The 20th century saw rapid advances in the practice of dentistry, especially in the last 10 years. The new technologies that have been introduced promise to make dentistry more “user friendly” both to the dentist and the patients. Intraoral cameras, digital (filmless) radiology (x-rays), computer-assisted diagnoses, computer- assisted design and fabrication of crowns, hard and soft tissue lasers, multimedia patient education, and surgical microscopy are just a few of the exciting dental technologies available to the consumer today.