What we are today is far different from what people were thousands of years ago. It is all because of technology. There is no doubt that it is the key to changing the world.
Now, we can stay all day at home without getting bored because technology has brought the world closer to us. To socialize, to keep yourself updated, to explore the world, you just need a smartphone and internet connection. That is only the tip of the iceberg of how technology is changing the world.
According to Wikipedia, technology is the collection of techniques, skills, methods and processes used in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objective. The development of modern technology has made the world of greatest invention so colorful. And it works the other way around.
Technology has changed the way we live in so many aspects of life. And these fifteen technologies may not cover the whole aspects, but they will paint you a picture of how technology is making the world a better place for so many people, including you.
So, without further ado, let’s take a look at Alux’s choices of best technologies and greatest inventions that are changing the world we live in. Please note that they are in no particular order, but only for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!
15. Touchscreen
Raise your hand if you own a smartphone? Or even perhaps you are reading this on your smartphone’s screen. Now, imagine if that screen is not a touchscreen. Imagine if you have to scroll through your keypad just to get to the next sentence. It sucks, doesn’t it?
Whom should we thank for this technology we use on daily basis? E.A. Johnson invented this technology back in 1969. Initially, it was used for UK’s Air Traffic Control. But don’t compare the 1969’s touchscreen with today’s most expensive smartphone‘s, because it was way simpler.
Then, only after Samuel Hurst invented the resistive touch technology in 1975, Apple could come up with its first smartphone with touchscreen, iPhone, in 2007.
This touchscreen technology has changed the way we use phone and other gadgets. Not only that, the world of designing is now more advanced because of it. Today, less people use pen and paper to take notes. Fewer papers are needed during business meetings. And many other things in our way of life have changed since the invention of touchscreen.
14. Electric Vehicle
Do you know that fossil fuel is limited? Someday, there will be none of them left it the world. So, now we are switching to renewable source of energy like electricity. While most of our daily appliances have used electricity as power source, vehicles still consume a great amount of fossil fuel. And unfortunately, 75% of the world’s CO emission comes from automobiles.
Then, there was the invention of electric vehicle. Robert Anderson invented one in the 1830s. But it was not popular because of one big issue: the manufacturing cost is high, yet the top speed of the vehicle is low. Regardless, Thomas Parker managed to produce one in 1884.
Years after years of developing this technology, thanks to one man’s determination of making the world a better place, we have electric cars with better efficiency, performance, and look. Elon Musk‘s Tesla is arguably the best electric car manufacturer in the world today.
And even the world of motorsport is taking its part in the world of electric vehicle. While Formula 1 is wasting a lot of fuel (even after its 100 kg fuel limitation), FIA came up with a new car racing series, Formula E, in which all of the cars are battery-powered. Maybe someday these cars can match the excitement of Formula 1 car racing.
Have you done your part? Well, for those who are not completely sure about using electric car, there is an alternative: hybrid car. This type of car uses both fuel and battery as source of power.
13. Global Positioning System (GPS)
Let’s face it, getting lost sucks. Do you remember those days when we had to ask people around for direction? Or when buying a local map was on our traveling’s itinerary list? Thanks to GPS, we don’t have to anymore.
Back in 1973, the US military launched GPS project to help them during wars. Then they launched the first experimental GPS satellite in 1978. But only after 1983 GPS was available freely to public after President Ronald Reagan issued a directive for it. The trigger was when Boeing 747 of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 shot down with 269 passengers on board.
Applying this technology for public usage took years of research and development as well. Finally, Qualcomm announced their successful test of GPS on mobile phones in 2004. That was the beginning of all mapping systems we have in our smartphone today. Google map and Über are fine example of GPS-based applications we use every day.
This Global Positioning System helps us more than just finding direction. Without this technology, there would have been no automated vehicle or autopilot system. And this technology helps army and law enforcements in battles. Imagine those days when enemies’ location could not be tracked down. How many soldiers and officers risked their lives by going in blind?
12. Speech-Generating Device (SGD)
According to ALS Association in United States, nearly 6,000 people are diagnosed with ALS every year. Those people are in danger of losing their ability to walk, to move, and to speak. Speech-Generating Device, or SGD, may not help them to walk again, but at least this technology helps them to speak their mind.
The invention of SGD started in 1960s when a typewriter controller called POSSUM was patented in UK. It stands for patient-operated selector mechanism. It was the beginning of the AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) device development.
And one of the first notable people who use this device is Stephen Hawking. He suffers from ALS and he lost his ability to speak after tracheotomy surgery. In 1986, he finally has a computer-generated voice attached to his wheelchair.
After the 2000s, SGD technology is used not just for adults, but also for children. The device has been developed to help children with speech deficiencies, autism, Down syndrome, or any brain damage causing speech impairment. Thanks to this technology, kids and adults with such problems can have their voice back.
11. 3D Printing
If you work in an office, you would understand how important a printer is to your daily work. But those office printers are just regular 2D printers to print texts and images. Today, we have 3D printer that can print an actual object rather than just an image of the object.
Chuck Hull was working in a small business. He made coatings for tables using UV lights. Then one day in 1983, in his little lab, he came up with this 3D printing idea. His wife was the first to witness his work. And all she said was, “This had better be good!”
Well, Mrs. Hull, it is indeed good. Chuck Hull did bring stereo-lithography to another level. 3D printing has improved a lot of aspects, such as manufacturing, art, science, and medical. In general, it helps making things real in an easier and faster production manner.
One of the best breakthroughs from this invention comes in medical field. 3D printers are now being used and developed in making prosthetic body parts to help disable people. In Sudan, for example, victims of violence are helped by 3D-printed prosthetic arms. Isn’t that making the world a better place?
10. Motion Detector
Have you ever thought of how your house alarm works? How is it able to detect intruders and let you know? Motion detector technology is behind it. It uses ultrasonic frequencies and Doppler Effect. But don’t get me started on the science stuff.
Let’s just talk about the day it was invented. Back in the 1950s, Samuel Bagno invented the first alarm system using motion sensor. Then the rest is history. This technology is the basic of so many features in our daily tools and appliances, such as the one it was originally invented for: security system.
Without this motion detector technology, perhaps we would have been stuck with Daryl’s technology of detecting walkers in The Walking Dead: using strings of cans as traps. They might have worked as effective, but not in the process of setting up.
Besides security system, motion detecting system is also used in energy efficiency and car driving safety system. Thanks to this technology, we get a beep warning as we back our cars. Without it, we have to ask someone to help us, get in and out of the car to check, or hit whatever it is on the back of our car.
9. Internet
All hail the internet! I researched this article through internet. I posted it through internet. And you are currently reading it over the internet. Without it, none of us would be connected this way.
But do you know how this technology began? It was in 1969 when US military’s DARPA invented the ARPANET as network of networks. It was used for communicating and data transferring among military officers only. And then in 1990, Tim Berners-Lee created a breakthrough form of internet: the World Wide Web (www).
Since then, the world has never been the same. It changes the way we communicate. Now, we send emails instead of letters. And we can access anything in this world at any time. Your adventure in social media would have not been possible without the internet.
Just a quick thought, have you ever considered your life as more open because of the internet? People can find out where you are, what you are doing, how you are feeling just by accessing your social media. The internet has opened our world to a new kind of shenanigans. Regardless, this technology has and will keep changing the world.
8. Optical Fiber
The internet did not just travel through air. It needs media to go from one gadget to another. In the beginning of its invention, the media was optical fiber.
Optical fiber was just a light pipe made from thousands of glass fiber. At least that is how it was when Narinder Kapany and Harold Hopkins invented it in London back in the 1950s. Through that light pipe, they managed to send a simple image.
Since then, optical fiber has been used for many aspects, especially in long distance telecommunication. It has been developed into a smaller and denser size which means the data transferring is more enhanced. It is so small that it can go through small openings while delivering high quality images or sounds. More data are being sent through smaller fibers. That is what we call efficiency.
Take endoscopy for example. Doctors use this technology in endoscopy to see inside human’s body. Imagine if they didn’t reduce the size. Endoscopy would have been a disturbing process.
Besides in communication and medical field, optical fiber is also used by mechanics to see vehicle’s parts without tearing them apart. Plus, the image produced is really good that it can also work as a microscope.
7. Wireless Fidelity (WiFi)
Even though the size of optical fiber is relatively small, efficiency is still on the table. So, is there any better way to transfer data? Is there any other media we can use to transfer data?
Perhaps that is what went through the CSIRO team’s mind when they began the experiments to invent WiFi about thirty years ago. These people are a team of five radio astronomers in Australia. They are John O’Sullivan, Diet Ostry, Graham Daniels, John Deane, and Terry Percival. And since that day, they have made a total of $420 million from the patent alone.
WiFi makes the internet go faster (and it keeps getting faster and faster). It also makes quick data transferring, regardless the size, possible. Basically, it helps internet to bring the world closer together.
So, we all know and thankful for the existence of WiFi. But do you realize how important the WiFi technology is? Imagine there is no WiFi. Police officers cannot do all the cool stuff as we have seen in those cop shows. No quick search on fugitives data, no quick access to national criminal histories. The world would not have been a better place.
6. Holographic Telepresence
There is one thing that makes me go “wow” every time I watch Marvel movies with Iron Man in it. Besides Robert Downey Jr.’s charm, Tony Stark’s advanced gadgets always blew my mind away. Remember when he showed how Ultron’s brain works? Or every time he accessed data back in the Stark tower?
It is all about cool holographic technology. And now, it (almost) comes true.
Just six years ago, Nasser Peyghambarian invented the holographic telepresence in University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences. It will change the way we watch things. Just imagine 3D movies without those funky glasses or passing by billboard ads and the image jumps right in front of you.
Unfortunately, it costs a lot of money to develop this technology. Actually, most technology developments do so as well. Perhaps, scientists and investors just don’t think those billions of dollars are worth what this technology can do. Anyway, Japan has a vivid target that in 2022, people can watch the World Cup at home stadium with holographic telepresence. So, they will experience all soccer matches without having to attend the real game.
5. Water Filter
Yes, earth mostly consists of water. But not all of it is consumable. I’m not talking about the sea water here. In some parts of this world, clean water is a luxury. So, human started to find a way out: how do we make that unclean water drinkable?
Unlike most technologies we have mentioned on this list so far, the water filtering technology dates back to 500 BC. It was Hippocrates who first invented the practice of filtering water using a bag of filter he called the Hippocratic Sleeve. But the first large-scale water filtering was created in 1804 by John Gibb in Scotland.
Today, we have all kinds of water filtering, water sieving, and water purifying. All is with intention to make more drinkable and usable water. But there is one product that caught my intention: LifeStraw.
With this, you can just scoop dirty water and sip through the LifeStraw. That is so simple and easy to do. It was invented ten years ago and available in the market. One straw of LifeStraw can be used to drink 1,000 liters of water. That is what one person needs for about one year. LifeStraw has helped victims of natural disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake and 2011 Thailand flood.
4. Solar Panel
Earlier, we have mentioned about the fact that someday, fossil fuel will run out. And if we don’t take actions to switch to renewable energy, it will be our doom. There are other sources of energy besides fossil fuel. Among the most popular are geothermal and solar energy.
Geothermal is clean and highly efficient, but the cost to retrieve and process is too expensive. Plus, the risks are high. So, we turn to solar energy. Russel Ohl created silicon solar cell back in 1941. He was a notable semiconductor researcher but people could not understand his research.
Until one day, Gerald Pearson, Calvin Fuller, and Daryl Chopin came along. They took on Ohl’s invention to create the first ever solar panel. But a huge issue hindered the world to take on this great invention: efficiency. That first solar panel could only produce 4% of energy efficiency. It was way below fossil fuel’s efficiency, which is somewhere around 70%.
But today, after years of research and development, solar energy has become more efficient. In 1970s, the first solar panel with multi-junction cell was built. It managed to produce 20% of efficiency. And today, it has reached 50%. Soon, it will match fossil fuel’s efficiency, if not exceed it. I think we should get ourselves some solar panel at home now.
3. DNA Fingerprinting
If you watch a lot of cop shows, you would be familiar with the term CODIS. It stands for Combined DNA Index System. With CODIS, you can search through data of millions DNA just as you process fingerprints. Without it, solving crime would have been relying on fingerprints only.
So, when did it all start?
CODIS was created after Alec Jeffreys invented the DNA fingerprinting technology in 1984. Prior to that, criminals were convicted based on evidence and eyewitness only.
And this technology was a groundbreaking invention in law enforcement field. It helps convicting criminals faster by tying them to the crime scene or evidence without having to rely on eyewitness. Humans can lie, science don’t. Besides that, before CODIS, identifying bodies only relied on dental records.
The invention of DNA fingerprinting also works the other way around. Since 1992, Innocence Project has freed 343 wrongfully convicted people and found 147 real perpetrators. All thanks to this DNA technology. Unfortunately, some of those wrongfully convicted had been executed even before they were proven not guilty.
2. Rocket
Let’s take a moment to imagine the world without rocketry.
The good side is war missiles would have been less powerful. But the bad side is we would have not known about the outer space as much as we do. And it does not stop there. Without the ability to launch stuff to the atmosphere, how do we set satellite up there? Let me remind you that most groundbreaking technologies on our list work through satellites. Without rocketry, we might have to say goodbye to fast internet.
So, whom do we thank for this part of science?
Robert Goddard, an American inventor, invented the first liquid-fueled rocket in 1962. He created a high speed exhaust from combustion of fuel with an oxidizer.
Rocket launch technology has been the base of many other technologies. We mentioned WiFi. Besides that, there are also other crucial technologies such as GPS. And smaller scale of rocketry is used in ejection seat and fireworks. So I guess Gandalf and Katy Perry should thank Goddard more.
1. Artificial Intelligence
We wrap this list up with what is probably the most world-changing technology. Artificial Intelligence, also known as AI, has been inspiring scientists, engineers, and even filmmakers. This idea is indeed fascinating and groundbreaking.
So, how does AI work? It advances the way computer works from applying reasoning as search, symbol list processing, and heuristics (a technique of trimming search branches to find solution). With all of these, a computer has the ability to think and reason like a human brain. Impressive, isn’t it?
The first AI program was created by Newell and Simon in 1955. Back then, it was called The Logic Theorist. Then John McCarthy named it Artificial Intelligence. And the whole idea was finally perfected by Alan Turing’s theory of computation.
Creating human-level AI requires a lot of effort, time, and patience. Our brain’s capacity is so huge that it takes time just to figure out how it works. The first time AI was proven to have the ability to think like human was back in 1997. An AI-computer named Deep Blue took on a world champion, Garry Kasparov, on a chess match. Surprise, surprise, Deep Blue won.
All of these advanced technologies have changed our world and will keep doing it for a long time ahead. Let’s just hope we would still be around to witness it. Spread the word by sharing this article through social media! Thank you for reading!
