Technology Today

(a) Photo shows an arrowhead. (b) Photo shows a man operating a plow drawn by two horses. (c) Photo shows an abacus. (d) Photo shows one of the world’s oldest computers, taking up a whole room. (e) Photo shows a laptop computer. (f) Photo shows a smartphone.
Technology is the application of science to address the problems of daily life, from hunting tools and agricultural advances, to manual and electronic ways of computing, to today’s tablets and smartphones. (Photo (a) courtesy of Wikimedia Commons; Photo (b) courtesy of Martin Pettitt/flickr; Photo (c) courtesy of Whitefield d./flickr; Photo (d) courtesy of Andrew Parnell/flickr; Photo (e) courtesy of Jemimus/flickr; Photo (f) courtesy of Kārlis Dambrāns/flickr)

It is easy to look at the latest sleek Apple product and think technology is a recent addition to our world. But from the steam engine to the most cutting-edge robotic surgery tools, technology has described the application of science to address the problems of daily life. We might look back at the enormous and clunky computers of the 1970s that had about as much storage as an iPod Shuffle and roll our eyes in disbelief. But chances are thirty years from now our skinny laptops and iPods will look just as archaic.