The metaverse is still unfolding, but it has been developing for more than a century. Rudimentary virtual worlds have existed – in imagination and reality – since the days of the telegraph.
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Articles on History of technology
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Video games are everywhere. So who was the first person to come up with the idea of playing a game on a computer screen?
The mass-market computer pioneer leaves behind a legacy of accessible, far-sighted if not always successful products.
This is the story of Lucian Landau, the forgotten man who invented the technology that made Durex boom.
The ancient bone arrowheads are the oldest ever found outside Africa, and show how humans adapted to a new environment.
The first internet communication was underwhelming, thanks to a computer crash. But a lot has happened since then – including key decisions that helped build the internet of today.
Stories passed down from the ancient world tell of self-powered machines able to move on their own – robots – playing key roles in historic moments.
It’s 2019. And yet faxing is still often more secure, easier to use and better suited to existing work habits than computer-based messaging.
Buttons don’t always make things easier – and using them can be fraught with peril and troubling power dynamics.
Even our most anonymous objects, like the portable electric drill, are sources of cultural expression. It’s time to learn their history.
Top contributors
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Senior Lecturer, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney
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Senior Lecturer Product Design, University of Technology Sydney
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Professor of History, Texas A&M University
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Professor of Computational Media, University of California, Santa Cruz
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Associate Professor of Business Law and Ethics; Executive Director, Ostrom Workshop; Cybersecurity Program Chair, IU-Bloomington, Indiana University
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Senior Research Fellow, Griffith University
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Research Scholar, Classics and History and Philosophy of Science, Stanford University
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Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Studies, Indiana University
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Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Science, University of South Wales
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Research Group Leader, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
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Researcher, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
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Associate Researcher, King’s College London Archives and the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College London
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Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Irvine
