18 Fascinating Computing Facts
Are you ready to learn new information about the computing world? Even if you consider yourself to be a tech geek or a computer whiz, you may be surprised to find that there is a great deal you can still learn about the history of Mac computers, domain names and more. Technology is always changing – read on to see how it is always changing history at the same time.
Eye-Opening Facts About Computers, Technology and More
What exciting information about computing can you still learn? Quite a bit, as it turns out. Gain a greater appreciation for the world of computers through the following 18 computing facts.
1. Google consumes 200,000 households’ energy every year. This figure is based on one official estimation.
2. There are over 6,000 new computer viruses being made every month. They are similar to biological viruses in their mutation.
3. The first mouse was made out of wood. It was built by Douglas Engelbart, an engineer, in 1964. The device was bulky and box-shaped.
4. Back in 1969, it was difficult to send information via the internet. It was so complicated that a professor in Los Angeles failed to send the word “LOGIN” to a professor in San Francisco due to the complexity of the letter “G.”
5. Internet users tend to blink only seven times per minute. The average blink rate in 20 times per minute.
6. One of the earliest passwords for computers that controlled the United States Army’s missiles was 0000000000. As if that wasn’t simple enough, some soldiers were provided with a piece of paper containing the password.
7. 1,000,000,000 website domain names are registered each month. This is one of the reasons that it is very difficult to find a unique name.
8. Bugs are named as they are because a moth caused one early computer, the Mark III, to malfunction back in 1947.
9. The “@” symbol was chosen for use in email addresses for two reasons. It means “in” in Latin and is rarely used for any other purposes.
10. The acronym CAPTCHA stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.” However, artificial intelligence is able to pass CAPTCHAs today.
11. You could not “cut and paste” on computers until 1981, when the action was created by engineer Larry Tesler. This task has save millions of hours of work for numerous people worldwide.
12. The design for Bill Gates’ house was created on a Mac. He lives there to this day.
13. The CEO of YouTube once rented her garage to the developers of Google, Sergei Brin and Larry Page, so they could create the company. Her name is Susan Wojcicki.
14. The very first mechanical computer was known as ENIAC. It was large and extremely heavy, weighing 27 tons.
15. You could originally register a website domain for free. It became a paid service to register domain names in 1995.
16. A hacker of both Pentagon and NASA computers was only 15 years old. Most computer hackers skew young even today.
17. The world’s three most common passwords are not very secure: 12345, 123456 and password. None of these are recommended for use to protect your private information and technological devices.
18. The first virus, Creeper, was created in 1971. It was circulated on ARPANET as a harmless experiment to see how far it could be spread from device to device.
Now that you know all of this fascinating information about Mac, domain names and more, you can brag to your friends and family members about your vast computer knowledge. However, make sure you keep learning all there is to know about the exciting computing world, as this is just the beginning of the wide array of facts about technology that are out there.