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Technologies, especially scientific devices, simultaneously invoke and substantiate scales. There is the opening here for a ‘new serious about technology’ . We can still research the richness of ‘technology’ as an actors’ category while sharpening and pondering with ‘technology’ as an analytical category. Yet this was not an alliance of equals, and the ‘trouble with techne’ – that it had the potential to upset the social order – remained. ‘Technology’ is certainly one of the key phrases of our world, yet it is also one of the most confused. As an analytical category it seems needed for our understanding of all of humanity’s history, and certainly beyond. We are in all probability comfortable with asserting that humans have had technologies because the Palaeolithic, and a menagerie of animals, from crows to chimps, have even been recognized as device users. As an actors’ class ‘technology’ is of surprisingly current classic, although cognate terms – techne, arts, and so on – have a f