Instance Of Technology Research Articles

The Significance of Improvisation in the Age of Technology

ABSTRACT While there is a sense in which technological advancements enhance our experience of the world, there is also a sense in which technology obscures the world. One such instance of technology’s ability to (potentially) obscure the world is the way in which makes works of art (I focus on music) so readily accessible. While in many ways the accessibility and democratisation of music offered by digital streaming, for example, is seen to be convenient, we may also notice how this accessibility can efface the significance of the musical work – works that were once only encountered in the concert hall as “works of art” now also function as background music while we drive our cars, or do the dishes, for instance. In this paper, I argue that improvisation, such as that which is demonstrated by improvising musicians, offers us a “way in” to (re)experience music as works of art, qua art, in the age of technology.

To the Question about the Thickness of Informative Layer in Magnetic-Noise Testing

The question about the thickness of informative layer under magnetic-noise testing of hardened layers is considered in [1–7], where it is estimated to be up to 800 μm. This paper presents experimental studies of the thickness of informative layer using instances of technologies used for surface-deformation and laser thermal hardening processes. It is shown that in the latter case, the thickness of informative layer is of greater importance. Applied mechanical stresses practically do not change the thickness of informative layer for a wide class of steels.

EVALUATING THE ANTECEDENTS OF FOUNDATIONAL INNOVATIONS: A LONGITUDINAL LOOK AT PATENTS FROM INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY

Past research has shown that foundational innovations is often contingent upon access to technologies whose influence/application exceeds the territory of that technology’s definition (technology-application diversity) and sourcing innovation outside a firm’s focal industry (sourcing diversity). However, going outside one’s focal industry can be expensive, complicated, and distracting, possibly leading to mixed results. We theorise that while technology-application diversity enhances foundational innovations, sourcing diversity impedes it. In addition, we argue that sourcing diversity negatively moderates the relationship between technology-application diversity and foundational innovation. Finally, we argue that high technology-application diversity and low sourcing diversity will have the strongest relationship with foundational innovation. To test our assertions, we studied patent filings between 1996 and 2009 from the IT industry from the S&P 500 database. The empirical evidence supported our claims. Findings recommend that to maximise chances of foundational innovation, firms must combine high instances of technologies whose application transcend their definitions with the minimum possible contacts outside their focal industry. Thus, there is an optimum combination of sourcing diversity and technology-application diversity with which foundational innovation is maximised. We close the paper by summarising the key conclusions, conferring implications for theory and practice, and proposing avenues for future research.

What is Technology?

This paper, a personal view rather than an official HP view, questions what counts as technology given that it has played a significant role throughout human history. It uses a non-technological ‘human’ situation as a datum point from which technology is explored in terms of how people become subservient to it. It briefly surveys the literature before differentiating between particular instances of technology, such as an airplane, and the collective effect of all technologies. These are termed a “Technology-Instance” and the “Technology-Collective”. The collective effect of all Technology-Instances produces emergent properties at the Technology-Collective layer, leading technology to create needs in the form of feedback loops that stimulate the development of more technology. Interdependencies between technological needs create choices available to humans and brings in to question whether notions of being free thinkers is constrained. Technology controls people because people do not acknowledge a systemic effect at the Technology-Collective level of abstract. People’s attention focuses on the control of a Technology-Instance but not on the Technology-Collective and the biases that influence people’s ways of characterising options. The author concludes by arguing people can, and need to, control the Technology-Collective.