Evolution of Technology Essay

â€Å"Men are only so good as their technical developments allows them to be† (Orwell 56). When the technology boom occurred in the 1990s and beyond, a typical student’s backpack would consist of a boondoggle, leather-bound planner, pager, cassette player, 3. 5 inch floppy disk, and a hardcover textbook. Time advanced, and eventually made its way into the 2000s, when then a backpack would hold a keychain game, CD player, soft cover textbook with a CD-ROM, and a box-shaped cell phone. Technology continued to grow into the next decade with backpacks full of smart phones, laptops, graphic calculators, receipts for online textbook purchases, MP3 players, a backup charger, and a 4GB flash drive attached to the bag’s zipper. Evolution of technology has come into major play, and has begun to conquer today’s society with one discovery at a time. For example, as assembly lines become familiar to many, technology advancements closely follow. While hundreds of employees used to manually run a factory, the majority of the hard work is now done by machines, also known as artificial labor. This change has affected business owners positively, thus allowing for new positions to help run the technology and to ensure all is running well. After such advancements were formed in our society, hundreds to thousands of new companies and manufacturing plants have been built, resulting in a major increase of available jobs to the middle class, which currently, the majority of United States citizens currently occupy. Recently, IBM teamed up with Corporate Service Corps (CSC) in order to send 30 volunteers out into different countries to work on technology-related assistance, such as distance learning programs, and upgraded laser eye treatments. The fact that advanced technology can help to save millions of lives has been one of the biggest reasons for such a large demand. IBM plan to take on several projects in different countries such as India, Brazil, China, Egypt, Ghana, and more. A total of 12 teams will go into each of those countries and successfully complete the projects for better technology-based education and eye treatments, which will cost approximately $250,000 each, all paid for by IBM. The overall project has not only opened up new opportunities for those willing to add this adventurous project to their resume, but it’s also reaching out to communities in dire need, something that the latest technology has allowed to be done. Furthermore, technology has been able to expedite the process of sending aid to places I need more quickly and efficiently with the release of new features to currently existing pieces of technology, as well as software applications. Renowned author Sarah Murray explains, â€Å"When a huge earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, the addition of Haitian Creole – spoken by 8m people in that country – to Microsoft’s online translation engine, which was achieved in just five days, helped humanitarian workers who needed to be able to translate quickly. Something as simple as an online translation system, a piece of virtual technology, was able to help save thousands to millions of lives in Haiti. One of the biggest issues in aid relief is the language and unfamiliar surrounding barrier, which Microsoft has been able to defeat with the use of several applications. The company has been closely working with skilled programmers to create certain software which allow for a variety of functions, such as Twisted Pair Wave software, which allows humanitarian professionals to keep in contact with one another from any device by keeping connected to one specific network. Relief workers can then locate others in the area by sending a ping signal to the network, which helps when in an entirely new environment and unsure of the native language. Technology continues to save the lives of many, by creating jobs that allow people to continue and support their family, as well as being able to provide support for those in a life-or-death situation when it comes down to the essentials such as food, water, and housing. Some fortunate people fail to realize how difficult it really is to obtain such aid. While technology has helped to eradicate useless jobs and help to decrease labor costs, it has resulted in the creation new useful jobs, such as manufacturing the actual technology to be used in a computer, and a computer specialist field that help to put the newly-made computers to use. Thus, if a job is able to be taken over by a machine that is incapable of independent thought, the job may be less suitable for a human being. While ATMs have replaced bank-tellers, we now have newly found jobs which focus on repairing, and manufacturing the ATM machines; it works like a two-edged sword.