Technology
Discover facts about technology. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Technology
MSN Messenger let you shake someone else's chat window
A nudge made the conversation window shake and played a sound to demand attention. It turned an unanswered message into an interruption. Before read receipts…
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Bumble requires women to message first to avoid creeps
By giving women control over the first message, Bumble also leaves them with the awkward job of breaking the ice.
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The fierce eagle scream often belongs to a hawk
The red-tailed hawk's rasping call is regularly used as an eagle sound in screen entertainment. A real bald eagle's voice is much thinner and higher. Sound…
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God of War's new Kratos came with a whole performance
Christopher Judge provided both voice and motion-capture work for the 2018 game. The older Kratos could be communicated through movement and presence as well…
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Yahoo Messenger's wild west chatrooms
Yahoo Messenger chatrooms let you drop into text conversations with strangers, bots, and plenty of nonsense—a chaotic snapshot of the early consumer web.
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Why Internet Explorer 6 haunted web designers
Corporate systems built around IE6’s quirks kept it alive, forcing web designers to maintain separate code for more than a decade.
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Horizon gives its machines animal body language
The robots signal danger through recognizable movements: stalking, turning, charging, and preparing to strike. Familiar animal behavior makes an unfamiliar…
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Fark taught the internet to mock the news
Users submitted bizarre news links with sharp, often cynical headlines—an early model for internet snark.
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Millions use Bing to search for Google
Many people use Bing just to search for Google: new laptop owners open the default browser and type in the rival search engine.
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Rotten Tomatoes began with Jackie Chan
Its founder wanted one place to collect reviews of his favorite martial arts movies, not a system for judging every blockbuster.
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Flash games needed rescuing from their own platform
When mainstream browsers stopped supporting Flash, many games lost the environment they needed to run. Preservation projects such as Flashpoint archived games…
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Daikatana's ad became more famous than the game it promised
The campaign sold John Romero's new shooter with a confrontational promise that the designer would dominate the player. Delays and a disappointing reception…
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StumbleUpon turned the web into a surprise button
The service sent users to pages matched to their interests instead of waiting for an exact search query. Rating discoveries helped shape what appeared next.…
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How Napster changed music before the lawsuits
Napster let users swap digital tracks directly, changing how people consumed entertainment and prompting lawsuits from musicians.
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A game battlefield quietly decides where you can fight
Doorways funnel movement, cover creates stopping points, and long sightlines make exposed crossings dangerous. Level designers can shape a player's choices…
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OnlyFans was originally meant for chefs and artists
The founders imagined a subscription site for cooking and art tutorials; it instead became known for adult content.
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Google Reader had loyal users—and still disappeared
Google announced the RSS reader's closure in 2013, citing declining use, and gave people a window to export their subscriptions. Readers could keep their list…
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Blender gives away tools used to make entire films
The free, open-source program combines modeling, animation, rendering, and other production tools. Artists can build a scene and turn it into finished images…
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The Windows XP wallpaper is a real place
A former National Geographic photographer took the photo in California; it wasn’t digitally painted. Its ubiquity made it a familiar sight on office computers…
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A moving walkway gives your hand and feet different jobs
Your feet ride a moving surface while your balance system tracks movement against the stationary terminal. Holding the rail adds another moving contact point.…
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Adults raced to get banned from Club Penguin
Some adults raced to get banned by making accounts and immediately typing profanities, then posting their times on video boards.
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How Need for Speed shaped a generation's music
The racing games’ soundtracks introduced a generation of players to industrial metal, Southern hip-hop, and electronica—often while they sped away from…
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Duolingo's owl won't let you forget your lesson
Its green owl sends persistent reminders when you miss a daily lesson, turning a vocabulary app into an increasingly hard-to-ignore nudge.
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Neopets’ founders pushed back against Scientology content
After investor Doug Dohring became involved, the company used management ideas associated with Scientology. Founders Adam Powell and Donna Williams later…
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