Technology
Discover facts about technology. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Technology
Biz Stone and the other Twitter founders originally purchased the famous blue bird logo from the stock photo website iStockphoto for an incredibly modest sum of fifteen dollars.
Biz Stone and the other Twitter founders originally purchased the famous blue bird logo from the stock photo website iStockphoto for an incredibly modest sum…
Discover more
Computer scientist John McCarthy formally coined the term artificial intelligence all the way back in 1956 for a summer research project at Dartmouth College, believing they…
Computer scientist John McCarthy formally coined the term artificial intelligence all the way back in 1956 for a summer research project at Dartmouth College,…
Discover more
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates famously had his sprawling, high-tech sixty-three-million-dollar Washington estate known as Xanadu 2.0 designed and modeled entirely using an Apple Macintosh computer.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates famously had his sprawling, high-tech sixty-three-million-dollar Washington estate known as Xanadu 2.0 designed and modeled…
Discover more
Czech playwright Karel Čapek officially introduced the word 'robot' to the world in his 1920 science fiction play R.U.R., deriving it from an Old Church Slavonic word meaning forced labor or brutal servitude.
Czech playwright Karel Čapek officially introduced the word 'robot' to the world in his 1920 science fiction play R.U.R., deriving it from an Old Church…
Discover more
Larry Page and Sergey Brin built the first Google server storage enclosure entirely out of Lego bricks in 1996 because they were broke Stanford students who needed a cheap,…
Larry Page and Sergey Brin built the first Google server storage enclosure entirely out of Lego bricks in 1996 because they were broke Stanford students who…
Discover more
Apple repair technicians in the late 2000s famously refused to service certain Mac computers under warranty if they discovered the internal components were covered in a thick…
Apple repair technicians in the late 2000s famously refused to service certain Mac computers under warranty if they discovered the internal components were…
Discover more
STACKY FOR IPHONEA bigger world.
One discovery
at a time.
Keep discovering with Stacky. Interesting facts in an app that is always within reach.
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce captured the oldest surviving photographic image in 1826 or 1827, which required placing a camera obscura facing out of his upstairs window and leaving…
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce captured the oldest surviving photographic image in 1826 or 1827, which required placing a camera obscura facing out of his upstairs…
Discover more
Neil Papworth, a twenty-two-year-old software programmer, sent the very first Short Message Service text on December 3, 1992, typing the phrase 'Merry Christmas' on a personal…
Neil Papworth, a twenty-two-year-old software programmer, sent the very first Short Message Service text on December 3, 1992, typing the phrase 'Merry…
Discover more
Nepali telecommunications company Ncell installed a 3G mobile phone tower near the base camp of Mount Everest in 2010, and high-speed broadband internet was eventually…
Nepali telecommunications company Ncell installed a 3G mobile phone tower near the base camp of Mount Everest in 2010, and high-speed broadband internet was…
Discover more
Artificial intelligence models can currently generate incredibly convincing deepfake voices and videos capable of bypassing standard biometric security systems used by major…
Artificial intelligence models can currently generate incredibly convincing deepfake voices and videos capable of bypassing standard biometric security…
Discover more
How a flashbang overwhelms your senses
Stun grenades do absolutely no explosive damage to your physical body, they merely overload your biological sensors. The canister aggressively detonates a…
Discover more
Air conditioning was invented to keep paper straight
Human comfort was a complete afterthought in the quest for the perfect room temperature. The very first modern AC unit was engineered in 1902 strictly to fix…
Discover more
Slow cookers trap moisture to cook safely
Leaving a plugged-in appliance running while you go to work feels like arson waiting to happen. However, slow cookers are wrapped in a heavy ceramic sleeve…
Discover more
Why blue LEDs took decades to invent
We conquered splitting the atom long before we could make a tiny blue lightbulb. While red and green variants existed for decades, blue ones required entirely…
Discover more
An air fryer is really a tiny convection oven
There is absolutely zero frying violently happening on your countertop. The wildly popular appliance strictly uses a compact heating coil perfectly paired…
Discover more
Why lava lamps never stop floating and sinking
Staring at a retro oozing lamp is actually just observing a delicate lesson in density. The glass bottle holds two liquids that aggressively refuse to mix,…
Discover more
Why candle wicks curl out of the flame
You almost never have to trim a modern candle because it is actively trying to destroy itself. Older wicks were entirely straight strings that aggressively…
Discover more
How a rice cooker knows when to switch off
Making perfectly fluffy grains does not require a highly complex timing mechanism, it strictly relies on basic high school physics. Water absolutely refuses…
Discover more
Gas stovetops waste massive amounts of heat
Cooking with an open blue flame looks entirely professional, but it is dreadfully horrible at moving energy. Roughly sixty percent of the raw intense heat…
Discover more
What really happens when you bend a glow stick
Starting a rave entirely strictly involves intentionally breaking heavy household objects perfectly hidden entirely inside a plastic tube. The flexible…
Discover more
Tear gas is usually a powder, not a gas
Despite the incredibly straightforward name, this notorious riot control agent fundamentally lacks any actual gas. It is typically completely solid powder,…
Discover more
The fictional rifle hidden in the name TASER
Police shock devices are literally branded with adolescent literature nostalgia. The inventor, a NASA researcher, spent years trying to create a non-lethal…
Discover more
Dog whistles blast terribly high frequencies
It turns out canines aren't reacting to magic when you silently blow into a metal tube, you are merely assaulting ears much better than yours. Human hearing…
Discover more
The tiny metal trick inside old thermostats
The secret to climate control is essentially a tiny metallic wrestling match. Older dials rely on a bimetallic strip, which is simply two distinctly different…
Discover more