TGIF, here are some fun and quirky facts about technology before we're going into a long weekend:
- The first alarm clock only rings at 4 a.m - The first alarm clock was invented by Levi Hutchins in 1787. It was designed to ring only at 4 a.m. and was intended to wake up the inventor himself, not others. The alarm clock has come a long way since then and has become an essential part of our daily lives.
- Nokiaās first product is toilet paper - Nokia, the Finnish multinational corporation, was founded in 1865 as a single paper mill operation. The company expanded into several different products through the 19th century. One of its first products was indeed toilet paper, which was a practical response to the sanitation needs of the time.
- The āfoxā in the Mozilla Firefox logo is a red panda - The Mozilla Firefox logo features a red panda, not a fox. The red panda is a small, arboreal mammal native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China. The red panda is also known as the lesser panda, the red bear-cat, and the firefox. The name āFirefoxā was chosen because it is a unique and memorable name that is easy to spell and pronounce.
- Googleās name was the fruit of a spelling mistake - The name āGoogleā was originally intended to be āGoogolā, which is a mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. The founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, liked the name āGoogolā but misspelled it as āGoogleā while checking the domain name availability.
- The worldās first computer mouse was wooden, not plastic - The first computer mouse was invented by Douglas Engelbart in 1964 as part of an ARPA-funded experiment to find better ways for computer users to interact with computers 1. The first prototype was a one-button mouse in a wooden shell on wheels
- Although GPS is free to use for the world, it costs $2 million per day to operate - GPS (Global Positioning System) is indeed free for everyone to use worldwide. It provides critical positioning capabilities to military, civil, and commercial users around the world. However, its daily operation comes at a significant cost, with approximately $2 million dollars required to keep the GPS system up and running each day. The cost of operating the GPS system is covered by the American tax revenue. Thank you America!
