Technology
Discover facts about technology. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Technology
Early home computer systems in the 1980s actively utilized standard analog audio cassette tapes to store and load video games, turning the simple act of booting up a program into an agonizing test of human patience.
Early home computer systems in the 1980s actively utilized standard analog audio cassette tapes to store and load video games, turning the simple act of…
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Shigetaka Kurita, an interface designer for a Japanese mobile provider, created the original set of one hundred and seventy-six emojis in 1999 on a grid of merely twelve by…
Shigetaka Kurita, an interface designer for a Japanese mobile provider, created the original set of one hundred and seventy-six emojis in 1999 on a grid of…
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Imperva research regularly indicates that nearly half of all global internet traffic is currently generated not by human beings, but by automated software bots mindlessly…
Imperva research regularly indicates that nearly half of all global internet traffic is currently generated not by human beings, but by automated software…
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Engineers at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center actually invented the graphical user interface, featuring windows, icons, and a mouse, way back in the 1970s.
Engineers at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center actually invented the graphical user interface, featuring windows, icons, and a mouse, way back in the 1970s.…
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Ada Lovelace, an English mathematician born in 1815, is widely recognized as the world's first computer programmer because she wrote an algorithm for Charles Babbage's…
Ada Lovelace, an English mathematician born in 1815, is widely recognized as the world's first computer programmer because she wrote an algorithm for Charles…
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Nokia's legendary default ringtone, which dominated the soundscape of the early 2000s and haunted theaters and restaurants globally, is actually a tiny snippet of a classical…
Nokia's legendary default ringtone, which dominated the soundscape of the early 2000s and haunted theaters and restaurants globally, is actually a tiny…
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Jack Dorsey published the very first message on the platform that would become Twitter in 2006, simply typing the phrase just setting up my twttr into the digital void.
Jack Dorsey published the very first message on the platform that would become Twitter in 2006, simply typing the phrase just setting up my twttr into the…
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Consumer electronics manufacturers in the 1980s made the programming interface for video cassette recorders so unnecessarily complicated that a blinking twelve o'clock became a global symbol of technological defeat.
Consumer electronics manufacturers in the 1980s made the programming interface for video cassette recorders so unnecessarily complicated that a blinking…
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Astronauts aboard the International Space Station experience severe internet lag, dealing with connection speeds that are often worse than dial-up.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station experience severe internet lag, dealing with connection speeds that are often worse than dial-up. While they…
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Silicon Valley got its nickname in 1971 from a journalist named Don Hoefler, who was simply writing a series of articles about the region's semiconductor industry.
Silicon Valley got its nickname in 1971 from a journalist named Don Hoefler, who was simply writing a series of articles about the region's semiconductor…
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Early computer mice utilized a heavy rubber ball that would inevitably collect an absolutely disgusting amount of dust, hair, and dead skin cells from your desk.
Early computer mice utilized a heavy rubber ball that would inevitably collect an absolutely disgusting amount of dust, hair, and dead skin cells from your…
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First commercial antivirus software was created in 1987 in response to a virus named Brain, which was actually written by two brothers in Pakistan just to track pirated copies of their medical software.
First commercial antivirus software was created in 1987 in response to a virus named Brain, which was actually written by two brothers in Pakistan just to…
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Sister Mary Kenneth Keller became the first person in the United States to earn a doctorate in computer science in 1965, seamlessly balancing her strict Catholic vows with writing complex mathematical code.
Sister Mary Kenneth Keller became the first person in the United States to earn a doctorate in computer science in 1965, seamlessly balancing her strict…
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Microsoft subtly embedded the actual silhouette of Bill Gates' infamous 1977 driving offense mugshot into the default generic profile picture for Microsoft Outlook 2010.
Microsoft subtly embedded the actual silhouette of Bill Gates' infamous 1977 driving offense mugshot into the default generic profile picture for Microsoft…
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Apple originally designed the iconic trash can icon on the early Macintosh operating systems to actually bulge outward when it contained deleted files, visually indicating that the bin was full of garbage.
Apple originally designed the iconic trash can icon on the early Macintosh operating systems to actually bulge outward when it contained deleted files,…
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Gary Thuerk sent the very first commercial spam email in 1978 to a mere four hundred users on the ARPANET, inadvertently opening the floodgates to a relentless digital plague…
Gary Thuerk sent the very first commercial spam email in 1978 to a mere four hundred users on the ARPANET, inadvertently opening the floodgates to a…
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Iomega Zip drives in the late nineties became infamous for a catastrophic hardware failure known as the "click of death," where the drive would repeatedly emit a terrifying…
Iomega Zip drives in the late nineties became infamous for a catastrophic hardware failure known as the "click of death," where the drive would repeatedly…
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Space exploration company SpaceX relies almost entirely on standard, off-the-shelf Linux operating systems to run the flight controls for their wildly expensive Falcon 9 rockets.
Space exploration company SpaceX relies almost entirely on standard, off-the-shelf Linux operating systems to run the flight controls for their wildly…
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Polaroid was forced into inventing instant photography entirely because the founder's three-year-old daughter threw a tantrum about having to wait for her vacation pictures to be developed.
Polaroid was forced into inventing instant photography entirely because the founder's three-year-old daughter threw a tantrum about having to wait for her…
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Google legitimately uses a rented herd of around two hundred goats to mow the massive lawns at their global corporate headquarters in Mountain View, California.
Google legitimately uses a rented herd of around two hundred goats to mow the massive lawns at their global corporate headquarters in Mountain View,…
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Sony accidentally sold thousands of camcorders in the late 1990s that featured a night vision mode capable of seeing straight through people's clothing during daylight hours.
Sony accidentally sold thousands of camcorders in the late 1990s that featured a night vision mode capable of seeing straight through people's clothing during…
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Agbogbloshie in Ghana became one of the largest electronic waste dumps on the entire planet, taking in millions of tons of discarded appliances, smartphones, and computers from wealthier nations.
Agbogbloshie in Ghana became one of the largest electronic waste dumps on the entire planet, taking in millions of tons of discarded appliances, smartphones,…
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Internet of Things technology has advanced to the point where modern smart televisions routinely use automatic content recognition to scan every single image displayed on your screen and report it back to advertisers.
Internet of Things technology has advanced to the point where modern smart televisions routinely use automatic content recognition to scan every single image…
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Search engines like Google only index about five percent of the actual internet, leaving the remaining ninety-five percent floating in what is known as the Deep Web.
Search engines like Google only index about five percent of the actual internet, leaving the remaining ninety-five percent floating in what is known as the…
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