From toys to technology

WASHINGTON It's not unusual for new technologies to first enter popular consciousness as toys.

In the 1st century, Heron of Alexandria invented the aeolipile: a metal ball with curved nozzles sticking out of it, perched on stilts. With water in it, and flame beneath it, the resultant steam would make it spin, whiz, whiz, whiz. Such fun.

Nobody understood they were looking at a steam engine. Hence, the Industrial Revolution didn't start for another 1700 years.

In 1267 Roger Bacon wrote about "a child's toy of sound and fire and explosion made in various parts of the world with powder of saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal of hazelwood." That description of firecrackers is one of the earliest European references to gunpowder.

Toys make sense as early adoptions of a new technology. Parents will pay to make their children smile. The generation raised on telekinetic X-Men already is buzzing all over the Web about the advance videos of these mind-over-matter toys, as they think of further possibilities.

In a Gizmodo chat, "inseptiv" writes, "I'm all for modding the crap out of this to use my brain waves to trigger custom things around the house. 'Let me concentrate ... and the coffee will be ready in 5 minutes.' "

On Engadget, "absinthe party" suggests: "Replace ball with kitten."

But it is "Skyfloating" on Abovetopsecret who takes the long view.

" 'Those were the beginnings' ... they will say in a few hundred years."

EndStory//