10 APRIL: WORLD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY DAY

The 10 most important technological innovations in history

29 June 2023

The General Conference of Unesco established this day in commemoration of the birth of Dr. Bernardo Houssay (1887), Argentinean physician and pharmacist. We owe him important contributions to physiology and medicine, particularly the role of the pituitary gland in regulating the amount of sugar in the blood through carbohydrate metabolism.

Let’s take a look at the most important technological innovations in history:

The printing press (1400)

Johannes Gutenberg, considered the father of the printing press, is the forerunner of the democratisation of education. Thanks to the mass reproduction of texts and images, culture and information could begin to be distributed at all levels in society.

The telegraph (1835)

Morse developed the first telegraph, the first means of instantaneous communication and considered the predecessor of the Internet. It is the first technology that allowed the transmission of coded information by means of electrical signals. It was a major revolution in telecommunications, ushering in the information age.

The telephone (1876)

Alexander Graham Bell gave us the ability to communicate with our own voice at a distance. It was not until the 20th century that the telephone network began to spread to cities.

The remote control (1898)

Nikola Tesla, a Serbian electrical engineer and mechanic, developed one of the first remote controls in 1898, which had only 3 functions: on, off and pause. This technology spread to all fields: industry, the military, electronics, etc. It meant a revolution in the transmission of information through the emission and reception of infrared signals.

The aeroplane (1903)

The Wright brothers succeeded in shortening the distances between different points of the globe thanks to air travel, one of the most important technological inventions in history. In 1952, passenger transport became official.

The computer (1938)

Konrad Zuse was a German engineer who created the first modern computer, the Z1, a mechanical binary calculator that took up an entire room. This would not have been possible without the contributions of Charles Babbage, who laid the foundations of computing in the early 19th century, and Alan Turing, who formalised the concepts of algorithm and developed the Turing machine in 1936.

The world’s first personal computer was designed by John Blankenbaker in 1970, the Kenbak-1.

The transistor and electronics (1947)

The first transistor in history gave birth to electronics. John Bardeen, Walter Houser Brattain and William Bradford Shockley, American physicists at Bell Telephone Laboratories (now AT&T), are considered the fathers of the transistor, a microelectronic component at the heart of the digital revolution.

Today, most of the equipment that is part of our lives, such as televisions, audio and video players, mobile phones, computers, electric cars, lamps, LEDs, etc. are based on the properties of transistors and their integrated circuits.

The industrial robot (1954)

George Devol and Joseph Engelberger are the creators of the first industrial robot, a hydraulic arm that lifted heavy loads, the Unimate. They later sold it to General Motors.

 

The microchip (1958)

Jack Kilby, an American physicist and electronics engineer, designed the first integrated circuit, all on a block of silicon. The circuit components were connected together with gold wires. Until then, electronic circuits were made up of several connected components.

Internet (1969)

The network of networks, like many other technologies, had its first military application in the USA during the Cold War. A private network was created to transmit information in case of a possible Soviet attack.

As early as 1989, a British physicist named after Tim Berners-Lee developed HTTP, the protocol on which the Web is based, and, together with Robert Cailliau, the World Wide Web, to meet the needs of scientists and engineers to exchange information more quickly through a connection to their computers.

All these technological discoveries have driven the evolution of our society at all levels, from social to economic development.

In recent years, we have experienced exponential technological growth. We have moved from the analogue era to the digital era and we are currently immersed in a process of digital transformation that affects all areas of our lives, mainly the economic and industrial area. As a result, new professions are emerging.

Technological advances simplify our tasks, increasing our productivity. Access to information and control of data are at the heart of technological development. Among the most relevant technological innovations of our time are: artificial intelligence, 3D design, virtual reality, metaverse, automation, biotechnology, nanotechnology, 5G, cloud, cybersecurity and predictive analytics.

At MindDen, we are immersed in innovative projects at the forefront of technology that will result in improved productivity.