Technology
Discover facts about technology. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Technology
Early fax machines took six minutes per page
Early commercial models used acoustic couplers: you had to place a telephone handset in a modem block, then wait more than six minutes for a blurry page on…
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Digimon turned a virtual pet into a fighter
Bandai's digital monsters still needed care, but connecting devices let them battle. Raising the creature now affected what it could do against somebody…
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First online communities relied purely on plain text
Early bulletin board systems displayed no images, so users relied on text to communicate and argue with one another.
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Camel casing glues words together with capital letters
Many programming languages don’t allow spaces in identifiers, so camel case marks word boundaries with capital letters, as in “myVariableName.”
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Dartboards use a bent wire spider to divide scoring sections
Thin metal wires are hammered over the bristle surface, and a dart that hits one can ricochet off the board—sometimes straight into the drywall.
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How multiple endings make you replay the same game
Games with multiple endings can make you replay the same 60-hour story four times, changing dialogue choices each run to reach the true conclusion.
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Why a touch-tone phone plays two notes
Each button combines a high and low frequency, corresponding to its row and column. The pair identifies which key was pressed, so the receiving system can…
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Debouncing stops you from clicking buttons too fast
A button press can register as several rapid signals, so debounce code filters out the extra inputs and keeps one press from triggering multiple actions.
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Your computer's clock depends on a database of politics
Arthur David Olson helped create the time-zone database that computers use to interpret local time. Its maintainers track governments changing clock offsets,…
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Dynamic programming remembers past answers to avoid work
Dynamic programming stores the results of smaller problems so it can reuse them instead of solving the same steps repeatedly. This technique, called…
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Electronic readers can hold thousands of heavy books
A roughly six-ounce reader can hold thousands of books, replacing shelves of physical volumes with a library you can carry in one hand.
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Why powerful flashlights have metal bodies
High-output flashlight LEDs generate substantial heat, and an aluminum body helps carry it into the surrounding air. Thin plastic could soften or melt under…
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Cigarettes once used asbestos filters
Some mid-century cigarettes had filters made with asbestos, so a product meant to filter smoke could expose users to dangerous mineral fibers.
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Why Manila folders are called Manila
Manila folders were originally made with fibers from Manila hemp ropes from the Philippines. Those tough fibers produced durable, yellowish paper that could…
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Why rollerball pens feel smooth but bleed through paper
Rollerballs use thin, water-based ink instead of the thick paste found in standard pens. The ink flows smoothly but can seep into paper fibers and show…
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Windows' browser shortcut became an antitrust battleground
Microsoft's 2002 U.S. antitrust judgment required ways to hide access to certain bundled Microsoft programs and let competing software become the default.…
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The keyboards designed to erase your visual crutch
Blank keycaps remove the visual prompt, forcing typists to rely on muscle memory as they practice.
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Stalin sort gets an ordered list by deleting the dissenters
The joke algorithm scans a sequence and discards values that break the chosen order. What survives is sorted, but information has disappeared. It exposes a…
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The tool bag that escaped into orbit
During a 2008 spacewalk, astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper lost a tool bag outside the International Space Station. It kept circling Earth as a separate…
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Why gamepads rumble in surprisingly complex ways
Some gamepads pair a heavy, slower motor with a lighter, faster one. Running them at different speeds produces a range of rumble patterns, from gentle taps to…
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How dry ice blasts grime off machinery
Dry-ice pellets chill grime until it shrinks and cracks loose; then the pellets turn directly into gas, expanding and carrying dirt away without leaving…
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Why deleting a useless image can break a game
In some games built on the Source engine, deleting an apparently unused file, such as a coconut image, can make the game refuse to launch.
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Why adding developers can delay a late project
New developers need training from the already-busy team, and coordinating more people adds overhead, so the project can fall further behind. As the saying…
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Saving a file is not the same as preserving it
A drive can fail, an optical disc can deteriorate, and a future computer may lack the hardware or software to read an old format. Long-term access depends on…
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