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 What is Gadget Technology

A widely circulated story holds that the word gadget was "invented" when Gaget, Gauthier & Cie, the company behind the repoussé construction of the Statue of Liberty (1886), made a small-scale version of the monument and named it after their firm; however this contradicts the evidence that the word was already used before in nautical circles, and the fact that it did not become popular, at least in the USA, until after World War I. Other sources cite a derivation from the French gâchette which has been applied to various pieces of a firing mechanism, or the French gagée, a small tool or accessory.

The October 1918 issue of Notes and Queries contains a multi-article entry on the word "gadget" (12 S. iv. 187). H. Tapley-Soper of The City Library, Exeter, writes: 

Technological device means any computer, cellular phone, smartphone, digital camera, video camera, audio recording device, or other electronic device that can be used for creating, storing, or transmitting information in the form of electronic data.

 

Classification of gadgets

Following the technologic advances of last decades, lots of gadgets designed for various tasks appear. Often one and the same device performs a great variety of functions, this circumstance allows referring it to more than one gadget classes.

To divide these devices into groups is rather a hard task, considering their great variety and amount. However, we can define some major categories combining gadgets with similar functionality and covering the majority of devices.

Some years ago our portal has already state this sort of “catalogue”. Then it included “mobile phones, USB-gadgets, spy and iPod-gadgets, medical gadgets”. For the last years the hi-tech world has changed greatly: some devices have left our reviews, while the others have appeared. So, the time has come to “put everything on its place on a shelf” and “count them all”. Start!

Troubleshooting 

is a form of problem solving, often applied to repair failed products or processes on a machine or a system. It is a logical, systematic search for the source of a problem in order to solve it, and make the product or process operational again. Troubleshooting is needed to identify the symptoms. Determining the most likely cause is a process of elimination—eliminating potential causes of a problem. Finally, troubleshooting requires confirmation that the solution restores the product or process to its working state.

In general, troubleshooting is the identification or diagnosis of "trouble" in the management flow of a system caused by a failure of some kind. The problem is initially described as symptoms of malfunction, and troubleshooting is the process of determining and remedying the causes of these symptoms.

A system can be described in terms of its expected, desired or intended behavior (usually, for artificial systems, its purpose). Events or inputs to the system are expected to generate specific results or outputs. (For example, selecting the "print" option from various computer applications is intended to result in a hardcopy emerging from some specific device). Any unexpected or undesirable behavior is a symptom. Troubleshooting is the process of isolating the specific cause or causes of the symptom. Frequently the symptom is a failure of the product or process to produce any results. (Nothing was printed, for example). Corrective action can then be taken to prevent further failures of a similar kind.

The methods of forensic engineering are useful in tracing problems in products or processes, and a wide range of analytical techniques are available to determine the cause or causes of specific failures. Corrective action can then be taken to prevent further failure of a similar kind. Preventive action is possible using failure mode and effects (FMEA) and fault tree analysis (FTA) before full-scale production, and these methods can also be used for failure analysis.