Technology - Thanks for Making Our Life Easier

Think 1960s, life for technical people was not what it is today. The computer which has revolutionized almost every household today was a big machine that occupied large rooms and it was only large corporates, research institutes, and universities who could affort it. Nobody could have imagined that processing power would increase so much, and device size would reduce to a level where every household would have their own PC, and every individual would have their own personal computing device on the move.

The magnitude of the outreach is immense to the sheer amazement of those who had head started this journey in 1950s or 60s. What amazes me more is the people embracing technology — 5 year olds or 50 year olds, even if it means for kids an hour off for play because there is a new application that dad has downloaded on his latest smartphone or for the aged that they take a bit longer than their grandchildren to learn, but nonetheless never shy away.

With the passage of time, many technologies and products came and made history, but there are few that survived through the timeline and redefined technology. They are the ones that completely changed the computing and single handedly carried it forward. Be it the first microprocessor by Intel or the introduction of C by Dennis Ritchie, the change these technologies has brought into our lives cannot be summed up in a few words.

With the advent of technology, networking today has taken a whole new meaning and thanks to technology, we stay connected in a world unconnected due to our busy schedules, busy on facebook or twitter may be. How can we miss the revolutions of 2010, like the uprising in Libya, Egypt — A classic example of how technology pervades our lives, gives voice to people, and unifies them.

Technology has had its fair share of criticisms. It has been chided, criticized, and at times made a villain. Not every technology survived through time- some died, some succeeded. Some died because people were not ready to accept them, or were killed by competition.

In this chapter, we have covered the technologies that have changed our lives completely and the ones that may not have survived but made a great impact on computing nonetheless.