FACTS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY YOU MAY NOT HAVE KNOWN

Prior to 1995, domain names were FREE; however, that year, the US National Science Foundation authorized businesses to charge for registration for the first time. Considered domain names to be costly? Well, they began at $100 for two years, which, adjusted for inflation, is roughly $180 now.

Pigeons: A 2010 experiment in rural England with pigeons showed that they could send data more quickly than the internet. The same 4 GB file took 90 minutes to download using a router, but a pigeon carrying a 4 GB USB stick with the file and taking off from the same position as the server... took 60 minutes to receive and upload to the same-specified PC, demonstrating a 30 minute difference in internet speed.

Googol, a number that is 10 to the power of 100, was the first name proposed for Google. However, the founders preferred the name and obviously persisted with it after the name Google was registered despite a spelling mistake.

Apple: If you smoke and use Apple products, your Apple warranties are probably void. Yes, you really should read the fine print. Many customers who have returned their brand-new laptops and computers to the manufacturer for a warranty repair have been left stunned when they are informed that they have been in violation of their warranty and will have to pay for the repair because they smoked while using the device.

Technology degrees: Before students even graduate, the majority of technology degrees are outdated. Since the amount of information relating to technology doubles roughly every two years, a student may be up to six years behind in their understanding by the time they complete their degree.

Reading: Despite the fact that we spend more time on computers and mobile devices than on books or newspapers, we spend more time reading from screens. No, it actually takes us 10% longer to read the same text on a screen than on paper, typically because there are fewer interruptions when reading on a screen.

Think you spend too much time playing video games in front of the computer? The typical 21-year-old would have played video games for over 208 days, or at least 5,000 hours, by that point.

Gold and silver, together with other precious metals, amount to hundreds of millions of pounds per year that are discarded into landfills. These metals are primarily found in cellphones and other gadgets that we no longer use. Sadly, even if it is delivered to a recycling facility, if recycling is too expensive or complicated, it will end up in a landfill.

What are you doing wrong with USB devices? According to a survey, 86% of us are! How many of you continue to try to plug in your USB devices backwards, come on? Yes, I had the same thought.

Internet: Dial-up internet is still used by more than 1.5 million Americans. Many rural areas in the United States still rely on outdated technology to meet their demands, despite Elon Musk's brand-new, lightning-fast satellite internet Starlink. Many others claim they simply wouldn't be able to afford the monthly contracts for the faster internet, despite the fact that there are government efforts to address this gap.

Every communication you have with Amazon Alexa about yourself or your friends is permanently saved in the cloud. It's a scary concept to consider that friends or family members might be coerced into signing a contract with Amazon that they hadn't read, approved of, or were probably even made aware of.

Fastest internet: According to its UK and Japanese-based inventors, the fastest internet could download the full Netflix library in under a second and is 17,800 times quicker than the present conventional high speed internet connection! The fastest internet connections now range from 500 to 1000 Mbps, whereas this technology has a record-breaking data transfer rate of 178 terabits per second.

Viruses: Every day, between 300,000 and 400,000 pieces of malware and viruses are discovered, with up to 90% of emails including some sort of infection.

Emails: We all receive a ton of emails, but not all of them are scams. Most unscrupulous spam is filtered out to the junk/spam folders, with the occasional phishing email slipping through the cracks. The vast majority of what we then refer to as spam is typically sent by people or businesses trying to sell us products that we obviously don't want. Even with that in mind, it still baffles me that out of every 12 million emails sent, just one gets a response.

More people are using Facebook to discover methods to argue with their partners or learn that their partner is being unfaithful, which has led to more than 30% of divorces.

VCR: The first VCR had a keyboard the size of a church organ. The Ampex Corporation started developing on a technology that recorded onto magnetic tape in 1938. After many years and significant financial investment, the project was ready to be dropped until they made one last, desperate try that resulted in their breakthrough. The Ampex VRX-1000 made waves when it was introduced in 1956, but aside from its enormous size, the Ampex was held back by its outrageous price of $50,000, or $502,000 in today's dollars.

Garages: On a low budget, Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft all got their start in garages.

Photographs: Have you ever wondered why individuals in photographs from the 1800s appear so miserable? If you had to remain still for longer than eight hours, you would likely feel the same way. Yes, the first photographs taken in the 1820s required the subject or object to remain still for 8 hours. Therefore, if you initially believed that this was because it was customary to pose seriously for photographs at the time, this may not have been the case. Trying to maintain a constant smile for more than an hour is far more difficult than making no facial expressions at all.

FireFox: The fox in the FireFox logo isn't actually a fox; rather, it's a kind of cat called a red panda, which looks more like a bear than a fox.

Insurance: Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, and Neil Armstrong all signed a ton of posters, pictures, and other memorabilia before they took off so that their families would have a way to make money if things didn't go as planned. The Apollo 11 astronauts couldn't afford life insurance because the risks were unavoidably very high and no insurer really wanted to take that risk.

Toilets: A smartphone is more accessible to people worldwide than a toilet. As astonishing as it may seem, the fact that just 4.5 billion of the estimated 7.7 billion people on the earth have access to a toilet outweighs the 6 billion who own a phone.