of the Toronto Carrying-Place Trail, a historic trail between the Lower and Upper Great Lakes. The full route of Highway 400 is part of the broader National Highway System. North of Highway 12, in combination with Highway 69, it forms a branch of the Trans-Canada Highway (TCH), the Georgian Bay Route, and is part of the highest-capacity route from southern Ontario to the Canadian West, via a connection with the mainline of the TCH in Sudbury. The highway also serves as the primary route from Toronto to southern Georgian Bay and Muskoka, areas collectively known as cottage country. The highway is patrolled by the Ontario Provincial Police and has a speed limit of 100 km/h (62 mph), except for the section south of Highway 401, where the speed limit is 80 km/h (50 mph) and the 60 km (37 mi) stretch between MacTier and Nobel, where the speed limit was raised to 110 km/h (68 mph) on April 22, 2022.

It was the first fully controlled-access highway in Ontario when it was opened between North York and Barrie on July 1, 1952. On that date, it was also the first highway to be designated as a 400-series. The freeway was extended in both directions; north of Barrie to Coldwater in 1958, and south of Highway 401 to Jane Street in 1966; thereafter the route continues as the municipal expressway Black Creek Drive which opened in 1982. Since the 1970s to the present there have been numerous projects which have widened and modernized the freeway between North York and Barrie, including being expanded with a collector-express system in Vaughan to accommodate the stack interchange with the new Highway 407 ETR. (Full article...)
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Kirkenes Airport (Norwegian: Kirkenes lufthavn; IATA: KKN, ICAO: ENKR) is an international airport located at Høybuktmoen, 15 kilometers (9 mi) west of the town of Kirkenes, in Sør-Varanger Municipality in Finnmark county, Norway. Operated by the state-owned Avinor, the airport has a single 2,115-by-45-meter (6,939 by 148 ft) asphalt runway numbered 05-23. Scandinavian Airlines and Norwegian Air Shuttle operate Boeing 737-services to Oslo Airport, Gardermoen, in part generated by Høybuktmoen's function as a hub for Widerøe's regional services to other airports in eastern Finnmark. There are also summer charter flights to Central Europe to bring tourists to the Hurtigruten cruises. The airport had 297,149 passengers in 2013.

Høybuktmoen was built as a military air station by the Luftwaffe during World War II. Civilian services were introduced after the war, but abandoned in 1948. The airport reopened in 1963 with a new terminal and an extended runway. Originally the airport was served by Scandinavian Airlines System and Finnair, and from the 1970s also Widerøe and Norving. Since 1990, five airlines have attempted to provide services to Murmansk, Russia. Originally the airport had two runways, 1,600 and 1,200 meters (5,200 and 3,900 ft) long, respectively, but the smaller was closed in 1996 when the longer was extended. A new terminal building was put into use in 2006. Because of the terrain the runway's length cannot be exploited under some wind conditions, so there is a proposal to level some of the land. (Full article...)
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Area C gate in Porta Ticinese

Area C is a congestion charge active in the city center of Milan, Italy. It was introduced in 2012, replacing the previous pollution charge Ecopass and based on the same designated traffic restricted zone. The area is about 8.2 km² (3.2 sq mi) with 77,000 residents (4.5% and 6% of the city total, respectively) and is accessible through gates monitored by traffic cameras.

The objective of the program is to reduce traffic, promote public transport, and to decrease the high levels of smog in the city.
All net revenues from the system are used to promote public transport and sustainable mobility. Like its predecessor Ecopass, the congestion charge was highly criticized, although it decreased vehicle entrances into the city by about 30%, increased average speeds of buses, and reduced levels of pollution. The program was temporarily suspended in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy; as of August 2023, it has been reactivated. (Full article...)
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The Société Anonyme de Véhicules Industriels et d'Équipements Mécaniques (French pronunciation: [sɔsjete anɔnim də veikyl ɛ̃dystʁijɛl e dekipmɑ̃ mekanik]), commonly known by the acronym Saviem (French pronunciation: [savjɛm]), was a French manufacturer of trucks and buses/coaches part of the Renault group, headquartered in Suresnes, Île-de-France. The company was established in 1955 by merging Renault heavy vehicle operations with Somua and Latil and disappeared in 1978 when was merged with former rival Berliet to form Renault Véhicules Industriels.

The company initially had various factories for vehicle production around France (mainly at the Paris area) which came from its predecessors and Chausson, but it soon centred assembly on Blainville-sur-Orne (trucks) and Annonay (buses and coaches). Saviem formed partnerships with other manufacturers, leading to technology-sharing agreements. (Full article...)
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Part of a document showing the company seal

The Electric Telegraph Company (ETC) was a British telegraph company founded in 1846 by William Fothergill Cooke and John Ricardo. It was the world's first public telegraph company. The equipment used was the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph, an electrical telegraph developed a few years earlier in collaboration with Charles Wheatstone. The system had been taken up by several railway companies for signalling purposes, but in forming the company Cooke intended to open up the technology to the public at large.

The ETC had a monopoly of electrical telegraphy until the formation of the Magnetic Telegraph Company (commonly called the Magnetic) who used a different system which did not infringe the ETC's patents. The Magnetic became the chief rival of the ETC and the two of them dominated the market even after further companies entered the field. (Full article...)
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Business M-28 (Bus. M-28) was a state trunkline highway in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It served as a business route running for 9.010 miles (14.500 km) through the Newberry area. The business loop followed a U-shaped routing to connect downtown Newberry with M-28 south of town. It ran west of the city of Newberry, passing through the community of Dollarville before entering downtown, turning south and ending near the county airport.

Bus. M-28 was originally a section of M-28 before the latter was realigned in the late 1930s. The highway carried the M-28A designation before it was redesignated as Bus. M-28 in 1950. The trunkline was partially turned back to local control in 1953, and the business loop designation was removed at that time. The section of the roadway in downtown Newberry has carried several different designations in addition to the original M-28. (Full article...)
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Interstate 81 (I-81) is part of the Interstate Highway System that runs 855.02 miles (1,376.02 km) northward from Dandridge, Tennessee, to the Thousand Islands Bridge at the Canadian border near Fishers Landing, New York. In Tennessee, I-81 serves the northeastern part of the state, running 75.66 miles (121.76 km) from its southern terminus with I-40 in Dandridge to the Virginia state line in Bristol. The route serves the Tri-Cities region of the state and the eastern parts of the Knoxville metropolitan area, terminating about 35 miles (56 km) east of Knoxville. I-81 bypasses most cities that it serves, instead providing access via interchanges with state and federal routes. It remains in the Ridge-and-Valley topographic region of the Appalachian Mountains for its entire length in Tennessee, and runs in a northeast to southwest direction.

I-81 roughly follows the corridors of U.S. Routes 11E and 11W in Tennessee, but unlike many stretches of Interstate Highways, does not closely parallel any U.S. Numbered Highway until it reaches Bristol. The first parts of I-81 in the state were constructed in the early 1960s, with additional progress made on the Interstate throughout that decade. However, most of the route was constructed later than the other Interstate Highways initially allocated to Tennessee, and did not open until after 1970. The last stretch of I-81 in Tennessee, which was more than half of the entire route in the state, was completed in 1975. From 1985 to 2007, the Interstate had one auxiliary route, I-181, which was renumbered as part of I-26. (Full article...)

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Mazda RX-8
Photo credit: Fir0002
The Mazda RX-8 sports car is a front mid-engine, rear-wheel drive four-seat coupé manufactured by Mazda Motor Corporation. It is the successor to the RX-7 and, like its predecessors in the RX range, it is powered by a rotary engine. The RX-8 began North American sales in the 2004 model year.
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Caliper
Image credit: Joaquim Alves Gaspar
An animation showing how to use a vernier caliper, which is a caliper that uses a vernier scale to interpolate linear measurements. Vernier calipers can measure internal and external dimensions using, respectively, the uppermost and lower jaws, and also depths, using the depth probe (located at the right end). In this example, the first two digits (2.4) are decided by the location of the zero of the vernier scale in the centimeter scale, and the last digit (0.07), by the first line of the vernier scale that exactly matches a line of the centimeter scale above.
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Image 3
Steam turbine
Photo credit: Christian Kuhna
The rotor of a modern steam turbine , which converts steam (heat) energy into kinetic (mechanical) energy. The steam path is from the smallest blade, expanding through progressively larger blade elements. Steam turbines are used in power plants to extract mechanical work from pressurized steam and benefit from their high efficiency and high power-to-weight ratio compared to other technologies, leading to their widespread deployment from electricity generation to marine propulsion.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Paddle steamer
Daguerreotype credit: Unknown
A daguerreotype from the 1850s of the Ben Campbell, a paddle steamer—a ship or boat driven by a steam engine that uses one or more paddle wheels to develop thrust for propulsion. The paddle wheel was the first form of mechanical propulsion for a boat, but has now been almost entirely superseded by more modern forms of marine propulsion.
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Enriched uranium
Photo: United States Department of Energy
A billet of enriched uranium, which is uranium where the percent composition of uranium-235 (²³⁵U) 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.
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Image 9
Pin tumbler lock
Photo credit: Eric Pierce
The pin tumbler lock is a lock mechanism that utilizes a group of pins of varying lengths to prevent opening the lock without the correct key. Pin tumblers are most commonly employed in cylinder locks, but may also be found in tubular or radial locks.

When the correct key is inserted, the gaps between the key pins (red) and driver pins (blue) align with the edge of the plug (yellow).
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Image 10
Bucket-wheel excavators
Photograph: Raimond Spekking
Bucket-wheel excavators (BWEs) are heavy equipment used in surface mining. The primary function of a BWE is to act as a continuous digging machine in large-scale open pit mining operations. These BWEs were photographed at the Garzweiler surface mine in Germany.
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Laptop computer
Credit: Mike McGregor
The OLPC XO-1 is an inexpensive subnotebook laptop computer intended to be distributed to children in developing countries.
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Mary Jackson
Photograph credit: Langley Research Center; restored by Adam Cuerden
Mary Jackson (1921–2005) was an African American mathematician and aerospace engineer at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which was succeeded by NASA in 1958. For most of her career, she worked at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia; starting as a computer at the segregated West Area Computing division, she later took advanced engineering classes and, in 1958, became NASA's first black female engineer.

After 34 years at NASA, Jackson had earned the most senior engineering title available. Realizing that she could not earn further promotions without becoming a supervisor, she accepted a demotion to become a manager of the Federal Women's Program in the NASA Office of Equal Opportunity Programs, as well as of the Affirmative Action Program. In this role, she worked to influence both the hiring and promotion of women in NASA's science, engineering and mathematics careers. She was portrayed by Janelle Monáe as a lead character in the 2016 film Hidden Figures. This picture, taken in 1980, shows Jackson working at NASA Langley.
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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.
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Parabolic antenna
Photo credit: Richard Bartz
A parabolic antenna, a high-gain reflector antenna used for radio, television and data communications, at Erdfunkstelle Raisting, the largest facility for satellite communication in the world, based in Raisting, Bavaria, Germany. Parabolic antennas work by reflecting electromagnetic radiation off the paraboloid dish to or from the feed horn (center), for reception or transmission respectively.
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Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech Ring
Painting: Laura Knight
Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech Ring is a 1943 painting by the British painter Laura Knight depicting a young woman, Ruby Loftus (1921–2004), working at an industrial lathe as part of the British war effort in World War II. The painting was commissioned by the War Artists' Advisory Committee, and is now part of the Imperial War Museum's art collection. The painting brought instant fame to Loftus, and has been likened to the American figure of "Rosie the Riveter".
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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.
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Sukhoi Su-30
Photo: Sergey Krivchikov
The Sukhoi Su-30 is a twin-engine, two-seat supermanoeuverable fighter aircraft developed by Russia's Sukhoi Aviation Corporation. It is a multirole fighter for all-weather, air-to-air and air-to-surface deep interdiction missions. Its primary users are Russia, India, China, Venezuela, and Malaysia.
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William Crooks
Photograph: National Photo Company, Restoration: Adam Cuerden
The William Crooks is a 4-4-0 steam locomotive that was the first locomotive to operate in the U.S. state of Minnesota, beginning in 1861. It was named after William Crooks, the chief mechanical engineer for the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, who earlier served as a colonel in the 6th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War. Crooks laid out the initial ten-mile track between Minneapolis and St. Paul on which the locomotive operated. It was retired from regular service in 1897, but operated special services for several further decades. It is now in the Lake Superior Railroad Museum in Duluth.
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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.
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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.
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The following are images from various technology-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1NASA Fuel cell stack
Direct-methanol cell (from Emerging technologies)
Image 2Newcomen steam engine for pumping mines (from History of technology)
Image 3Eric M. C. Tigerstedt (1887–1925) was known as a pioneer of sound-on-film technology. Tigerstedt in 1915. (from Invention)
Image 4The 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 5Top 30 AI patent applicants in 2016 (from Emerging technologies)
Image 6Self-replicating 3D printer (from Emerging technologies)
Image 7Dome of Florence Cathedral (from History of technology)
Image 8A variety of stone tools (from History of technology)
Image 9A late Bronze Age sword or dagger blade (from History of technology)
Image 10Pont du Gard in France, a Roman aqueduct (from History of technology)
Image 11Johannes Gutenberg's printing press was voted the most important invention of the second millennium. (from Invention)
Image 12The compartmented water wheel, here its overshot version (from History of technology)
Image 13'BUILD YOUR OWN TELEVISION RECEIVER.' Science and Invention magazine cover, November 1928 (from Invention)
Image 14Solid-state air batteries
Li-Air composition (from Emerging technologies)
Image 15Agriculture preceded writing in the history of technology. (from History of technology)
Image 16A 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 17Thomas Edison with his second phonograph, photographed by Levin Corbin Handy in Washington, April 1878 (from History of technology)
Image 183D printer (from Emerging technologies)
Image 19Edison electric light bulbs 1879–80 (from History of technology)
Image 20A water-powered mine hoist used for raising ore, ca. 1556 (from History of technology)
Image 21Ford assembly line, 1913. The magneto assembly line was the first. (from History of technology)
Image 22An axehead made of iron, dating from the Swedish Iron Age (from History of technology)
Image 23Alessandro Volta with the first electrical battery. Volta is recognized as an influential inventor. (from Invention)
Image 24Clock from Salisbury Cathedral, ca. 1386 (from History of technology)
Image 25Walls at Sacsayhuaman (from History of technology)
Image 26Design for a flying machine (c.1488) by da Vinci (from History of technology)
Image 27The preserved Rocket (from History of technology)

Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

... that Aileen Davies sang roles on the first two D'Oyly Carte Opera Company recordings using the new electrical-recording technology?
... that the Illinois Institute of Technology created Chicago's smallest park by deeding a 54-square-foot (5 m²) granite slab to the city?
... that astrophysicist Alan C. Cummings has led more than 1,700 weekly birdwatching walks at Caltech since 1986?
... that the Illinois Institute of Technology Academic Campus has been ranked as both one of the US's most significant architectural works and its least beautiful college campus?
... that Kathanar – The Wild Sorcerer is being shot on a custom-built studio spanning 45,000 square feet (4,200 m²), utilizing the virtual production 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 Byrnihat was ranked by an air technology company as the world's most polluted city in 2024?
... that Carmel Naughton, having been told that girls were "stupid and couldn't do maths", sponsored a STEM scholarship fund?

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October 28, 2025 – AI boom, Workplace impact of artificial intelligence: Multinational technology and e-commerce company Amazon announces it will lay off 14,000 corporate positions as it invests more in building AI and cloud computing infrastructure. (DW) (CNBC)
September 5, 2025 –: The European Commission fines Google €2.95 billion (US$3.47 billion) for allegedly abusing its position as the leading search engine to commit anti-trust violations in the advertising technology space. (DW)
September 4, 2025 – Chromebook procurement scandal: Former Indonesian education minister and Gojek co-founder Nadiem Makarim is detained after prosecutors name him as a suspect in a corruption case over the alleged unauthorized procurement of Chromebook laptops that resulted in state losses estimated at Rp 1.98 trillion (US$121.85 million). (Reuters)