The First The Next.Compare the earliest forms of four everyday objects with their 21st century counterparts. FIRST Rickety rick·et·y adj. rick·et·i·er, rick·et·i·est 1. Likely to break or fall apart; shaky. 2. Feeble with age; infirm. 3. Of, having, or resembling rickets. Racket Tennis rackets rackets Game for two or four players with ball and racket on a four-walled court. Rackets is played with a hard ball in a relatively large court (approximately 9 × 18 m), unlike the related games of squash and racquetball. like this one from 1875 had brittle wooden frames and strings made from dried-out intestines of hogs, horses, and sheep. NEXT Grand Slam grand slam n. 1. The winning of all the tricks during the play of one hand in bridge and other whist-derived card games. 2. Sports The winning of all the major or specified events, especially on a professional circuit. Prince's new Triple Threat tennis racket weighs only 225 grams, or 7.9 ounces. Its durable frame is a composite (mixture) of graphite and titanium, two strong chemical substances. And with an extra-long head, or area that contains the (synthetic) strings, the Triple Threat's enlarged sweet spot (area where the ball bounces best) will make any tennis player hit like a pro! FIRST Puppy Love Man's (and woman's) best friend for centuries, dogs were first domesticated do·mes·ti·cate tr.v. do·mes·ti·cat·ed, do·mes·ti·cat·ing, do·mes·ti·cates 1. To cause to feel comfortable at home; make domestic. 2. To adopt or make fit for domestic use or life. 3. a. as early as 12,000 B.C.! NEXT Cyber-Pooch Meet AIBO (Artificial Intelligence roBOt) A battery-operated robotic dog from Sony that behaves like a living animal, learning and growing through experience. Capable of autonomous behavior, AIBO understands voice commands, and it simulates instincts and feelings with sound and (EYE-bo), the first completely computerized robot dog Robot dog refers to a robot in the shape of a dog, or one which has other canine characteristics (such as a barking dog burglar alarm activated by disturbance of an infra-red beam). Such dogs have appeared often both in fiction, and in the form of toys. . Made by Sony with a tag of $2,500, this pup can fetch, rollover A graphic element in an application or on a Web page that changes its color or shape when the pointer is moved (rolled) over it. See JavaScript rollover. See also n-key rollover. , and even play soccer! AIBO--Japanese for "pal"--has four moving legs, a wagging tail, and a touch sensor that recognizes petting. It even displays its emotions: joy, sadness, anger, surprise, and fear. Best of all, it never leaves little "messes" behind! FIRST Port-o-Potty Invented in England in 1596, the water closet, or outdoor toilet, greatly reduced the likelihood of getting sick from exposure to human waste. NEXT Healthy Flus Ready for your check-up? Just head to the bathroom! The Japanese company Toto Ltd. now manufactures a toilet that also acts as your personal doctor. Insert your finger into the toilet's armrest to check your blood pressure, a measure of the force your heart uses to pump blood. Then, a wand A handheld optical reader used to read typewritten fonts, printed fonts, OCR fonts and bar codes. The wand is waved over each line of characters or codes in a single pass. covered with chemically sensitive paper dips into your urine to measure levels of bodily substances, like the amount of sugar in your blood. You can even e-mail test results! FIRST Say Cheese! Released in 1888, Kodak's first box camera sold for $25 and came with 100 pieces of light-sensitive paper. The camera created a picture when light shined through the box and hit the paper inside, causing light from an image to be "burned" on to the paper. NEXT Cyber Zoom Photography goes sci-tech with Sony's new Cyber-Shot camera. The Cyber-Shot is a digital camera, so it stores colors and light as digital information--data stored as numbers, like 0s and 1s. That means you can "snap" a picture, send it through a wire to your computer, then e-mall it to a friend! Even more "far out," the Cyber-Shot sports the first digital lens (focusing device) that zooms in five times closer to your subject than you really are! |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion