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

P:TECHP:TECH

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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BART and Oakland Airport Connector platforms, 2025

The station complex of Amtrak's Oakland Coliseum station and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)'s Coliseum station is located in the East Oakland area of Oakland, California, United States. The two stations, located about 600 feet (180 m) apart, are connected to each other and to the Oakland Coliseum/Oakland Arena sports complex with an accessible pedestrian bridge. The BART station is served by the Orange, Green, and Blue lines; the Amtrak station is served by the Capitol Corridor service.

The BART station opened in 1972, serving the six-year-old Oakland Coliseum and surrounding neighborhood. The Amtrak platform was added in 2005, making it one of two transfer points between BART and Amtrak. In 2014, the complex became the terminus of the Oakland Airport Connector, providing a rail connection to Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport. The station also serves as a transfer point for AC Transit buses and business park shuttles. (Full article...)
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The A7 motorway (Croatian: Autocesta A7) is a 42.4-kilometre-long (26.3 mi) motorway in Croatia. It connects the nation's largest port in Rijeka, to the Croatian motorway network, as well as to the Rupa and Pasjak border crossings to Slovenia. The motorway forms part of a longitudinal transportation corridor in Croatia, and it is a part of European route E61 Villach–Ljubljana–Trieste–Rijeka. The A7 motorway route south of Orehovica interchange, where it also intersects Pan-European corridor Vb, is a part of European route E65.

The A7 motorway runs near a number of Croatian cities and provides access to Učka Nature Park and, indirectly, to numerous resorts in the Istria and Kvarner Gulf regions. The motorway is nationally significant because of its positive economic impact on the cities and towns it connects, and because of its contribution to tourism in Croatia. The importance of the motorway as a transit route will be further increased upon completion of a proposed expansion of the Port of Rijeka and Rijeka transport node. (Full article...)
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State Route 158 (SR 158) is a major east–west state highway in the city of Knoxville in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It runs 4.63 miles (7.45 km) from Kingston Pike (US 11/US 70) along the Tennessee River to Interstate 40. The western portion of the highway is a surface street known as Neyland Drive and the eastern part is a controlled-access highway called James White Parkway. The entire highway serves as a bypass of downtown Knoxville and as a direct connector to the University of Tennessee (UT) campus and athletic facilities. Serving as the primary means of access to facilities such as Neyland Stadium and Thompson–Boling Arena, the route experiences congestion on game days, with a contraflow lane reversal implemented to mitigate this. It also serves as a spur into downtown and provides access to a number of local landmarks and historic sites, including the Blount Mansion and James White's Fort.

The highway that is now SR 158 has its origins in the original plat for Knoxville from 1791, which included a road along the riverfront. An extension of this road was completed in 1951 to serve Neyland Stadium, and a freeway loop around Downtown Knoxville was proposed that same year. The eastern portion of this freeway loop, which was initially known as the Downtown Loop, became the controlled-access part of SR 158, and was constructed in three segments between 1963 and 1973. This section of SR 158 was extensively reconstructed between 2005 and 2007 in a major project known as "SmartFix 40", which also involved a major reconstruction and widening of the connecting segment of I-40. (Full article...)
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Station entrance within Union Square Park

The 14th Street–Union Square station is a New York City Subway station complex shared by the BMT Broadway Line, the BMT Canarsie Line and the IRT Lexington Avenue Line. It is located at the intersection of Fourth Avenue and 14th Street, underneath Union Square Park in Manhattan. The complex is near the border of several neighborhoods, including the East Village to the southeast, Greenwich Village to the south and southwest, Chelsea to the northwest, and both the Flatiron District and Gramercy Park to the north and northeast. The 14th Street–Union Square station is served by the 4, 6, L, N, and Q trains at all times; the 5 and R trains at all times except late nights; the W train on weekdays; and the <6> train weekdays in the peak direction.

The Lexington Avenue Line platforms were built for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) as an express station on the city's first subway line, which was approved in 1900. The station opened on October 27, 1904, as one of the original 28 stations of the New York City Subway. As part of the Dual Contracts, the Broadway Line platforms opened in 1917 and the Canarsie Line platform opened in 1924. Several modifications have been made to the stations over the years, and they were combined on July 1, 1948. The complex was renovated in the 1990s and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. (Full article...)
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Delaware Route 300 (DE 300) is an 11.83-mile-long (19.04 km) state highway in Kent County, Delaware. The route is a continuation of Maryland Route 300 (MD 300) from the Maryland border near Everetts Corner. It runs in a northeast direction from there to the town of Smyrna, where it ends at U.S. Route 13 (US 13) while concurrent with DE 6. The route is signed east-west. Along the way, DE 300 passes through rural areas of northern Kent County as well as the towns of Kenton and Clayton. The road intersects DE 44 at Everetts Corner, DE 11 southwest of Kenton, DE 42 in Kenton, DE 15 between Kenton and Clayton, and DE 6 in Smyrna. The road was first built as a state highway in the 1920s and 1930s between the Maryland border and Clayton, with the DE 300 designation given to the road by 1936. The route was extended to its current terminus in the 1950s. (Full article...)
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British Airways plc (BA) is the flag carrier of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England at Waterside, near its main hub at Heathrow Airport.

The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and passengers carried, behind easyJet. In January 2011, BA merged with Iberia, creating the International Airlines Group (IAG), a holding company registered in Madrid, Spain. British Airways was the first passenger airline to generate more than US$1 billion on a single air route in a year. (Full article...)
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County Route 106 (CR 106) is a 7.8-mile (12.6 km) east–west county route in Rockland County, New York, in the United States. It serves as an eastward continuation of Kanawauke Road (former Orange CR 106), extending from the Orange County line to U.S. Route 9W (US 9W) and US 202 in Stony Point via Harriman State Park. CR 106 intersects with several county highways in Rockland County along the way. The route was only one of two in Rockland County to keep its numbering from Orange County, with the other being CR 72. CR 106 had one spur route, CR 106A, which was recently decommissioned.

The route was originally designated County Highway 416 in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1930, it became the easternmost part of New York State Route 210 (NY 210), a state highway continuing westward into Orange County. In 1982, NY 210 was truncated to end in Greenwood Lake, and its former routing east of NY 17 was replaced by CR 106 in Orange and Rockland counties. CR 106 in Orange County was decommissioned on January 1, 2014, when maintenance was transferred to the Palisades Interstate Park Commission. (Full article...)

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David Faiman
Photograph: David Shankbone
David Faiman is an Israeli engineer and physicist recognized for his expertise on solar power. He is the director of the Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center and Chairman of the Department of Solar Energy & Environmental Physics at Ben-Gurion University's Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research in Sde Boker.
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AgustaWestland AW109
Photo: Ikiwaner
An Agusta A109 rescue helicopter leaves Mount Pilatus, near Lucerne, Switzerland, after recovering a patient. Later renamed AgustaWestland AW109, the A109 is a helicopter manufactured by Agusta (now AgustaWestland) of Italy. It is a light-weight, twin-engine, eight-seat multi-purpose craft.
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Kitty Joyner
Photograph: NACA
Kitty Joyner (1916–1993) was an American electrical engineer with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and then the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She was hired in 1939 as the organization's first woman engineer, shortly after she had become the first woman to graduate from the University of Virginia's engineering program.
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Image 4
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.
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Image 5
Sukhoi Superjet 100
Photograph: Katsuhiko Tokunaga/SuperJet International
The Sukhoi Superjet 100 is a modern fly-by-wire twin-engine regional jet with 8 to 108 passenger seats. Development began in 2000; the aircraft had its maiden flight on 19 May 2008 and entered commercial service on 21 April 2011. This aircraft is seen flying off the coast of Italy near Sanremo.
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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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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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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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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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Image 10
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 11
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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Image 12
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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Walchensee Hydroelectric Power Station
Photograph credit: Diego Delso
The Walchensee Hydroelectric Power Station is a storage power station in Bavaria, Germany. The turbines, seen here, are fed by water from the Walchensee which is then released into the Kochelsee. The power station uses the hydraulic head of about 200 metres (660 ft) between the two natural lakes, and water from the Rißbach river is also used to augment the supply. The installed capacity is 124 MW with an annual production of 300 GWh; this is one of the largest of such power plants in Germany.
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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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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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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.
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Image 17
TRS connector
Image credit: Søren Peo Pedersen
Two TRS connectors (also known as jack plugs or phone plugs), a common audio connector. They are cylindrical in shape, with two or more contacts. Originally invented for use in telephone switchboards, jack plugs are still widely used, both in the original ¼-inch (6.3 mm) size and in miniaturized versions. The top plug in this image is for stereo connections, while the bottom is for mono.
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Image 18
Brusio spiral viaduct
Photo: David Gubler
The Bernina Express passing over the Brusio spiral viaduct. Located near Brusio, Graubünden, Switzerland, the single track nine-arched stone spiral railway viaduct was opened in 1908. It is part of the World Heritage-listed Bernina railway.
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Image 19
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 20
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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Main topics

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

Image 1Pont du Gard in France, a Roman aqueduct (from History of technology)
Image 2Dome of Florence Cathedral (from History of technology)
Image 3Newcomen steam engine for pumping mines (from History of technology)
Image 4A variety of stone tools (from History of technology)
Image 5The preserved Rocket (from History of technology)
Image 6An axehead made of iron, dating from the Swedish Iron Age (from History of technology)
Image 7Walls at Sacsayhuaman (from History of technology)
Image 8Top 30 AI patent applicants in 2016 (from Emerging technologies)
Image 9Ford assembly line, 1913. The magneto assembly line was the first. (from History of technology)
Image 10NASA Fuel cell stack
Direct-methanol cell (from Emerging technologies)
Image 11Edison electric light bulbs 1879–80 (from History of technology)
Image 12A 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 13The compartmented water wheel, here its overshot version (from History of technology)
Image 14Agriculture preceded writing in the history of technology. (from History of technology)
Image 15The 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 16Johannes Gutenberg's printing press was voted the most important invention of the second millennium. (from Invention)
Image 17Alessandro Volta with the first electrical battery. Volta is recognized as an influential inventor. (from Invention)
Image 18Clock from Salisbury Cathedral, ca. 1386 (from History of technology)
Image 19Eric M. C. Tigerstedt (1887–1925) was known as a pioneer of sound-on-film technology. Tigerstedt in 1915. (from Invention)
Image 20A water-powered mine hoist used for raising ore, ca. 1556 (from History of technology)
Image 21Design for a flying machine (c.1488) by da Vinci (from History of technology)
Image 22Self-replicating 3D printer (from Emerging technologies)
Image 23Thomas Edison with his second phonograph, photographed by Levin Corbin Handy in Washington, April 1878 (from History of technology)
Image 24Solid-state air batteries
Li-Air composition (from Emerging technologies)
Image 25'BUILD YOUR OWN TELEVISION RECEIVER.' Science and Invention magazine cover, November 1928 (from Invention)
Image 263D printer (from Emerging technologies)
Image 27A late Bronze Age sword or dagger blade (from History of technology)

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

... that astrophysicist Alan C. Cummings has led more than 1,700 weekly birdwatching walks at Caltech since 1986?
... that scholars have described the 1946 book The Failure of Technology as a precursor to the environmental movement?
... 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 Zirconic was a U.S. government effort to create reconnaissance satellites equipped with stealth 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 vehicles in Star Trucker still look like American semi-trucks from the 1970s, despite having technology such as warp drivers and maglocks?
... that Justin Yu, the current Classic Tetris World Champion, is also a cellist in MIT's video game orchestra?
... that Byrnihat was ranked by an air technology company as the world's most polluted city in 2024?

News

June 19, 2026 –: Malaysian researchers identify Pleurocordyceps cornusynnemata, a new fungal species in Borneo that parasitizes Ophiocordyceps fungi infecting ants. Scientists also report the discovery of a previously undocumented spider-infecting fungus. (AFP via CBS News)
June 16, 2026 – China–Kenya relations, Kenya–Taiwan relations: Taiwan says the Kenyan foreign ministry revoked visas issued to Taiwanese scientists and prevented them from attending the Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa. China states that Kenya's actions are consistent with its adherence to the One China policy. (Reuters)
June 10, 2026 –: Chinese scientists discover the largest known whale graveyard in the Indian Ocean, identifying nearly 500 whale skeletons spanning millions of years and documenting deep-sea ecosystems associated with the remains. A new species, Pterocetus diamantinae named after the location, was also discovered. (AFP via France 24) (The Guardian)
May 12, 2026 –: American autonomous driving technology company Waymo recalls 3,800 robotaxis over risks that they could enter flooded areas. (Reuters)
May 5, 2026 – COVID-19 drug development: German biotechnology company BioNTech announces it will halt production of its COVID-19 vaccine due to drastic restructuring plans, leaving sole production of the vaccine to its partner Pfizer. (DW) (Wall Street Journal)
April 30, 2026 –: American company Cloudflare states that Russian messenger app Max is a spyware app. (Ukrainian News)