Fun and Interesting Facts about Technology – Part 2

1. Samsung was founded 38 years before Apple

Samsung was founded in 1938 as a grocery store while Apple was founded in 1976.

2. The first computer mouse was rectangular and made of wood

It was invented by Douglas Engelbart in 1964. The mouse consisted of a single or pair of wheels to translate motion into movement on a screen. Engelbart patented the mouse as the ‘X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System’.

First Computer Mouse was made of Wood

3. The first ever computer virus was developed in 1971, named Creeper

It was created as an experiment to see how it could spread between computer. It had no malicious intent other than to display the message ‘I’m the creeper, catch me if you can!‘.

With each new computer infected, Creeper would try to remove itself from the previous host.

4. Domain name registration was free until 1995

No one really knew what the internet was capable back then. It was in 1995 that a company called Network Solutions was granted the rights to charge people for domain names. Registration costs began at $100 per two years.

5. In 1936, Russia built a computer that ran on water

It was named ‘The Water Integrator’ and it was used to solve partial differential equations. Adjusting taps and plugs altered the flow of water and the result was measured via level of water in certain tubes.

The Water Integrator was an early analog computer built in the Soviet Union in 1936 by Vladimir Sergeevich Lukyanov. It functioned by careful manipulation of water through a room full of interconnected pipes and pumps. The water level in various chambers (with precision to fractions of a millimetre) represented stored numbers, and the rate of flow between them represented mathematical operations. This machine was capable of solving inhomogeneous differential equations.

Russia's Water Computer
6. There are computers designed for the Amish

These computers are designed without internet, video, or music capabilities.

Some Amish businesses have seen a need for word processing power, as well as access to useful organisational tools such as spreadsheets – which is how these computer were introduced.

7. The original Xbox included sound snippets of real space missions

When on the home screen, you would eventually hear transmissions from the Apollo missions.

8. The first alarm clock could only ring at one time

It was invented in 1787 by Levi Hutchins and it only rang at 4am. It wasn’t until 1847 that a French inventor patented the first adjustable alarm clock.

9. 'Baby Shark Dance' holds the record for most views on YouTube

Topping the charts at 9.9 billion views, followed by ‘Despacito’ at 7.6 billion views.

Statistics updated as of January 4th, 2022.

Baby Shark Dance
10. The search engine name, Yahoo!, is an acronym

Yahoo! stands for ‘Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle’.

11. Amazon was originally an online bookstore called Cadabra

In July 1994, Cadabra Inc. was launched. A few months later, they rebranded to be Amazon.

‘Cadabra’ was intended as a reference to the word ‘abracadabra’. Jeff Bezos’ lawyer pointed out that the reference was too obscure and people sometimes heard ‘Cadaver’ instead.

12. The most expensive phone number is 666-6666

In 2006, it sold at a charity auction for £1.5m in Qatar.

13. MySpace lost almost all data pre-2016

Due to a server migration that accidentally corrupted the files, all data uploaded between 2003 and 2015 was wiped.

14. The first website ever was called CERN

It is still available to view today at info.cern.ch

15. In 1992, the first photo was uploaded to the internet

It was a photo of a comedy band names ‘Les Horribles Cernettes’. The band was formed by employees at CERN.

16. CAPTCHA is a really long acronym

It stands for: Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.

Les Horribles Cernettes - First photo uploaded to the internet
17. The top 5 most common passwords in 2021 are weak

123456, 123456789, qwerty, password, 12345, are among the top 5 passwords.

18. There are only 21 million bitcoins that can be mined in total

As of August 2021, 18.77 million bitcoins have been mined.

19. Windows OS was supposed to be called 'Interface Manager'

Bill Gates originally wanted Windows to be call ‘Interface Manager’, however, the name Windows prevailed shortly after.

Microsoft Interface Manager
20. As of Oct 2021, there are over 1.89 billion websites on the internet

In 2016, the number of websites almost doubled – from 900 million to 1.7 billion.

21. Amazon ships approximately 1.6 million packages a day

That equates to more than 66 thousand orders per hour.

22. Over 5 billion snaps are sent on Snapchat every day

There are over 290 million daily active users.

23. Over 16% of Facebook accounts are fake or duplicates

There are roughly 2.89 billion monthly active users as of Q2 2021.

24. More people use the internet in China than anywhere else in the world

China has the most active internet users in the world. There are more than 854 million internet users in China. followed by India with 560 million.

25. Around 319.6 billion emails are sent and received each day

There are over 4 billion email users worldwide. It is reported that the average office worker receives 120 emails per day.

26. Bill Gates' house was designed using a Mac computer

Although most of the design was drawn by hand, the remainder was designed on a Mac.

Bill Gates House Design
27. TIME Magazine named the computer 'Man of the Year' in 1982
Or in this case, 'Machine of the Year'.

It marked the first time that the editors selected a non-human recipient for the award.

TIME Magazine Man of the Year 1982
28. The first YouTube video ever uploaded was titled 'Me at the Zoo'

It was uploaded on April 24, 2005 by YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim.

29. The most popular search query on Bing is 'Google'

The keyword ‘Google’ is the most popular search query on Bing, with a search volume of almost 41 million per month.

30. Computer Security Day is celebrated on November 30th

It commenced in 1988 to raise awareness about cyber security issues and is celebrated each year.

All information within this article was gathered in October 2021, statistics mentioned above may have altered slightly at time of reading.

Read our first instalment of Fun and Interesting Facts about Technology