New IHPST Newsletter just dropped 📰
Inside:
– Digital war, AI & technology studies
– Major international book prizes
– Alumni news
– Media features
We are proud of the intellectual range of this community.
Read it here: viewstripo.email/4098f295-9c0...

#hps #historyoftechnology #AI #UofT

Thomas Edison Tried to Build an EV Battery in 1901. Scientists Just Made It Work The battery won't power cars as the famous inventor intended, but it's still got a lot of potential.

Thomas Edison Tried to Build an EV Battery in 1901. Scientists Just Made It Work #Technology #EmergingTechnologies #QuantumComputing #EVs #Innovation #HistoryOfTechnology

gizmodo.com/edison-tried-to-build-an...

17th-century Castilian strongbox.
Iron over wood, reinforced with intersecting bands. A false front keyhole masked a concealed lid mechanism operating eleven internal bolts—security achieved through complexity and deception.
#MaterialCulture #EarlyModern #HistoryOfTechnology

on the origins of radio Some thoughts on: > Listen in: How radio changed the home > Beaty Rubens > Bodleian Library Publishing 2025 I saw this small exhibition at the Weston Library last year and came away with not much more than some memories of a few old radios and covers of early editions of the Radio Times (published since 1923). It wouldn’t have occurred to me to invest £ 30 in the accompanying book. Less than a year later, however, I spotted it in a street library and picked it up. That’s the thing with street libraries, you can always return what you don’t like, so there’s zero risk in trying something out. In the event I surprised myself by reading the entire book cover to cover. It starts from the invention of radio and the first technologies that enabled pioneering spirits to “listen in” (as they said in the 1920s) from the comfort of their own homes, albeit with the discomfort of fiddly equipment and bulky headphones. Rubens describes the impact broadcasting had on home life in Britain, from its start in 1922 until the second world war - after which television sets started to invade homes and diminish the importance of radio. Of special interest to me was the ambiguous role of radio in giving access to culture (including eg live music) to households, but in many cases replacing the live entertainment that people were making for themselves before (gramophones and TV sets were also complicit in this). By making some of the best performances of classical music, for instance, available to all, broadcasting discouraged mere mortals from trying for themselves, because they would not be able to compete. This led to today’s situation where playing your own music has become a niche hobby, while most people think of music as something that streams out of their devices. It was instructive to me to follow this development in the UK setting, not only because the BBC pioneered the technology, but also because in Germany we have the “1000 years” interlude where the Volksempfänger was Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda machine and the medium had to be reinvented after the collapse. As Rubens briefly mentions, part of the idea of rolling out a cheap and cheerful radio for all to the entire population was that these devices didn’t have the power to pick up foreign stations, so they tied listeners to the Nazi propaganda. As it happens, I don’t know whether the musicians starring in my musical memoir had radio in the 1920s. Both Frieda the pianist and Heinrich the cellist will have had radio after the war, and both households went to join neighbours for shared TV viewing, but about the radio listening of the 1920s I am entirely in the dark, which made Rubens’s findings from early sociological studies of radio listening interesting. Another very interesting thing I learned from the book was the earlier existence of systems that transmitted audio from theatre or music events live through phone lines to paying subscribers. This was first demonstrated in France in 1881 as the théâtrophone, and found commercial use there and in Britain (as the electrophone in 1896). Marcel Proust is among the few contemporary users of the service who left us written testimony. Allegedly there is no written testimony from subscribers to the British service, but I am struggling to believe that. I’m sure it’s out there somewhere, in some old letters kept in a drawer. The number of electrophone users in Britain peaked at just over 2,000 in 1923, before the technology was swept away by the wireless. The book comes with lavish illustrations (as you would expect from a volume accompanying an exhibition) with historic photos, cartoons and covers of magazines. What is sorely missing is a timeline - as I discovered when trying to find the dates I referenced above. Wikipedia has one for developments globally, from which I learned that Argentina started broadcasting entertainment programmes in 1920. The book didn’t mention that either. The centenary to which the book and the exhibition were pegged is that of the first broadcasts from the 500ft tall Borough Hill transmitter near Daventry in Northamptonshire, which for the first time reached most of the UK in the summer of 1925. Here's a review in the Observer (when it was still part of the Guardian group)

I wasn't all that impressed by last year's exhibition on the history of #radio at the Weston Library #Oxford, but now I stumbled across the book and quite liked it: proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2026/01/on-origins-of-ra... #bookreview #historyOfTechnology #media #sociology

Claude Shannon: The Father of Information Theory - History of Data Science Dr. Claude Shannon’s creation of information theory made the digital world as we know it today possible. In addition to being a mathematician and computer scientist, Shannon is responsible for the con...

The Father of The Bit and Binary Programming was so AuDHD, he juggled and road a unicycle around the Halls of Bell Labs.
#autism #HistoryOfTechnology #InformationTheory
www.historyofdatascience.com/claude-shann...

The Myth of Mills: Bridging Antiquity and Medieval Innovation - Medievalists.net Were watermills a revolutionary invention of the Middle Ages, or do their origins lie deeper in history?

The Myth of Mills: Bridging Antiquity and Medieval Innovation www.medievalists.net/2025/01/the-... #mills #historyoftechnology #tech

How the Vacuum Tube Created Modern Electronics

A very brief introduction to how the vacuum tube / thermionic valve founded what we call electronics today.

Watch now: youtube.com/shorts/SnZAs...

#vacuumtube #thermionicvalve #vintageradio #techhistory #historyoftechnology #electronics

Перший керований політ. — Сусіди. Post by Сусіди.

Перший керований політ.
buymeacoffee.com/valdeloir/gu...

#авіація #братиРайт #історіяТехніки #першийПоліт #США
#aviation #WrightBrothers #historyOfTechnology #firstFlight #USA

Can you solve it? The forgotten Dutch invention that created the modern world You saw it here first There are many contenders for “world’s greatest invention.” The wheel. The printing press. The steam engine. According to a new book, however, that title should go to the mechanised...

Can you solve it? The forgotten Dutch invention that created the modern world #Science #TechnologyandEngineering #Invention #Innovation #HistoryOfTechnology

Why the OC71 Transistor is a Big Deal

This transistor was an iconic electronic component of the 1960s.

Find out all about it in my video: youtube.com/shorts/AHCmo...

#OC71 #transistor #vintageradio #electroniccomponents #techhistory #historyoftechnology

Happy to report from Esch, Luxembourg where I’m participating in the 2025 Annual Conference of the Society of History of Technology (SHOT). Great presentations and dialogues going on. I’m presenting tomorrow morning. Excited.

#SHOT2025 #HistoryofTechnology #MediaStudies #Chile #Cybernetics

How billiard balls led to plastic everywhere In 1863, an eager young inventor in New York City spotted a newspaper advertisement that would change the course of material history. The notice offered a $10,000 prize to anyone who could invent a substitute...

How billiard balls led to plastic everywhere #Science #TechnologyandEngineering #PlasticInnovation #SustainableMaterials #HistoryofTechnology

Call for Papers: The 12th Tensions of Europe Conference, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 8-10 July, 2026 » Call for Papers: The 12th Tensions of Europe Conference, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, 8-10 July, 2026 | Research network on history, technology and Europe

CfP for the 2026 Tensions of Europe Conference is out!

Theme: The meaning of the past in sustainable futures
When: 8-10 July 2026
Where: Eindhoven, NL

Deadline: 4 January 2026

#histstm #historyoftechnology #envhist

Entire call and information ⤵

www.tensionsofeurope.eu/2025/10/02/c...

Винахід Елайаса Хоу. — Сусіди. Post by Сусіди.

Винахід Елайаса Хоу.
buymeacoffee.com/valdeloir/to...

#швейнамашина #ЕлайасХоу #історіятехніки #текстиль #винахід
#sewingmachine #EliasHowe #historyoftechnology #textiles #invention

Come be my colleague! We are indeed casting a wide net in the GLOBAL HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY search. **All** fields, areas, and periods of the History of Technology will be considered! #historyoftechnology #STS

#RailwayHistory #MaintenanceStudies #HistoryOfTechnology #MaterialHistory #ColonialHistory #EnvironmentalHistory #HistSci #railway200

📷 webbedduck, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons [cropped]
6/6

The fall of Nokia in the context of Symbian’s failure. PART 2

medium.com/@synclai10/t...
#nokia #smartphone #smartphones #symbian #series60 #nokian8 #oldtech #HistoryofTechnology #2000s #nokia808
#retro

The fall of Nokia in the context of Symbian’s failure. Part 1. Symbian 9.4 and Maemo Nokia was once the undisputed leader of the mobile phone market. So much so that even failures like the N-GAGE didn’t matter to them. But…

Read “The fall of Nokia in the context of Symbian’s failure. Part 1. Symbian 9.4 and Maemo“ by Synclaiten on Medium: medium.com/@synclai10/t...
#nokia #smartphone #smartphones #symbian #series60 #nokia5800 #oldtech #HistoryofTechnology #2000s

The History of the Screwdriver > If you are a viewer in Canada you are very likely to own a type of screwdriver that viewers outside of Canada are very likely to have never seen or even heard of in their life.

📼 The History of the Screwdriver (A free, 16-minute video from 2019)

Tags: #HistoryOfTechnology #Things #Canada

Also happy to talk about #HeritageProtection, #HeritageCrime, #ArchaeologyLaw, #IndustrialArchaeology, #HistoryOfTechnology and #ArchaeologyOfTransport

#AskAnArchaeologist

How the Telegraph Pioneered Communication The Transformative Journey of Communication Technologies

How the Telegraph Pioneered Communication #Telegraph #Communication #Innovation #HistoryOfTechnology #PioneersInCommunication

12,000-Year-Old Spindle Whorls and the Innovation of Wheeled Rotational Technologies > ‘The wheel and axle’ revolutionized human technological history by transforming linear to rotary motion and causing parts of devices to move. > While its ancient origins are commonly associated with the appearance of carts during the Bronze Age, we focus on much earlier wheel-shaped find: an exceptional assemblage of over a hundred perforated pebbles from the 12,000-year-old Natufian village of Nahal Ein-Gev II, Israel. > We analyze the assemblage using 3D methodologies, incorporating novel study applications to both the pebbles and their perforations and explore the functional implications. > We conclude that these items could have served as spindle whorls to spin fibres. > In a cumulative evolutionary trend, they manifest early phases of the development of rotational technologies by laying the mechanical principle of the wheel and axle.

📰 12,000-Year-Old Spindle Whorls and the Innovation of Wheeled Rotational Technologies (A ✨NEW✨, free, 22-page article)

Tags: #HistoryOfTechnology #Prehistory #Things

How Was the Wheel Invented? Computer Simulations Reveal Its Unlikely Birth Nearly 6,000 Years Ago The wheel changed the course of history for all of humanity. But its invention is shrouded in mystery. Imagine you’re a copper miner in southeastern Europe in the year 3900 BCE. Day after day, you haul...

How Was the Wheel Invented? Computer Simulations Reveal Its Unlikely Birth Nearly 6,000 Years Ago #Science #TechnologyandEngineering #WheelInnovation #ComputerSimulations #HistoryOfTechnology

The Wet History of Media in the Bathroom How media technologies made themselves at home in one of the most private spaces of modern life.

The Wet History of Media in the Bathroom thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-wet-hist... #HistoryofTechnology #MediaStudies via @mitpress.bsky.social

They Made America by Harold Evans Harold Evans, the late author of "They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine: Two Centuries of Innovators," talks about how A.P. Giannini helped change the banking industry by expanding services to the middle-class, and also speaks on what he did for the San Francisco Bay Area.  The full interview from a 2004 episode of "Conversations On The Coast with Jim Foster" can be heard now wherever you get your podcasts.  

📣 New Podcast! "They Made America by Harold Evans" on @Spreaker #apgiannini #authorinterview #banking #biographies #book #coc #conversationsonthecoast #entrepreneurs #finance #haroldevans #historyoftechnology #innovators #jimfoster #reading #samuelinsull #sanfrancisco #sf #thegreatdepression

Go Retro with This AWESOME Vintage Tube / Valve Mug

In this video I show off my vintage valve / vacuum tube mug and accompanying coasters.

Check them out: youtube.com/shorts/ALxAS...

#vintageradio #techhistory #historyoftechnology #merchandise

Wheels May Have Been Invented to Solve a Surprising Problem A different origin than we thought.

Wheels May Have Been Invented to Solve a Surprising Problem #Science #TechnologyandEngineering #Innovation #HistoryOfTechnology #Inventions

Wheels in the Dark: How Copper Miners Might Have Engineered Humanity’s Greatest Invention Computational design reveals a plausible path from primitive rollers to the first wheel-and-axle—born not from tinkerers in open fields, but from ore-hauling Neolithic miners deep in the Carpathians

Computer simulations suggest the wheel may have evolved underground. New research traces its origins to Neolithic miners in the Carpathians, not kings or armies. #Archaeology #HistoryOfTechnology #Anthropology #HumanEvolution #BigDataHistory

3/
#ArabicManuscripts #HistoryOfTechnology #FortificationStudies #IslamicHistory #SiegeWarfare #MedievalEngineering