Technology

The word 'Google' originated from a spelling error.

The idea was based on the mathematical number 'Googol' (1 followed by 100 zeros), but the founders registered the…

90% of the world's emails are spam.

The overwhelming majority of daily email traffic consists of unsolicited messages, scams, misleading advertising, or…

There are more cell phones than people in the world.

The rapid global adoption of smartphones has caused the number of active devices to surpass the total human…

Wi-Fi uses the same frequency as a microwave.

The 2.4 GHz frequency of routers is standard for wireless communications, being the same used by ovens to excite…

Monopoly was created against monopolies.

It was called 'The Landlord's Game' and was invented in 1903 to demonstrate the economic and social dangers of…

The 'Play' symbol indicates tape movement.

The arrow points to the right because, in the first reel and cassette recorders, the physical tape ran from left to…

Disney is the largest buyer of fireworks in the world.

The various theme parks around the world consume industrial quantities of pyrotechnics for their daily nighttime…

The shortest song in the world is 1.3 seconds long.

The song 'You Suffer', by the band Napalm Death, entered the Record Books as the shortest, consisting of a single…

The first emojis were created in Japan.

In 1999, Shigetaka Kurita designed 176 pictograms of 12x12 pixels to be used on a Japanese mobile internet platform.

Facebook was once exclusive to Harvard.

It was called 'TheFacebook' and access was restricted to university students, expanding to the general public only…

The first computer virus was called 'Creeper'.

Created in 1971 as an experiment, it moved between computers displaying the taunt: 'I'm the Creeper, catch me if you…

'Typewriter' is the longest word using only one row of keys.

You can type the word 'typewriter' using only the letters on the top row of a standard QWERTY keyboard.

The inventor of the Frisbee became a Frisbee.

Walter Morrison, who invented the modern plastic flying disc, was cremated after his death in 2010 and molded into…

The dot over an 'i' has an official name.

The tiny dot over the lowercase letters 'i' and 'j' is officially called a 'tittle' in typography.

The '@' symbol is officially called the 'commercial at'.

Historically, it was used in commerce to mean 'at the rate of'. It only became popular for email addresses in 1971 by…

In modern cars, the gas pedal controls the air, not the fuel.

When you press the pedal, you are opening the throttle plate to let more air into the engine. The car's computer…

The first-ever SMS text message simply said 'Merry Christmas'.

Sent on December 3, 1992, by engineer Neil Papworth to colleague Richard Jarvis, it was sent from a computer to a…

The first mechanical computer was designed but never built.

In the 1800s, Charles Babbage designed the 'Analytical Engine'. It was too complex for the technology of his time…

The 'Save' icon is a floppy disk.

Floppy disks haven't been used since the late 1990s, but the icon remains a universal symbol for saving data, even…

The first DVD was released in 1997 and held 4.7 GB of data.

This massive leap in storage capacity compared to CDs allowed for high-quality movies to be distributed to homes…

Erno Rubik took a month to solve his own invention.

When the Hungarian architect invented the Rubik's Cube in 1974, he didn't realize how difficult it was. It took him…

The Apollo 11 moon camera had to be custom-built.

To broadcast the moon landing, engineers developed a slow-scan television camera that could withstand extreme…

Email existed before the World Wide Web.

Electronic mail was already being sent in the 1970s on ARPANET, the precursor to the internet. Ray Tomlinson sent the…

The 'CC' in email stands for 'Carbon Copy'.

It is a direct reference to carbon paper, which was used in typewriters to make an instant duplicate of a physical…