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Technology is the application of conceptual knowledge for achieving practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word technology can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible tools such as utensils or machines, and intangible ones such as software. Technology plays a critical role in science, engineering, and everyday life.
Technological advancements have led to significant changes in society. The earliest known technology is the stone tool, used during prehistoric times, followed by the control of fire, which contributed to the growth of the human brain and the development of language during the Ice Age. The invention of the wheel in the Bronze Age allowed greater travel and the creation of more complex machines. More recent technological inventions, including the printing press, telephone, and the Internet, have lowered barriers to communication and ushered in the knowledge economy. (Full article...)
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Image 1A G train of R160s at Court Square
The G Brooklyn-Queens Crosstown is an 11.4-mile-long (18.3 km) rapid transit service in the B Division of the New York City Subway. Its route emblem, or "bullet", is colored light green since it uses the IND Crosstown Line.
The G operates at all times between Court Square in Long Island City, Queens, and Church Avenue in Kensington, Brooklyn. It is the only non-shuttle service in the system that does not run within the borough of Manhattan. The G serves two stations in Queens—Court Square and 21st Street, both in Long Island City. Prior to 2010, it served all stations on the IND Queens Boulevard Line between Court Square and 71st Avenue in Forest Hills. In 1939 and 1940, the then-designated GG also used the now-demolished IND World's Fair Line to access the 1939 New York World's Fair. The GG, which became the G in 1985, had its southern terminal at Smith–Ninth Streets from 1976 to 2009. (Full article...) -
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The Victoria line is a London Underground line that runs between Brixton in south London and Walthamstow Central in the north-east, via the West End. It is printed in light blue on the Tube map and is one of the only two lines on the network to run completely underground, the other being the Waterloo & City line.
The line was constructed in the 1960s and was the first entirely new Underground line in London for 50 years. It was designed to reduce congestion on other lines, particularly the Piccadilly line and the Charing Cross branch of the Northern line. The first section, from Walthamstow Central to Highbury & Islington, opened in September 1968 and an extension to Warren Street followed in December. The line was completed to Victoria station in March 1969 and was opened by Queen Elizabeth II who rode a train from Green Park to Victoria. The southern extension to Brixton opened in 1971, and Pimlico station was added in 1972. (Full article...) -
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The Canon EOS R is the first full-frame mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera (MILC) produced by Canon. It was announced days after Nikon's first full-frame MILC, the Nikon Z 7, and five years after Sony's first, and was released in October 2018. The camera is the first of Canon's new EOS R system, and the first to use the RF lens mount. The "R" stands for "Reimagine optical excellence".
The EOS R features a 30.3 megapixel CMOS sensor, an OLED viewfinder and an articulating LCD touchscreen. Autofocus uses dual-pixel technology, and "Eye Detection AF" automatically focuses on human faces within the scene. The mechanical shutter can capture still images at up to eight frames per second, and cropped-sensor 4K video capture is supported at 30 fps. The EOS R uniquely offers a "Multi-function Bar", a configurable touch-sensitive strip. The EOS R also introduced the "Flexible Priority Exposure" ("Fv") mode. Adapters are available to allow mounting of older lenses which require the EF lens mount. Canon also released an astrophotography variant named EOS Ra, which uses a modified IR cut-off filter to allow more H-alpha light to be captured, and offers stronger digital magnification, but is otherwise identical to the EOS R. (Full article...) -
Image 4The Health and Morals of Apprentices Act 1802 (42 Geo. 3. c. 73), sometimes known as the Factory Act 1802, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom designed to improve conditions for apprentices working in cotton mills. The Act was introduced by Sir Robert Peel, who had become concerned in the issue after a 1784 outbreak of a "malignant fever" at one of his cotton mills, which he later blamed on 'gross mismanagement' by his subordinates.
The Act required that cotton mills and factories be properly ventilated and basic requirements on cleanliness be met. Apprentices in these premises were to be given a basic education and to attend a religious service at least once a month. They were to be provided with clothing and their working hours were limited to no more than twelve hours a day (excluding meal breaks); they were not to work at night. (Full article...) -
Image 5Microchess, sometimes written as MicroChess, is a chess program developed for the MOS Technology KIM-1 microcomputer by Peter R. Jennings in 1976, and published by his company Micro-Ware. The game plays chess against the human player at a beginner level, with the player entering moves via a keyboard and the computer responding, both in a custom chess notation. The game was ported to many other microcomputers such as the TRS-80, Apple II, Commodore PET, and Atari 8-bit computers by Micro-Ware and its successor company Personal Software (later VisiCorp) between 1976 and 1980, with later versions featuring graphics and more levels of play. A dedicated hardware version of the game called ChessMate was produced by Commodore International in 1978, and the game's engine was licensed to Novag for its dedicated Chess Champion Mk II chess computer in 1979.
The game was created by Jennings over the course of around six months in 1976. He developed it with the aim of making a product that could be widely sold, rather than as the most advanced chess engine possible. It was possibly the first computer game to be sold commercially, and was the first commercial chess program for microcomputers and the first software package to sell 50,000 copies. Micro-Ware itself was possibly the first software publishing company. Microchess ultimately sold over a million copies across all of its versions by the mid-1980s, and variants were sold into the early 1990s. Despite being commercially successful, it has been largely regarded by critics as a poor chess game. (Full article...) -
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The Norwegian Public Safety Network (Norwegian: Nødnett literally Emergency Network) is a public safety network system based on Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA). Nødnett is implemented by the Directorate for Emergency Communication (Norwegian: Direktoratet for nødkommunikasjon). The network is primarily used for internal and interdisciplinary communication by the police, fire departments and health services. Nødnett is also used by several organisations participating in rescue and emergency work. Planning of the network started in 1995 and in 2006 the contract to build it was awarded to Nokia Siemens Networks. As Nokia Siemens Networks was unable to complete the contract, it was passed on to Motorola Solutions in 2012. The critical infrastructure of Nødnett was finished and was operational in all districts of mainland Norway by December 1, 2015.
The network replaced nearly 300 local and regional networks which operated independently for the fire, police and healthcare agencies. Nødnett allows functionality such as authentication, encryption and higher reliability. (Full article...) -
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Oliver Evans (September 13, 1755 – April 15, 1819) was an American inventor, engineer, and businessman born in rural Delaware and later rooted commercially in Philadelphia. He was one of the first Americans to build steam engines and an advocate of high-pressure steam (as opposed to low-pressure steam). A pioneer in the fields of automation, materials handling and steam power, Evans was one of the most prolific and influential inventors in the early years of the United States. He left behind a long series of accomplishments, most notably designing and building the first fully automated industrial process,first propose a design vapor-compression refrigeration, the first high-pressure steam engine, and the first (albeit crude) amphibious vehicle and American automobile. More recently, however, in the allocation of priorities for the development of the high-pressure steam engine, the simultaneity of Evans’ work with that of Richard Trevithick has been established, and historians have accorded proper credit for his pioneering of the assembly line.
Born in Newport, Delaware, Evans received little formal education and in his mid-teens was apprenticed to a wheelwright. Going into business with his brothers, he worked for over a decade designing, building and perfecting an automated mill with devices such as bucket chains and conveyor belts. In doing so Evans designed a continuous process of manufacturing that required no human labor. This novel concept would prove critical to the Industrial Revolution and the development of mass production. Later in life Evans turned his attention to steam power and built the first high-pressure steam engine in the United States in 1801, developing his design independently of Richard Trevithick, who built the first in the world a year earlier. Evans was a driving force in the development and adoption of high-pressure steam engines in the United States. Evans dreamed of building a steam-powered wagon and eventually constructing and running one in 1805. Known as the Oruktor Amphibolos, it was the first automobile in the country and the world's first amphibious vehicle, although it was too primitive to be a success as either. (Full article...)
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Image 1An overhead power line is a structure used in electric power transmission and distribution to transmit electrical energy along large distances. It consists of one or more conductors suspended by towers or utility poles.
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Image 2Credit: Berthold WernerA telephone, or phone, is a telecommunications device that converts sound, typically the human voice, into electronic signals suitable for transmission via cables or other transmission media over long distances through satellite.
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Image 3Image credit: WikipedianProlificAn animated cut-away diagram of a typical fuel injector, which is used to spray controlled amounts of petrol (gasoline) into an internal combustion engine. A solenoid is activated when fuel is intended to be delivered to the engine, causing the plunger to become pulled toward the solenoid by magnetic force. This uncovers the valve opening, allowing fuel to flow into the atomiser and out the spray tip. The route of fuel is shown in orange; grey/blue indicates no fuel present.
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Image 4A disc of copper made by continuous casting, the process whereby molten metal is solidified into a "semifinished" state for subsequent rolling in the finishing mills. Continuous casting replaced the creation of ingots using stationary moulds. The process allows lower-cost production of metal sections with better quality, due to the inherently lower costs of continuous, standardised production of a product, as well as providing increased control over the process through automation. After casting, this disc was then etched to achieve its final state.
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Image 5Photograph: Raimond SpekkingBucket-wheel excavators (BWEs) are heavy equipment used in surface mining. The primary function of a BWE is to act as a continuous digging machine in large-scale open pit mining operations. These BWEs were photographed at the Garzweiler surface mine in Germany.
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Image 6The OLPC XO-1 is an inexpensive subnotebook laptop computer intended to be distributed to children in developing countries.
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Image 7Photograph: UberprutserA windmill is a mill that converts the energy of wind into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades. Traditional windmills were often used to mill grain, pump water, or both. Most modern windmills take the form of wind turbines used to generate electricity, or windpumps used to pump water, either for land drainage or to extract groundwater.
Here, the smock mill Goliath is viewed in front of the wind farm Growind in Eemshaven in the Netherlands. -
Image 8Photograph credit: Petar MiloševićA thermoplastic-sheathed cable consists of a toughened outer thermoplastic sheath of polyvinyl chloride, covering one or more individual annealed copper conductors. Each of the current-carrying conductors in the "core" is insulated by an individual thermoplastic sheath, coloured to indicate the purpose of the conductor concerned. The protective earth conductor may also be covered with insulation, although, in some countries, this conductor may be left as bare copper. The type of thermoplastic, the dimensions of the conductors and the colour of their individual insulation are specified by the regulatory bodies in the various countries concerned.
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Image 9Image credit: FastfissionSchematic representation of the two methods with which to assemble an atomic bomb. An A-bomb produces its explosive energy through nuclear fission reactions alone. A mass of fissile material (enriched uranium or plutonium) is assembled into a supercritical mass—the amount of material needed to start an exponentially growing nuclear chain reaction—either by shooting one piece of sub-critical material into another (the "gun" method, shown on top here), or by compressing a sub-critical sphere of material using chemical explosives to many times its original density (the "implosion" method, at bottom).
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Image 10The Trojan Room coffee pot was the inspiration for the world's first webcam. The coffee pot was located in the corridor just outside the so-called Trojan Room within the old Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge. The webcam was created in 1991 to help people working in other parts of the building avoid pointless trips to the coffee pot by providing, on the user's desktop computer, a live 128×128 pixel greyscale picture of the state of the coffee pot. The webcam was shut down on 22 August 2001, following the Computer Laboratory's move to the William Gates Building.
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Image 11The Let L-410 Turbolet is a twin-engined short-range transport aircraft, manufactured by the Czech aircraft manufacturer LET, mostly used for passenger transport. The L-410 first flew in 1969, and with more than 1100 produced, is the most popular 19-seat plane in history.
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Image 13Photograph: NACAKitty Joyner (1916–1993) was an American electrical engineer with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and then the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She was hired in 1939 as the organization's first woman engineer, shortly after she had become the first woman to graduate from the University of Virginia's engineering program.
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Image 14Image credit: Michael OttoA pastoral scene of a lone house, composed using Blender, an open source 3D computer graphics software. Blender can be used for a number of applications and is available for a wide variety of operating systems.
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Image 15A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axial bearing. The wheel is one of the main components of the wheel and axle which is one of the six simple machines.
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Image 16Photo credit: Willi HeidelbachA composing stick and movable type, the system of printing and typography using pieces of metal type, made by casting from matrices struck by letterpunches. The text on the stick reads, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog and feels as if he were in the seventh heaven of typography together with Hermann Zapf, the most famous artist of the" [sic].
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Image 17Daguerreotype credit: UnknownA daguerreotype from the 1850s of the Ben Campbell, a paddle steamer—a ship or boat driven by a steam engine that uses one or more paddle wheels to develop thrust for propulsion. The paddle wheel was the first form of mechanical propulsion for a boat, but has now been almost entirely superseded by more modern forms of marine propulsion.
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Image 18Photograph: ULPower Aero EnginesThe ULPower UL260i, a flat-four engine produced by ULPower Aero Engines of Belgium. Flat-four engines are flat engines with four cylinders arranged horizontally in two banks of two cylinders on each side of a central crankcase; they can be used in cars, motorcycles, or aircraft. This type of engine tends to be well-balanced and have efficient cooling, but is expensive to manufacture and considerably wider than other engines.
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Image 19The GameCube is a sixth generation video game console released by Nintendo beginning in 2001. Meant as a successor to the Nintendo 64, the GameCube sold approximately 22 million units worldwide. It was the third most-successful console of its generation, behind Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox. The GameCube was succeeded by the Wii in 2006.
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Image 20Photograph credit: Langley Research Center; restored by Adam CuerdenMary Jackson (1921–2005) was an African American mathematician and aerospace engineer at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which was succeeded by NASA in 1958. For most of her career, she worked at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia; starting as a computer at the segregated West Area Computing division, she later took advanced engineering classes and, in 1958, became NASA's first black female engineer.
After 34 years at NASA, Jackson had earned the most senior engineering title available. Realizing that she could not earn further promotions without becoming a supervisor, she accepted a demotion to become a manager of the Federal Women's Program in the NASA Office of Equal Opportunity Programs, as well as of the Affirmative Action Program. In this role, she worked to influence both the hiring and promotion of women in NASA's science, engineering and mathematics careers. She was portrayed by Janelle Monáe as a lead character in the 2016 film Hidden Figures. This picture, taken in 1980, shows Jackson working at NASA Langley.
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General images - load new batch
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Image 1'BUILD YOUR OWN TELEVISION RECEIVER.' Science and Invention magazine cover, November 1928 (from Invention)
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Image 2Alessandro Volta with the first electrical battery. Volta is recognized as an influential inventor. (from Invention)
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Image 4A rare 1884 photo showing the experimental recording of voice patterns by a photographic process at the Alexander Graham Bell Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Many of their experimental designs panned out in failure. (from Invention)
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Image 7Self-replicating 3D printer (from Emerging technologies)
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Image 10Agriculture preceded writing in the history of technology. (from History of technology)
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Image 11Edison electric light bulbs 1879–80 (from History of technology)
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Image 12Walls at Sacsayhuaman (from History of technology)
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Image 13Top 30 AI patent applicants in 2016 (from Emerging technologies)
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Image 14Newcomen steam engine for pumping mines (from History of technology)
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Image 17Thomas Edison with his second phonograph, photographed by Levin Corbin Handy in Washington, April 1878 (from History of technology)
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Image 203D printer (from Emerging technologies)
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Image 22The wheel, invented sometime before the 4th millennium BC, is one of the most ubiquitous and important technologies. This detail of the "Standard of Ur", c. 2500 BCE., displays a Sumerian chariot. (from History of technology)
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Image 23Ford assembly line, 1913. The magneto assembly line was the first. (from History of technology)
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Image 24A variety of stone tools (from History of technology)
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Image 26Eric M. C. Tigerstedt (1887–1925) was known as a pioneer of sound-on-film technology. Tigerstedt in 1915. (from Invention)
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Image 27The preserved Rocket (from History of technology)
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![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg/47px-Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg.png)
- ... that Henry E. Sigerist felt "depressed" after reading A History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy in the 16th and 17th Centuries?
- ... that OPTi Inc. won a patent suit against Apple for unauthorized use of "predictive snooping" technology?
- ... that ice XVII (structure shown) potentially has a use in green technology as a medium for storing hydrogen?
- ... that Peter Corby's electric trouser press used technology designed for Concorde?
- ... that Suresh Jadhav led the development of the COVID-19 vaccine marketed as Covishield?
- ... that it was Caltech experimental physicist Rana X. Adhikari's idea to build a gravitational-wave observatory in India?
- ... that touch-screen technology, pay-at-the-pump, car phones, and Coca-Cola Cherry were shown at the 1982 World's Fair?
- ... that racing driver James Sofronas worked as a salesman for a technology company to buy the Nissan NX 2000 required for his first competitive race?
Top 10 WikiProject Technology popular articles of the month
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YouTube is an American online video sharing platform owned by Google. Accessible worldwide, YouTube launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim, three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States, it is the second most visited website in the world, after Google Search. YouTube has more than 2.5 billion monthly users, who collectively watch more than one billion hours of videos every day. , videos were being uploaded to the platform at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute, and as of 2021, there were approximately 14 billion videos in total. (Full article...) -
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ChatGPT is a chatbot and virtual assistant developed by OpenAI and launched on November 30, 2022. Based on large language models (LLMs), it enables users to refine and steer a conversation towards a desired length, format, style, level of detail, and language. Successive user prompts and replies are considered at each conversation stage as context. (Full article...) -
Image 3Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name derives from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities. Since 2006, Facebook allows everyone to register from 13 years old, except in the case of a handful of nations, where the age limit is 14 years. , Facebook claimed almost 3 billion monthly active users. As of October 2023, Facebook ranked as the 3rd most visited website in the world, with 22.56% of its traffic coming from the United States. It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s. (Full article...)
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WhatsApp (officially WhatsApp Messenger) is an instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by technology conglomerate Meta. It allows users to send text, voice messages and video messages, make voice and video calls, and share images, documents, user locations, and other content. WhatsApp's client application runs on mobile devices, and can be accessed from computers. The service requires a cellular mobile telephone number to sign up. In January 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone business app called WhatsApp Business which can communicate with the standard WhatsApp client. (Full article...) -
Image 5The Google logo used since 2015
Google LLC (/ˈɡuːɡəl/ ⓘ, GOO-ghəl) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial intelligence (AI). It has been referred to as "the most powerful company in the world" and is one of the world's most valuable brands due to its market dominance, data collection, and technological advantages in the field of AI. Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc. is one of the five Big Tech companies, alongside Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft. (Full article...) -
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Elon Reeve Musk (/ˈiːlɒn/; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman and investor known for his key roles in space company SpaceX and automotive company Tesla, Inc. Other involvements include ownership of X Corp., formerly Twitter, and his role in the founding of The Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink and OpenAI. He is one of the wealthiest people in the world; , Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$210 billion. (Full article...) -
Image 7Meteor Lake is Intel's codename for the first generation of Intel Core Ultra mobile processors, and was officially launched on December 14, 2023. It is the first generation of Intel mobile processors to use a chiplet architecture which means that the processor is a multi-chip module. Tim Wilson led the system on a chip development for this generation microprocessor. (Full article...)
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Twitter was an American social networking service that was rebranded as X in 2023. Established in March 2006, it grew to become one of the world's largest social media websites and the fifth-most visited website in the world. It was launched in July 2006, and its creators Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams, established Twitter, Inc. in San Francisco, California, as its managing company in April 2007. (Full article...) -
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Video views per week of a viral video (Gangnam Style), illustrating viral growth to peak weekly viewership, in this case, in the eleventh week after it was posted.
A viral video is a video that becomes popular through a viral process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email. For a video to be shareable or spreadable, it must focus on the social logics and cultural practices that have enabled and popularized these new platforms. (Full article...) -
Image 10Portrait by Joseph Duplessis, 1778
Benjamin Franklin FRS FRSA FRSE (January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1705] – April 17, 1790) was an American polymath: a leading writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Among the most influential intellectuals of his time, Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States; a drafter and signer of the Declaration of Independence; and the first postmaster general. (Full article...)
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- May 10, 2024 – Israel–Hamas war protests
- Police dismantle encampments and arrest dozens of students protesting at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Reuters)
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