Building Bridges And Boundaries: Technology In The

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Building Bridges and Boundaries: Technology in the 21st Century Only a decade into the 21st century and it seems that the technological advancements and discoveries are only in its initial stages. Indeed, there has been more progress in this field in the past few decades than in the whole history of mankind put together (Ratnam 1985). The first modern computer emerged in the 1930s and 1940s as the product of numerous experiments conducted by scientists from England, the United States and Germany (Weston and Tseng, Eds. 1994). Since then, technological innovation has been exponentially growing in society. In its strictest definition, technology describes the study of technics or all the objects of a material culture including bows and arrows, pottery, engines, jewelry and others. It also includes the applied science that goes into the production of materials (Ogburn 1957). In this way, we can see that society is the venue for new technology that emerges every day. From the basic inventions of making fire, simple tools and the wheel, we have moved on to make more complex machines like the printing press, gunpowder and the steam engine (Weston and Tseng, Eds. 1994). All these seem obsolete compared to the 21st century contraptions that now inhabit our daily lives. These innovations present innumerable benefits and equally dangerous consequences for society. Computer pioneer Norbert Wiener calls the current period of the Modern Age of Technology as the Age of Computer (Weston and Tseng, Eds. 1994). But as we have seen, the smart gadgets we have today go beyond the computer. Time magazine compiles its annual list of “The 50 Best Inventions of the Year” from which we shall extract some of the latest technological breakthroughs. In 2009, a Bladeless Fan (#21) was invented, along with atom-to-atom teleportation (#42) and Tweeting by Thinking (#9) (Kluger

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