Correct! Often there isn’t time to learn the history of a field, so avoid such grand claims. It always helps to learn the key milestones of your technology beat so you can always have that background knowledge to draw from in these situations.

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Correct! People who work in the field have a front-row seat to what’s coming out of the lab and into the market.

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Correct! Because of the tendency for new technologies to destroy the value of their existing products and business lines, tech companies need to constantly innovate.

Correct! While it’s still possible for new technologies to succeed without taking advantage of current systems, doing so makes it much easier for people to widely adopt the new technology since it’s already supported by the systems already established.

Correct! You may never understand them, and that’s okay. Electronics is based on complicated physics and mathematics. One workable compromise is to identify people who do understand these technologies, poll the views of at least three of them, tally their common conclusions and then identify inconsistencies.

Correct! For Personal Technologies stories, think smartphones, tablets, computers, speakers, and anything wearable, like a smartwatch. A common approach to covering personal technology is to report on how well new gadgets work while emphasizing what’s new or improved.

Correct! Because technology reporters have specialized knowledge and many sources on technological change, they are often asked by editors to report on social and cultural trends arising from those changes.

Correct! For example, the telephone was conceived by its inventor, Alexander Graham Bell, as a way to broadcast music and news – as a kind of radio. He never imagined that the technology’s chief use would be for two individuals to talk to each other over a single line.