Technology
Discover facts about technology. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Technology
Discord began as a failed game's chat tool
The founders built Discord's voice chat for a multiplayer game that flopped; they abandoned the game and kept the tool.
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When organizing work feels like doing it
Dragging colorful task cards between columns can feel like progress, even when the actual work remains undone.
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GTA V's world keeps going below the coastline
Rockstar built a detailed ocean floor as well as Los Santos, mountains and countryside. Diving turns the edge of the road map into another space to explore.…
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Why Clippy became everyone's least favorite helper
While users typed, the animated paperclip repeatedly interrupted with unwanted formatting advice—even during serious writing. It became a symbol of intrusive,…
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How Newgrounds shaped 2000s internet animation
Newgrounds let aspiring animators post cartoons directly to a huge audience, including copyright-infringing work. It also launched many creators’ careers and…
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Google Wave: the email replacement nobody understood
Google Wave tried to combine chat, documents, and messaging in one tool, but many users found the all-in-one interface too confusing to use.
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Miniclip was every bored student’s escape
In the early 2000s, Miniclip’s dirt-bike games gave students a way to dodge schoolwork in computer labs—and sometimes get past primitive school firewalls.
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Ask Jeeves retired its butler to look less like a question box
The search site relaunched as Ask.com in 2006 with a cleaner design and without its familiar mascot. Executives wanted people to treat it as an everyday…
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The 1968 demo that predicted the modern office
Douglas Engelbart unveiled the computer mouse, hypertext, word processing and video conferencing in a single 90-minute presentation.
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A few gigabytes once needed a cabinet-sized IBM drive
IBM's 3380, announced in 1980, stored about 2.52 billion bytes in a large cabinet. Thin-film recording heads helped make that capacity possible. The…
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Continuously variable transmissions use belts sliding between cones instead of fixed gears
The belt shifts higher or lower on the cones as they move closer together or farther apart, changing the ratio smoothly instead of making the car shift…
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How compressed air turns into jackhammer force
High-pressure air flips an internal valve back and forth, driving a heavy piston against the chisel thousands of times a minute.
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Why machine tools need a constant coolant spray
Coolant carries heat away from the cutting tool, helping keep the bit from overheating, losing its hardness, or welding itself to the workpiece.
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Hammering giant poles into mud supports tall skyscrapers
Pile drivers hammer concrete pillars deep through soft topsoil until they reach bedrock, giving the building a firm foundation.
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Why asphalt can flow under a parked truck
On a hot day, a heavy parked truck can slowly deform the asphalt beneath its tires, leaving lasting ruts.
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Pouring concrete creates its own heat
Cement reacts with water as concrete hardens, and that reaction releases heat. In a large pour, the interior can get much hotter than the surface. Engineers…
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How a vibrating pipe weighs the fluid inside
A Coriolis meter vibrates a curved tube; as fluid flows through it, the tube twists. Measuring that twist reveals the fluid’s mass flow, even when temperature…
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Straight gears translate endless spinning into pushing
Unlike running, repeated jumps don’t drain your character’s stamina, so they can keep leaping indefinitely.
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Ramming air into forward tubes measures fluid speed
Air forced into the forward-facing tube creates pressure that helps estimate the aircraft’s airspeed.
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Choking narrow pipes forces fluids to drastically speed up
For a steady flow through a pipe, a narrower section makes the fluid move faster and lowers its local pressure—the Venturi effect.
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A railway rail gets its shape by being squeezed between rollers
Steel starts as a thick, solid block that is reheated until it can be worked. Successive rollers stretch and reshape it into the rail's head, web, and broad…
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Chemicals make suspended dirt sticky enough to sink fast
Coagulants neutralize the particles' electrical charges, letting them clump into heavier masses that settle to the bottom.
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These cone-shaped washers work like powerful springs
Their shallow cone shape lets Belleville washers flatten under pressure and spring back. Stacking them can create a powerful spring in a compact space.
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Baking raw plastic thread creates rigid structures
Carbon-fiber strands look like black yarn before they’re wrapped in resin and cured under heat and pressure, forming a rigid composite.
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