History Of Robots ... Chinese accounts relate a history of automata back to the 10th century BC when Yan Shi is credited with making an automaton resembling a human in an account from the Lie Zi text. Western and Eastern civilisations have concepts of artificial servants and companions with a long history...
Optics ... Most optical phenomena can be accounted for using the classical electromagnetic description of light. Complete electromagnetic descriptions of light are, however, often difficult to apply in practice...
Fine Art ... Historically, the five greater fine arts were painting, sculpture, architecture, music and poetry, with minor arts including drama and dancing. Today, the fine arts commonly include the visual art and performing art forms, such as painting, sculpture, collage, decollage, assemblage, installation, calligraphy, music, dance, theatre, architecture, film, photography, conceptual art, and printmaking...
Machine Vision ... However, the editor-in-chief of an MV trade magazine asserted that "machine vision is not an industry per se" but rather "the integration of technologies and products that provide services or applications that benefit true industries such as automotive or consumer goods manufacturing, agriculture, and defense." As of 2006, experts estimated that MV had been employed in less than 20% of the applications for which it is potentially useful...
Robotics ... The concept and creation of machines that could operate autonomously dates back to classical times, but research into the functionality and potential uses of robots did not grow substantially until the 20th century. Today, robotics is a rapidly growing field, as we continue to research, design, and build new robots that serve various practical purposes, whether domestically, commercially, or militarily...
Service-oriented Architecture ... SOA generally provides a way for consumers of services, such as web-based applications, to be aware of available SOA-based services. For example, several disparate departments within a company may develop and deploy SOA services in different implementation languages; their respective clients will benefit from a well-understood, well-defined interface to access them...
Least Distance Of Distinct Vision ... LDDV and lenses The LDDV is used to define the magnifying power (M) of a lens with focal length (f in millimeters) when viewed by the naked human eye: 20ft LDDV and Snellen charts Snellen charts refer to someone with 20/20 vision being able to discriminate spatial patterns separated by a visual angle of 1 minute of arc (1/60th of a degree)... This is the same as someone with 20/20 vision is able to comfortably view a dot of 73 µm at 250 mm: ...
Gene Therapy ... Gene therapy was first conceptualized in 1972, with the authors urging caution before commencing gene therapy studies in humans. The first FDA-approved gene therapy experiment in the United States occurred in 1990, when Ashanti DeSilva was treated for ADA-SCID...
Management ... Since organizations can be viewed as systems, management can also be defined as human action, including design, to facilitate the production of useful outcomes from a system. This view opens the opportunity to 'manage' oneself, a pre-requisite to attempting to manage others...
Visual System ... The notion that the cerebral cortex is divided into functionally distinct cortices now known to be responsible for capacities such as touch (somatosensory cortex), movement (motor cortex), and vision (visual cortex), was first proposed by Franz Joseph Gall in 1810... In 1881, Hermann Munk more accurately located vision in the occipital lobe, where the primary visual cortex is now known to be...
History Of Optics ... Some lenses fixed in ancient Egyptian statues are much older than those mentioned above. There is some doubt as to whether or not they qualify as lenses, but they are undoubtedly glass and served at least ornamental purposes...
Virtual Reality ... He built a prototype of his vision dubbed the Sensorama in 1962, along with five short films to be displayed in it while engaging multiple senses (sight, sound, smell, and touch)...
Molecular Nanotechnology ... A roadmap for the development of MNT is an objective of a broadly based technology project led by Battelle (the manager of several U. S. National Laboratories) and the Foresight Institute...
Transhumanism ... Influenced by seminal works of science fiction, the transhumanist vision of a transformed future humanity has attracted many supporters and detractors from a wide range of perspectives...
Wearable Technology ... The calculator watch, introduced in the 1980s, was one original piece of widespread worn electronics. Ilya Fridman designed a Bluetooth headset into a pair of earrings with a hidden microphone...