Technology can be exciting for some people, boring and difficult for others, but everyone will agree that it is one of the most interesting and fast-developing fields in the world.
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In this article we have researched and found some of the most interesting and fun facts about technology that everyone (technophobes included) will like.
Below you will find facts and tech history that span from computers, cell phones, Internet, security, gaming and much more.
Let’s start first with the first website ever.
Table of Contents
1) This is the first website ever
In 1989, British scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web and published the first website ever which can be found here.
Tim worked for CERN at the time. He hosted the first website on his NeXT Computer with the goal of allowing scientists and universities to share information with ease.
This archaic website described the World Wide Web (W3) project itself and was the start of the Internet Era as we know it today.
2) First cellular/mobile phone ever
Motorola released the world’s first mobile phone, the DynaTAC 8000x, in 1983.
This portable phone cost $3,995 upon release and offered 30 minutes of talk time.
Charging the device required 10 hours, and it could only store 30 phone numbers in memory.
Unsurprisingly, few people purchased the device, but it marked a major breakthrough in mobile technology.
Nowadays, cell phones and smartphones (now matter how cheap or expensive they are) are an indispensable gadget in peoples’ lives.
3) The Most Powerful Supercomputer in The World
Riken Research Lab and Fujitsu developed the Fugaku supercomputer. In June 2020, Fugaku dethroned IBM’s Summit supercomputer as the most powerful in the world.
This supercomputer broke the record for computations per second (TeraFLOPS) and various other supercomputer metrics.
Fugaku offers 442,000 TeraFLOPS of performance while a Playstation 5 offers 10.2 TeraFLOPS.
4) The First Computer Mouse
Colleagues at SRI Built The First Computer Mouse.
Douglas Engelbart began development of the computer mouse in the early 1960s.
Bill English, a colleague of Engelbart at SRI, built the original prototype in 1964.
By 1967, Engelbart filed a patent for the mouse, which was issued in 1970.
SRI licensed the technology to other companies, but the computer mouse didn’t reach widespread commercial production until 1984.
The original mouse relied on one or two wheels to record motion and a single button for clicking.
5) IT Professionals Stress Out About Technology Just Like Everyone Else
Most people think of IT professionals as experts on hardware and software.
31% of them rated “keeping up with technology” as the biggest challenge in the workplace, though.
Unsurprisingly, IT professionals constantly deal with new hardware and software. New products and services launch in the IT field every single day.
IT professionals that work with multiple companies or clients may find themselves using dozens of different hardware and software solutions.
For high-level IT professionals, “impact on work-life balance” takes precedence over technology woes.
Many IT professionals pointed out they feel like they’re connected to work 24/7 but wouldn’t choose another profession.
6) The First Computer ever (ENIAC)
The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) made history as the first computer in the world (which was electronic programmable).
Development of the computer completed in 1945, and the computer entered service in December of that year.
ENIAC could displace the computational power of 2,400 human beings at a cost of $500,000.
ENIC relied on octal-base radio tubes to function. However, these tubes constantly burned out on a daily basis and required replacement.
This means that ENIAC ran about 50% of the time and experienced downtime for tube replacements otherwise.
More specialized and durable tubes eventually became available, leading to failures every one to two days.
7) Wikipedia is run and maintained by thousands of humans and hundreds of bots
Everyone knows Wikipedia is powered by thousands of human contributors. On the other hand, most people don’t realize hundreds of bots contribute to the effort, too.
ClueBot NG catches vandalism on Wikipedia pages almost in real time. A variety of other bots contribute standardized data to the online encyclopedia.
This combination of humans and bots ensures Wikipedia runs without any problems 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.
8) Google’s Name Comes From A Spelling Error
Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded Google in 1998. 70% of search queries worldwide run through Google’s search engine.
On occasion, people wonder where the name Google comes from, and its origin story comes from a spelling error.
A “googol”, in mathematics, is the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. Page originally wanted to call the search engine googol.
By the time the company formed, they switched the name to Google. Perhaps the name is easier to spell and looks more friendly on the screen.
People perform billions of search queries each day through Google. It’s such a popular name that it became a verb years ago among users.
In fact, most people refer to running an internet search as “Googling” something.
9) Original name of Microsoft Windows was “Interface Manager”
In 1981, Microsoft began development of a program called “Interface Manager”. Most people won’t recognize that name because Interface Manager became Windows in 1983.
Microsoft released Windows 1.0 in 1985, and it’s now the most common operating system in the world. It’s hard to believe the OS would be successful with its original name.
Interface Manager perfectly describes what Windows would become. In the marketing department, making that name sound interesting or useful would have been impossible.
Everyone recognizes Windows, and millions of computers run on Windows 10 today. Interface Manager should be considered a work in progress name and something best left in the past.
10) What Was The First Apple Logo?
Everyone recognizes the Apple logo today, which is unsurprisingly an apple.
Ronald Wayne, Apple Computer Co co-founder, designed the original Apple logo when started the company.
In the 1970s, Apple’s logo featured Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree. Newton discovered gravity when an apple fell on his head, hence the symbolism of the logo.
A quote from William Wordsworth lined the frame of the Apple logo. Apple has since adopted its more common “bitten-apple” based logo.
Nonetheless, few people could identify the company’s original logo if given a multiple choice quiz. The modern, simplified logo for the company right now exemplifies everything Apple is about today.
11) Which is older email or www?
Most people don’t realize email came long before the World Wide Web.
Before the web came along, email worked much differently than today.
Users needed to dial a rotary phone to connect to Micronet and access the email webpage. Academic researchers and government entities used email at the time.
Consumer usage simply didn’t exist until the internet came to fruition.
Considering what email is today, its original form is archaic and almost confusing to see in action. For that reason, not a single person wants to return to email systems of the past.
12) Domain Names were free before 1995
Domain name registration often costs a few dollars (or more) these days. Before 1995, registering a domain didn’t cost a penny, though.
The National Science Foundation gave Network Solutions permission to charge for domain registration that year. Two-year registration for a domain initially cost $100.
Prices trended downward for .COM domains after that. Available, unparked domains often cost $20 to $30 for a two-year registration.
Purchasing a parked or popular domain name can, of course, cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
By 1995, only a few thousand domain names existed, so not many companies received free domains.
13) What Was The First Ever .COM Domain?
Symbolics Inc. registered the first .COM domain on March 15, 1985. For obvious reasons, the company chose to register Symbolics.com on the World Wide Web.
Nordu.net was technically the first domain name ever but didn’t go through the registration process. Less than 15,000 domains had been registered to the web in 1992.
In 2010, more than 200 million domains were registered to .COM alone. Dozens of other domain names exist, and millions of websites are registered with each one.
No domain name is going to come close to dethroning .COM anytime soon, if ever. Regardless, Symbolics.com will hold its place in history.
14) Google Was Put On Sale In 1999
In 1999, Yahoo and Excite held the top spots in search engine popularity. Larry Page pitched a sale of Google to Excite CEO George Bell.
Page wanted $750,000 and 1% of Excite to let go of his fledgling search engine. At the time, Bell considered the offer competitive except for one detail:
Page wanted Excite to ditch its search engine technology and adopt Google’s system.
Bell declined the offer and threw himself into internet lore. In 2021, most people don’t know the name Excite, but everyone knows and uses Google. The company is now worth over $300 billion dollars.
15) These Billion Dollar IT Companies Started In A Garage
The tech industry is quite unique compared to other industries. Some of the largest names in tech actually originated in founders’ garages.
In 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen worked from their garage space to launch Microsoft.
Google began as a side project of Larry Page and Sergey Brin in a garage they rented in 1998.
Other companies like Apple, Amazon, and countless others began in garages as well.
Perhaps there’s something about garages that spark creativity or productivity.
Either way, the tech industry’s giants often come from humble beginnings. Now they’re worth billions of dollars each and counting.
16) This Is The World’s Largest Hard Disk Drive (HDD)
Seagate launched the Exos 20+ hard disk drive (HDD) in December 2020. The HDD utilizes HAMR and MACH2 technologies to offer 20 terabytes (TB) of storage.
Typically, home computers utilize hard drives ranging from 1TB to 4TB. Businesses and data centers may use significantly larger hard drives.
It’s an impressive development from Seagate. The company recently launched 18TB hard drives to the market as well.
Lately, companies have released larger and larger hard drives with improved performance.
Solid state drives (SSDs) continue to grow in popularity, but the HDD remains a competitive alternative, especially for larger capacities.
17) How Many Computer Viruses Are Found Each Day?
AV-TEST Institute identifies more than 350,000 new viruses and malicious programs each day.
This includes malware, viruses, and unwanted applications. Millions of existing viruses continue to be identified every single day as well.
In 2021, AV-TEST estimates a total number of 1191+ million total malware out there.
In fact, security researchers and antivirus software providers cannot keep up with the onslaught of new viruses.
Creating and releasing a new virus requires little capital and little effort. It can take antivirus software months to catch up with current viruses.
Nonetheless, the importance of a capable antivirus program cannot be overstated. Consumers need to protect themselves from viruses whenever possible.
18) Amazon Alexa stores your conversations with the device
By now, millions of households feature an Amazon Echo device or other Amazon smart devices based on Alexa.
These smart assistants provide convenience and functionality in countless ways. Not everyone realizes these devices store conversations with the device in the cloud, though.
After each interaction, Amazon stores these conversations in the cloud indefinitely. An Echo device doesn’t record every conversation in the Ether.
Each Echo relies on a wake word, like “Alexa”, to start recording conversations. Only the commands spoken to the device are stored by Amazon and are used purely for making the AI better.
Users can and should delete these conversations in their device settings from time to time. Doing so provides added security and protection from data hackers.
19) How Much Does GPS Cost To Manage and Run?
The average person doesn’t know GPS is funded by American taxpayers. Millions of people use GPS for navigation and location tracking each day.
In 2020, $1.71 billion was required to fund the core program in the United States. The total budget for GPS tends to trend upwards as the system is improved and updated.
For 2021, the budget requested to run the GPS program and infrastructure is over $1.8 billion.
Currently, the Department of Defense manages GPS as a whole. Extra funding is provided by the Department of Transportation for civilian upgrades to the system.
US law ensures that GPS is available free of cost for direct users with no plans to privatize GPS in the future.
20) How Many Websites Exist On The World Wide Web?
More than 1.5 billion websites can be found on the World Wide Web today. The web reached one billion websites for the first time in September 2014.
Surprisingly enough, about three-quarters of all websites are inactive, meaning there are about 200 million active websites. Inactive websites include parked domains and similar situations.
21) IBM 305 RAMAC: The Supercomputer That Weighed A Ton (Literally)
In September 1956, IBM announced and released the IBM 305 RAMAC supercomputer.
It was the first supercomputer to use magnetic disk storage. More than 1,000 systems were built and sold before the 305 RAMAC became obsolete in 1962.
The machine weighed more than a ton and required multiple people to setup or move.
IBM charged companies and organizations $3,200 per month for the IBM 305. That amounts to nearly $30,000 in today’s dollars.
For that reason, government organizations and large corporations were the main customers of IBM’s supercomputer.
Subsequent supercomputers were released by IBM. The company releases a new supercomputer every few years on average.
22) The First Television Station
General Electric broadcast the first television station from a building in Schenectady, NY.
Viewers watched W2XB, better known as WGY Television, in amazement. During each broadcast, various forms of content were played over the airwaves.
The televisions and television stations of 1928 looked and worked quite differently than they do nowadays.
23) How much digital data has been created so far in the world?
In 2018, the Global Datasphere amounted to 33 Zettabytes of data. Nearly 60% of that data was stored on traditional hard drives.
IDC predicts the Datasphere will explode to 175 Zettabytes by 2025. Cloud storage continues to lead growth in data storage solutions as time goes on. By 2025, nearly 50% of the world’s data may exist in the cloud.
China should soon become the country with the most cumulative data. Growth in the country is expected to outpace the rest of the world by 30%.
As time goes on, cumulative data storage should continue to explode in growth around the world.
24) Study Reveals Surgeons Need To Play More Video Games, But Why?
Beth Israel Medical Center in New York recently carried out a study with 33 of its surgeons.
The surgeons took a surgical skills test in Laparoscopy that lasted almost two days. In the study, researchers tracked performance in the skills test on an individual level. They then recorded each surgeon’s habits in relation to playing video games.
Nine of 33 surgeons played an average of three hours of games per week. They outscored surgeons that never played video games in various categories.
For instance, they committed 37 percent fewer errors and completed the test 27 percent faster.
The study concluded a strong correlation exists between surgical skill and Laparoscopy performance.
25) The first cell phone call
The first mobile phone call took place on April 3, 1973. Martin Cooper, a Motorola researcher, placed the call on a prototype device.
After dialing the phone number, his device connected to a base station, which then connected to the landline system of AT&T. Cooper called his biggest rival at AT&T, Joel Engel.
Cooper kept the conversation both brief and modest. He simply told Engel he had made the call from a bona fide mobile phone.
From there, Cooper helped Motorola and other companies usher in the age of the mobile phone a few years later.
26) 1 Million Recycled Laptops = Energy Savings of 3,500 Homes
Most laptops reach landfills rather than the recycling bin. Americans need to recycle as much electronic waste as possible, including laptops.
Doing so comes with significant energy savings. For example, a million recycled laptops save enough energy to power 3,500 homes for a year.
That’s an incredible energy savings and cuts back on further production of new laptops from new materials.
27) Each year, Americans dump cell phones containing worth over $60 million in gold and silver.
E-waste comprises 2% of the waste in America’s landfills. Shockingly, 70% of all toxic waste is comprised of e-waste.
Americans throw away 14 million mobile devices each year. Few people realize these devices contain precious metals like gold and silver.
On an annual basis, Americans toss $60 million in gold and silver straight into the trash.
28) Top 5 best selling video games of all times
Minecraft is the best-selling video game of all time by a large margin. The game released in November 2011 and has sold 200 million units.
People of all ages love the crafting and survival game. Meanwhile, Grand Theft Auto V holds the number two spot with 140 million units sold.
Quite a few people log on every week to partake in this regularly updated open world title. Both titles include sales across multiple platforms.
On the other hand, Tetris holds the number three spot from mobile sales alone. The classic game has amassed 100 million in sales since its release in 2006.
Wii Sports lands at number four and features sales on one platform as well.
Finally, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds hit 70 million in sales across multiple platforms to round out the top five best-selling games list.
Every title on the list saw initial release between 2006 and 2017.
29) “123456” is the most used password in the world!!
NordPass released the list of most common passwords of 2020. Over 2.5 million users decided to use the password “123456”.
Unsurprisingly, that’s a weak password that nobody should ever use. It was cracked over 23.5 million times in 2020.
Hackers can crack the password in less than a second due to its sequential and common nature.
For better or worse, NordPass lists “12345” as the most common password from 2019.
That password fell to number eight on the company’s list for 2020. The most secure passwords include letters, numbers, and symbols. Also, a longer password is always more difficult to crack than a shorter one.
30) This man threw a hard drive loaded with 7500 bitcoins into the trash
James Howells mined 7,500 Bitcoins in 2009 and stored them on a hard drive. At that point, Bitcoin’s value amounted to almost nothing.
The cryptocurrency slowly started to grow in value after a few years, and Howells thought he owned a small fortune.
Only then did he realize he accidentally threw away the hard drive sometime in 2013.
Howells lives in Wales and contacted the Newport City Council to excavate the local landfill.
He offered the City Council over $70 million, if the hard drive is recovered. Based on today’s rate, the hard drive is worth more than $375 million.
The City council balked at the offer due to environmental regulations and required cost.
Sources
1) Cern 2) Wikipedia 3) Weforum 4) SRI 7) BBC 8) Britannica 17) AV-TEST 19) GPS GOV 20) Internet Live Stats 23) Seagate 24) Reuters 26) EPA GOV 27) Business Insider 29) Nordpass 30) CNN
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