What are the roles of hardware in technology?

Answer 1

Hardware is the vessel by which humans can interact with the content that makes technology meaningful. You need the plastic and metal gizmo in order to use the information that the creators of the technology intended you to have. If you want to call someone using cellular technology, you need a cellphone, cell towers, servers etc. If you want to play Final Fantasy III, you need a Nintendo DS, DS card with the game on it etc. Hardware and software are in a kind of symbiotic relationship: one doesn't work without the other. Another aspect of hardware in technology is innovation. Designers and engineers are always coming up with ways to improve hardware. Faster computer processors and video cards make more realistic and detailed Video Games possible, for example. At the same time, advances in software (such as games with better rendered 3D graphics and physics models) increase the demand for hardware that can handle them. Symbiosis again. Also miniturization, or making hardware smaller, drives the demand for more access to technology and information. Until we had cell phones that were powerful enough to handle color images, moving video and in some cases, even 3D graphics, there was no demand for cell phone based games. Now that game playing cellphones are here, cell phone based games are a growing market that may soon rival that of games for other platforms like the DS and PSP.