Technology
Discover facts about technology. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Technology
Why cloud gaming can't outrun the speed of light
A button press has to travel to a distant server, and the rendered frame has to travel back. That round trip takes time, so distance and the speed of light…
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The Xbox 360's green ring told you which player you were
The ring was divided into four quarters. Connecting a controller assigned it a quarter, which lit up both on the controller and the console. You could match…
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When code behaves like a duck, types don't matter
With duck typing, code cares about what an object can do, not its declared type: if it has the behavior a task needs, the code can use it. Problems may not…
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Most humans entirely ignore the middle click on their mice
Pressing the scroll wheel—not rolling it—acts as a middle click, which opens a link in a new tab.
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Yahoo started as Jerry and David's guide to the web
Before the short brand name, the directory was called Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web. Human-curated links helped people navigate a young…
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Acoustic foam absorbs sound by trapping air in pores
Its porous structure lets sound enter, where friction converts some of the sound energy into heat and reduces reflections.
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Why changing a domain name takes so long
Networks cache domain records to reduce repeated lookups, so some keep sending visitors to the old address until their cached entry expires.
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Radio frequency tags operate without internal power
The scanner's radio waves briefly power the tag, letting it transmit its serial number without an internal power source.
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How programmers move individual bits
Bitwise operators work directly on a number’s binary 0s and 1s, shifting them left or right to perform operations such as multiplying by powers of two.
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Empty PDF documents contain hundreds of metadata bytes
Even a page with no visible text stores structural data, such as fonts, tags, and internal dictionaries, so a blank PDF still takes up space.
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Why Amazon chose the name Alexa
The hard “X” makes “Alexa” easier for microphones to distinguish from background noise, so the name doubles as a voice-activation cue.
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Digital clocks use a century-old number design
Their digits use a simple grid of seven glowing segments—a design patented more than a century ago.
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Linux kernel contains over thirty million lines of code
The Linux kernel began as a student’s hobby project and grew into software that powers web servers around the world.
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The Walkman was built for listening together
Sony’s first Walkman had two headphone jacks and an orange “hotline” button that lowered the volume so two listeners could talk. The company dropped the…
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Colossal Cave Adventure put a real caver's knowledge into text
Will Crowther drew on his experience exploring Kentucky's cave system when building the early adventure game. Players navigated by typing commands and…
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The dictionary word for life outside the internet
“Meatspace” is a dictionary-listed term for the physical world outside the internet—a blunt contrast to virtual life.
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Aerographite is mostly empty space held together by carbon
Its interconnected carbon microtubes create a solid framework with extraordinarily little material. The network can conduct electricity and compress despite…
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Pinball once had no flippers
Players could only launch the ball with a plunger; it bounced among wooden pins, with the outcome largely left to luck and a slight table tilt.
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Your old TV could reveal echoes of the Big Bang
A small fraction of the static is the cosmic microwave background: faint radiation left over from the early universe.
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Charles Drew helped make blood donations travel
During the 1940 Blood for Britain project, Drew helped organize the collection, processing, and shipment of plasma on a large scale. Separating and preserving…
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How solid-state batteries avoid flammable liquid
They replace the flammable liquid electrolyte in a conventional battery with a solid ceramic or glass compound. Lithium ions still move back and forth to…
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Apple's $9,995 computer arrived in 1983
The Lisa offered a mouse and a graphical desktop when typing commands was still normal. Its price bought an early glimpse of the interface that would become…
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Symmetric connections provide equal transmission speeds
They offer equal download and upload speeds, so sending a large file can be as fast as downloading one.
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An escalator's handrail has to keep pace with your feet
The moving rail and the steps use separate mechanisms, but their speeds must stay closely matched. Technical specifications allow only a small difference, and…
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