Category:Technology

From Eurêka

Contents 1 Technology 2 Technological Determinism 3 Technological Society 4 Innovation Wave

Technology

Technology Systematic application of science and engineering theory and knowledge to some practical purpose or activity.

1. Defining technology Technology that is based on a compulsion of orderliness, e.g. computer science .
2. Enabling technology Technology which expands the opportunity for human progress.

High technology (High tech) Emerging area of applied theory and practice characterized by an emphasis on systematic interdisciplinary research and development. It is often defined in terms of occupational structure, thus it is those industries whose proportion of engineers, engineering technicians, computer scientists, life scientists and mathematicians exceeds the manufacturing average. Product sophistication and growth of employment have also been used to define high tech.

Critical technologies Building blocks of knowledge from which products develop. Research into critical technology involves deep understanding of the basic materials. For example, in robotics technology, some of the critical technologies are in sensors and in electronics control. Critical technologies give the company a direct advantage over its competitors enabling technologies. A company needs these to make use of its critical technologies. For example, in robotics, the enabling technologies are in drive motors, grippers, the use of mechanical arms and the technology of power control. Enabling technologies are not part of a company’s competitive ability, and it does not need to own them, but without access to them, it cannot do its job.

Strategic technologies Technologies that will be fundamental to an industry in the future, such as artificial intelligence. They will form the basis of new competitive positions. In other words, there are the basis of new critical technologies. They form the basis of long-term R.& D. in response to the trends that the market is likely to take in the long term.

Instrumentalism Technology as simply a means to an end. Each technological innovation is designed to solve a particular problem or serve a specific human purpose.

Comparative technology Comparison of technology internationally with respect to a number of country-specific factors such as national character, social customs, business behavior, and geographical conditions.

Product cycle-profit cycle theory All products, and the industries that produce them, go through a cycle from youth to old age. All products and all industries have been at one time new, arising from technological innovation. Product cycle is also a profit cycle

1. Product innovation In the early stage, industry is characterized by a host of new small firms clustering together in one or two areas in order to enjoy the economies of agglomeration. Later, as the industry matures, many of these early entrants dropout and the industry becomes dominated by a few successful large firms. At this stage product innovation becomes less important than process innovation.
2. Process innovation Constant search for more efficient production methods, especially by substituting capital and labor. Thus the industry, which first generated plenty of new jobs in line with increasing output, enters a phase of jobless growth and eventually, as market saturation is reached, employment declines.
3. Early stage Early entrants to the industry may enjoy windfall profits from rapid market growth of its product, but increasing and often fierce competition which can result in bankruptcy, sharply reduces the average rate of profit.
4. Mature stage Stage of maturity, the oligarchic corporation will achieve above normal profits as a result of eliminating competition and pursuing product differentiation.
5. Old age Rate of profit will drop as the product reaches a stage of market saturation. Faced with a contracting market, and often with competition from newly industrializing countries which are able to imitate the technology, as well as from substitute products, companies are forced to pursue a policy of rationalization, with closures, layoffs and overseas relocation.

Technological Determinism

Technological determinism (Autonomous technology) Belief that technology acts as its own governing force. This independent force in human life influences change in social, political and economic relationships.

Technology’s revenge For every technological action, there is an equal, opposite and unpredictable reaction, a revenge of unintended consequences which often shows up in paradoxical ways.

Note Invention of a safer US football helmet led to an increase in injuries because the new helmet increased the game’s aggressive possibilities.

Technology’s unexpected consequences Innovation and change occur in a world so complex that the unexpected must be expected. Spectacles extended working lives of people; the phonograph was seen as a business tool, not entertainment; the airplane an instrument of peace not war; the telegraph was expected to create stronger communal bonds, but let people spread out. In 1975, no one predicted the influence of the fax, the VCR or the desktop computer or the browser and the World Wide Web, which together have revolutionized our technological existence.

Technological Society

Technological society Society which is distinguished not only by the extent, power and complexity of its hardware and technical knowledge but also by the extent to which technology shapes its values, institutions and way of life.

Technological fix Use of the power of technology in order to solve problems that are nontechnical in nature, e.g. prescribing methadone for drug addiction.

Technological utopianism Mode of thought and activity that vaunts technology as the means of bringing about utopia.

1. Technology Crusade Short-lived self-conscious movement in the US, 1930s.

Social determinist (Contextual approach) Technology is not a neutral instrument for problem solving but an expression of social, political and cultural values. That is, technology embodies not only technological judgment but the broader social values and interests of those who design and use it.

Monotechnics Large-scale, production oriented technologies that have come to dominate advanced industrial societies. Critics of modern technology such as Lewis Mumford, Herbert Marcuse and E. F. Schumacher argue that these societies are dehumanizing and authoritarian, if not totalitarian.

Maximum feasible penetration level (Ceiling) Amount of a new technology that would be used (purchased) at that particular point in time if there were no uncertainty about its true characteristics and profitability.

Epidemics model Model of diffusion based on a medical model of disease transmission. In the case of the diffusion of technological innovation what diffuses is information about the innovation itself. As the fraction of firms that have adopted the innovation increases, the number of potential adopters left decreases. Since the last potential adopters left are unlikely to be the most progressive firms the rate of diffusion decreases progressively until the process stops. This can be illustrated by the logistic diffusion curve.

Innovation Wave

Innovation wave Analogy of innovation diffusion as a wave arising from an origin and moving outward, with the changing form of the wave, describing the pattern of acceptance of the innovation at any distance and time from the origin. The crest of the wave, the zone of most active acceptance, moves outward from the origin, and the overall probability that people either accept the innovation or tell others about it falls with both increasing distance from the origin and the passing of time. Hence the final level acceptance of an innovation often declines slowly with increasing distance from the origin. Over time the acceptance of the innovation at any point in space will follow an s-type logistic curve, since the rate of acceptance will be low when the innovation is still far off, i.e. early innovators will be comparatively few.

1. Early majority (Earl adopters) As innovation takes hold in that place the proportion of adopters quickly rises as a group called the early majority comes in. Their example is followed by the late majority and the rate of new acceptances fall off because most people who will adopt the innovation have already done so, leaving the laggards at the end.
   1. Gearhead (AmE, slang) People hungry for latest gadgetry.

Hagerstrand model Passage of the innovation wave can be characterized as a four-stage model developed by T. Hagerstrand:

1. Primary stage Beginning of the diffusion process by the establishment of adoption centers and by a strong contrast between the innovating center and more distant areas.
2. Diffusion stage Powerful centrifugal effects accompany the creation of adoption centers in more distant locations and which is marked by a reduction in the strong areal contrasts typical of the primary stage.
3. Condensing stage Relative rate of adoption is similar in all locations.
4. Saturation stage Slowing and eventual cessation of the diffusion process, as well as a general but slow asymptotic increase to a maximum acceptance.

Technological revolution Major social and economic change brought about by technological innovations (e.g. textile machines, the steam engine, the car, nuclear energy). Computing is one such technology.

1. Technological accretion Success due to technology over the past two hundred years and the rising tide of innovations that have transformed the human environment have led to the notion that an acceleration principle is at work. Our present stage of development depends not on any single technological development but the superimposition of a series of technologies. Each has added a new dimension: many have exploited part of the earth’s resource base.
2. Technological acceleration Technological acceleration is the reduction in the interval between research, technological innovation and application of some industrial activity.

• See also Theory of change

1. Technological diffusion Adoption and movement of new technology through an economy. New technologies develop on the technological frontier, usually the economy that incorporates the best technological practices and economic growth. As technology diffusion takes place throughout the world and the laggard countries catch up with the technological frontier, their economic growth will be faster than the growth rate on the frontier itself. Eventually a point in time is reached with the technology gap is eliminated completely and individual growth rates ten to converge.
2. Technological systems Industrial change based on the interconnections of discrete technological developments.