Technology and the built world

Micro (text editor)

Micro is a free, open-source, terminal-based text editor written in Go and first released in 2016, positioned by creator Zachary Yedidia as a successor to nano.

Micro Bit

The Micro Bit, also known as the BBC Micro Bit, is a pocket-sized programmable computer with an LED display, sensors, and buttons, given to a million UK students from 2016.

Micro Channel architecture

Micro Channel architecture (MCA) was IBM's proprietary 16- or 32-bit expansion bus, introduced in 1987 with the PS/2 line; its incompatible slots and strict licensing led to the rival EISA standard.

Micro combined heat and power, also called micro-CHP or micro-cogeneration, generates heat and electricity simultaneously from one fuel source, typically replacing a domestic boiler burning natural gas.

Micro drilling

Micro drilling is the machining of holes smaller than 1 mm in diameter, using miniature mechanical drills or lasers, applied widely in electronics, semiconductor, and aerospace industries.

Micro electrostatic motor

A micro electrostatic motor is a MEMS-scale actuator, tens of micrometers to millimeters in size, driven by electrostatic forces between rotor and stator electrodes instead of electromagnetic windings.

Micro Focus

Micro Focus International plc, formerly Merant, was a British enterprise software company founded in 1976 in Newbury, England, best known for COBOL development tools and acquired by OpenText in 2023.

Micro hydro

Micro hydro is small-scale hydroelectric generation, generally below 100 kilowatts, using run-of-river systems that divert stream flow through a turbine and return it, without a dam or reservoir.

Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems

Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, or MITS, was an Albuquerque, New Mexico electronics company founded in 1969, best known for the 1975 Altair 8800 microcomputer.

Micro Modular Reactor

The Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) is a helium-cooled microreactor designed by Ultra Safe Nuclear, fueled for about 20 years without refueling and now developed as KRONOS MMR.

Micro Motion

Micro Motion is a Boulder, Colorado-based manufacturer of Coriolis flow and density meters, founded by Jim Smith in 1977 and a wholly owned subsidiary of Emerson Electric since 1984.

Micro Saint Sharp

Micro Saint Sharp is a discrete-event network simulation software package, introduced in 2003 by Micro Analysis & Design of Boulder, Colorado, as a successor to Micro Saint.

Micro transfer printing

Micro transfer printing (µTP) is a microfabrication technique that uses an elastomer stamp to pick up thin-film devices and print them onto a target substrate.

Micro-arc oxidation

Micro-arc oxidation (MAO), also known as plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO), is an electrochemical surface treatment that grows hard ceramic oxide coatings on light metals such as aluminum, titanium, and magnesium.

Oct 26, 2026

Micro-batching

Micro-batching processes streaming data in small, frequent batches (roughly 100 ms to a few seconds), Spark Structured Streaming's default mode, offering exactly-once fault tolerance and batch-engine simplicity at the cost of batch-boundary latency.

Micro-fulfillment

Micro-fulfillment is a retail logistics strategy in which small, automated facilities near customers pick and pack online orders within minutes, used most widely in online grocery.

Micro-Nova (lunar hopper)

Micro-Nova, also written µNova, is a rocket-propelled lunar hopper built by Intuitive Machines to reach permanently shadowed craters and steep slopes a wheeled rover cannot.

Micro-operation

A micro-operation (micro-op, µop) is an elementary operation a processor performs in one step, from register transfer in microprogrammed control to the small operations x86 decoders split instructions into.

micro-ROS

micro-ROS is an open-source software stack that runs ROS 2 nodes on resource-constrained microcontrollers, extending ROS 2 down to chips with tens of kilobytes of RAM.

Micro-Star International

Micro-Star International, commonly known as MSI, is a Taiwanese technology company headquartered in New Taipei City, founded in 1986 and best known for motherboards, graphics cards, and gaming laptops.

microagi

microagi is a Munich robotics startup founded in 2025 that records workers performing tasks to teach and deploy robots, raising a record $55 million seed round in 2026.

Microarchitecture

Microarchitecture, also called computer organization, is the hardware design of a processor that implements an instruction set, including choices like cache sizes and pipeline length.

MicroATX

MicroATX, also written mATX or μATX, is a desktop motherboard form factor introduced by Intel in 1996, smaller and cheaper than ATX but compatible with ATX cases.

Microbial desalination cell

A microbial desalination cell is a bioelectrochemical device in which wastewater bacteria oxidize organic matter, generating current that drives salt ions through membranes, desalinating water without external power. It was first demonstrated in 2009.

Microbial electrolysis cell

A microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) is a bioelectrochemical reactor in which bacteria oxidize organic matter, producing hydrogen from wastewater with much less electricity than conventional water electrolysis.

Microbial enhanced oil recovery

Microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) is a petroleum engineering method that injects microorganisms and nutrients into oil reservoirs, where their metabolites mobilize residual oil; it is low-cost but rarely applied.

Microbially induced calcite precipitation

Microbially induced calcite precipitation (MICP) is a biomineralization method in which urease-producing microbes precipitate calcium carbonate that binds soil grains, seals concrete cracks, and reduces permeability, used in civil engineering for sand strengthening and self-healing concrete.

Microbially induced calcium carbonate precipitation

Microbially induced calcium carbonate precipitation (MICP) is a ground-improvement technique in which urea-hydrolyzing bacteria, chiefly Sporosarcina pasteurii, precipitate calcite between soil grains, binding loose material into a stronger, less permeable solid.

MicroBlaze

MicroBlaze is a family of configurable 32-bit and 64-bit RISC soft processor cores developed by Xilinx and now offered by AMD for its FPGAs and adaptive SoCs.