大象传媒

Back up to: Things That Made the Modern Economy

1. Fundraising Appeal

   Charity has become big business 鈥� but what鈥檚 the best way to elicit donations?
2. SWIFT

   How a system for sending sensitive financial data securely may have created a new problem.
3. Wedgwood

   Josiah Wedgwood鈥檚 pottery was a precursor to the 鈥渢rickle-down鈥� theory of fashion.
4. Glasses

   How many people on earth need glasses and don鈥檛 have them? An eye-popping 2.5 billion.
5. Vickrey Turnstile

   The electromechanical Vickrey Turnstile worked well in theory, but was never built.
6. GPS

   GPS is sometimes called the 鈥渋nvisible utility鈥�. What would happen if it stopped working?
7. Bonsack Machine

   One historian of the cigarette industry reckons it invented much of modern marketing.
8. Prohibition

   The idea of the 鈥渞ational criminal鈥� helps explain why Prohibition was so widely flouted.
9. Interface Message Processor

   The Interface Message Processor: the most important hunk of silicon you鈥檝e never heard of.
10. Canned Food

    What does canned food have in common with Silicon Valley? More than you might think.
11. Interchangeable Parts

    Interchangeable parts revolutionised the world of engineering.
12. Oil

    The price of oil is arguably the most important price in the world economy.
13. Chatbot

    Have computers finally passed the Turing test, convincing us they themselves are human?
14. Solar Photovoltaics

    Solar power: an old technology now more advanced and disruptive to the oil energy order.
15. Cassava

    What does cassava teach us about the hidden social forces that support a modern economy?
16. Fire

    Has fire created not only the economy, but also modern humans?
17. RFID

    Is RFID introducing an 'internet of things'? Or are its glory days behind it?
18. Postage Stamp

    Rowland Hill went from disgruntled user to radical reformer of Britain鈥檚 postal system.
19. Rubber

    Natural rubber still goes mostly into tyres, and its production still causes controversy.
20. Cubesat

    Satellites were once the length of a bus. Now they鈥檙e roughly the size of a Beanie Baby.
21. Factory

    Have factories been a force for improving the conditions of ordinary workers?
22. Blockchain

    Blockchain: a digital technology that some say could become as disruptive as the internet.
23. Like button

    Facebook鈥檚 ubiquitous 'like' button can reveal a treasure trove of potential insights.
24. Dwarf Wheat

    Norman Borlaug averted famine predictions by tinkering with the genetic design of wheat.
25. Bicycle

    Has the bicycle had its day? Or is it a technology whose best years lie ahead?
26. Pencil

    The pencil claims to be a miracle product of the free market, but is that true?
27. Recycling

    The idea recycling is a moral obligation, as well as an economic one, is relatively new.
28. Spreadsheet

    The digital spreadsheet: a technology which took the world of accountancy by storm.
29. Bricks

    Bricks: used for tens of thousands of years and still such a vital building technology.
30. Mail Order Catalogue

    Montgomery Ward鈥檚 catalogue: once ranked among the most influential books in US history.

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