No matter how much you learn, there is always something new you come to know every day. In fact, a single life seems not enough to gain all the knowledge of this world. But you can take as much as you can for your own good, which is fair enough on your part. Technology is a powerful tool that has seen more advancements over the past few years. Not only does technology save you money, but it also saves us time by making your lives easier. So whether you are here for the sake of knowledge or you just familiarizing yourself with surprising and factual data is your forte, these astounding facts about technology are just for you.
- The name Google of the world’s number one Search Engine as the world knows it today is inspired by Googol (a number equivalent to Ten raised to the power of a hundred). Googol is a name chosen for a number with 100 zeros after 1. So Google simply signifies that it can generate the same number of results or web pages when you search for something. For example, in “Gooooogle,” the Os between the Gs indicate the number of web pages displaying the searched query.
- In 2008, when Google became number 1 in the world’s favorite brands, they managed to steal that title from Apple only after 21 Days.
- When IBM launched its first hard drive in 1956, its measured data storage capacity was just 3.75 MB.
- Smartphones have been around for longer than anyone realizes. Nokia released its first digital phone (9000 Communicator) with both phone and PDA features in 1996.
- For approximately 30 years, scientists have been looking for a permanent replacement for rare earth elements used in many modern-day electronics like smartphones, tablets, flat-screen TVs, and more. They’re called Rare Earth Elements because they’re not actually that rare, but the mining process is harmful to the environment, so it’s cheaper to use what we already have than mine for replacements. For example, Red Mercury.
- The internal parts of our smartphones are manufactured at extreme temperatures known as “cold welding.” During cold welding, pieces of metal or Glass are constructed at about 1000 degrees Celsius before being smashed together into a single piece with a hammer mill which smashes them down to a pulp to fit them into the tiny little spaces we find in our phones.
- Google’s “Google Glass” project was initially intended for military use and was called “Augmented Reality Contact Lenses.” However, it was later rebranded as a consumer product because of heavy criticism about its possible uses in warfare.
- The first digital camera was created by Kodak, with 1MP resolution, and saved photos as raw data to floppy disks. These were good enough for email but not much else.
- Most smartphones today come with auto-focus cameras that are so advanced that they’ll even focus on an object behind the subject you’re photographing. This is very annoying if it isn’t what you wanted. We have it because of an old law written before auto-focus cameras were invented, requiring all phones to be able to focus on objects at any distance. How ironic is it.
- Nokia holds the record for most phones sold in a single year- 400 million units in 2010. To put that into perspective, Apple sold 150 million iPhones, and Samsung sold 250 million smartphones in 2014, and they’re considered leaders today.
- J-SH04, the world’s first camera phone was launched by Sharp & J-Phone (now Softbank) way back in 2000, but nobody bought it because image quality left much to be desired. It only became popular when Nokia released its 5MP N90 model later that same year.
- The first mobile phone with a touchscreen was the IBM Simon Personal Communicator, released in 1994 using an operating system that would later inspire Apple’s iOS (then known as “Pocket OS”). It had email support, fax support, and even games like Brick Breaker.
- If you’ve ever used your smartphone to take photos of documents, receipts, etc., for work or study, you might not want to hear this, but there’s a chance it has saved that stuff into its internal storage before uploading them automatically to Google Drive/OneDrive without asking permission. That’s because most modern smartphones ship with code inside that uploads all your files to Dropbox by default and Google by default for Android phones.
- If you own an iPhone or iPad and want to change your Apple ID email address legally, there’s a trick to do so without having to erase and reinstall all your apps. Instead changing it, just launch any app that requires the original ID (so not Mail), then press “back” until you’re back at the home screen. Then go to Settings> iCloud and set up your new account there. Finally, open Settings>Store and sign out, then sign back in again with the new account – voila! It’s possible because Apple understands its products are complicated for regular people to use.
- If you drop your smartphone in water (or any liquid, for that matter), don’t turn it on – this is the worst thing you can do because current actually flows inside the device and fries everything. Instead, dry it off thoroughly, then remove the battery & SIM card ASAP before putting it into a bag of rice to absorb all the moisture (yes, really).
- The Nokia 3310 aka, “The Indestructible Phone,” actually wasn’t that indestructible. There was an episode of Top Gear where Jeremy Clarkson had one run over by several cars, and he still called someone with it later that day. However, they didn’t mention that another guy at Microsoft who tested these phones found a way to break it permanently by stabbing it with a pencil.
- The iPhone wasn’t the first phone to use a capacitive touchscreen; that accolade goes to IBM. In 1992 they released their first Simon Personal Communicator, which had a stylus you could take out of its housing and use on the screen to draw things. It was actually quite popular at the time, but because people didn’t want two devices, they went for simpler smartphones instead, which is kind of ironic now, isn’t it?
- The idea for touchscreen computers didn’t start with the iPhone. In 1985, Apple also filed a patent for it. Still, because touchscreens weren’t popular at the time, nobody cared about it until Steve Jobs returned to Apple years later and made his first keynote speech where he showed off handheld devices that could transform into laptops, media players, and even phones. And the audience went wild.
- You might have heard that BlackBerry once dominated the smartphone market before dying from the face cancer known as Android and iOS. However, you probably don’t know that the idea for smartphones started back in 1992 at Bellcore Laboratories, a research center owned by several telephone companies. The star engineer’s name was J C Reynolds, and he demonstrated his prototype known as Simon, which featured apps such as fax machines and calculators, not too far from today’s iPhones.
- Apple’s iPhone X uses 2 batteries inside; one put into each half of the phone case to maximize its potential capacity. Unfortunately, a larger battery can’t fit into such a small space, so they had to split it up.
- Nintendo has been around for over 100 years and made many consoles dating back to the 1980s with games like Tetris and Duck Hunt. But what you might not know is that their very first product ever designed was the Ultra Hand, a T-shaped pole with three fist-like balls at the end. You could attach this to your arm and try to grab stuff, because, why not? Unfortunately, it was only sold for about one year before it discontinued because everyone hated it.
- Before Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi (the founder) used to work for Hanafuda cards, where they would print out new designs every month so people could buy them. This involved testing them by playing the game on his own time, until he started losing all the time, which meant he had to make changes to make it harder somehow. And thus, Yahtzee was born.
- The first mobile phone call was made by Dr. Martin Cooper, head of Motorola’s Communications Systems, in April 1973. He walked out of his office, talked to the rival researcher at Bell Labs (the maker of AT&T), and said, “Joel? This is Marty… I’m calling you from a cellular phone – a real handheld portable cellular phone!” Then he hung up because that was all he wanted to say for proof that they had done it.
- Technology has come a long way since then, obviously. Still, many people think touchscreen phones are relatively new when in fact, touchscreen devices have been around since at least 1965 when Doctor Sam Hurst started researching his own Membrane Keyboard Technology, prompting a US to patent in 1970.
- Technology is still advancing even today with virtual reality headsets and voice assistants but let’s not forget where all this started, one day when someone had an idea that they wanted to share with the world and everyone else could improve on it until we got here. Technology has come a long way since then. Still, many people think touchscreen phones are relatively new when touchscreen devices have been around since at least 1965 when Doctor Sam Hurst started researching his own Membrane Keyboard Technology, prompting the US to patent in 1970.