What is the impact of technology? A look at the top innovations from the past and future

World Techies Day is a celebration of all that is tech, from the smartphone in your hands to the car you rode in on, and the people who use them.

We’ve voted on the 5 technologies that changed the world in the last 100 years and then taken a look at the big 5 that we’re likely to see in the next century.

Strap in!

Tech from the last 100 years

Rocket Science

It’s not that difficult, it isn’t… oh, it is!

From the very first rockets launched during WW2, they’ve grown in complexity and purpose. Then, almost 60 years ago, they captured the imagination of the world when they put a man on the moon.

Since then, they’ve put satellites into space, giving us GPS and telecommunications, to pass beyond the edges of our solar system and out into the universe!

Concrete

We might have taken a bit of a liberty here as, technically, concrete was invented by the ancient Greeks or Chinese as long as 2000 years ago. It’s been found in the royal palaces in Cyprus from 800 BCE, and the Romans supposedly stole one of the many recipes in 700 BCE.

Still, it’s safe to say it really didn’t come into its own until the 20th Century and, since then, it’s become the second-most-used substance in the world! The first? Water!

Computers

The concept had been around for millennia and the Antikythera Mechanism could be the very first, although the great mathematician Ada Lovelace holds the official record for the first computer.

Computers, as we might recognise them today, were an evolution of Alan Turing’s Enigma-cracking machine. They have since come to dominate our lives, an integral and essential cog in everything we do.

The World Wide Web

Where would we be without the internet? Not reading this, that’s for certain!

Initially used as a method of communication between research teams at UCLA and Stanford, the World Wide Web as we know it now was created by the scientists at CERN in 1989.

35 years on, and it’s become the bedrock of our civilization. From your daily emails, to online shopping, and even this blog, all of it began with WWW dot.

Social Networking

Love it or hate it, social networking has forever changed the way in which we share and consume information, as well as interacting with the people around us.

There were a few systems around in the 70s and 80s that might be considered social networking, but it wasn’t really until the late 90s and 00s that we saw the likes of AOL and MSN Messenger, followed closely by MySpace.

Then, the gamechanger arrived…

Facebook led to a whole new way of communicating and gave rise to the likes of X (Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, and many more!

 

Tech over the next 100 years

Wearables

We’ve all heard of FitBit or Whoop, monitoring your heart rate, blood pressure, and more. Then there’s Meta Wayfarers and Google Glass, bringing augmented reality to your life through sunglasses.

Well, what if you could have all of that in one item?

Several tech companies, including Mojo and InWith, have been developing contact lenses that give you an immersive virtual reality atop the real world. They also claim to be very close to beta testing, which would be a huge moment in the development of our day-to-day.

Want to check your emails? Look bottom right. Call your best friend? Top left. Play Tetris? Maybe, soon!

Graphene/Carbyne

You know that stuff in your pencil? Yeah, that stuff, it turns out, is pretty cool.

Graphene and carbyne are different molecular structures of the same thing, carbon. To date, they are the thinnest materials ever made by humankind at just a single-atom in thickness, and they’re harder than diamonds. 

Lauded as the material of the future because of its many beneficial properties, it can be used to replace everything from plastics to construction materials and even space rockets.

So, maybe the pencil is mightier than the sword?

Nuclear Fusion

The moment we hear nuclear, we start running for the nearest bunker. With good reason, too, as our current nuclear power form, fission, is very angry when it escapes, and it leaves a noticeable trail behind it.

Nuclear fusion is quite different. It’s the same process as occurs in the sun, so it uses readily available resources like hydrogen and only leaves behind helium, which means we’ll have squeaky voices and a squeaky-clean planet!

3D Printed Food

Even if you don’t watch sci-fi, you’ve probably come across the idea of being able to “replicate” food, essentially creating a meal out of thin air. It’s been a staple idea of the future for decades.

That future is now closer than you might have thought, as it’s predicted that domestic 3D food printers will be available in as little as 5 years.

If that sounds far-fetched, a recent report by Zion Market Research predicts that the industry will triple by 2030 to £1.65 billion, potentially saving you from that dreaded weekly shop!

Human Augmentations

The Six Million Dollar Man was a huge hit in the 70s, a person who was part human, part machine and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

We might not be close to that last part, yet, but with several significant advances in the last few years in AI, research is bringing us closer than ever to true human augmentation.

We already have many examples in common use, such as cochlear implants for people with hearing loss. Now, with recent research using AI to map and understand individual brainwaves, the possibility to better connect prosthetic limbs to the nervous system would mean equal, or even better, mobility and function to what we have through evolution.

Perhaps leaping over the Shard isn’t quite so far-fetched, after all.

 

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