Self-Driving Cars are Real
Google has been road testing self-driving cars since 2012. Prototypes were tested in 2015, and public release is planned by Google, and others, in and around 2020.
Technology and Applied Sciences
Technology is a broad category that deals with the usage and knowledge of tools. Applied Sciences are the study and application of those tools.
Competitive Sports Have Always Been Popular in the U.S.
Competitive sports became popular in the United States from 1850 – 1950 because of lighting technology, mass media, and developing labor and education laws.
People Have Always Slept Through the Night
Artificial light changed sleeping habits. People used to sleep in two phases, “first sleep” and “second sleep”, with two hours of awake time between.
Benjamin Franklin Invented Bifocals
Benjamin Franklin is credited with inventing bifocals, although evidence suggests he may have been simply an early adopter of the split-bifocal lens.
Galileo Invented the Telescope
The telescope is credited to Hans Lippershey in 1608. The following year Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei began making improvements to its design.
Ada Lovelace Wrote the First Computer Program
British mathematician Ada Lovelace can be considered the mother of computer programing, as she wrote the first complex algorithm meant to be carried out by a machine. However, it is a myth that Ada Lovelace wrote “the first computer program” or was “the first computer programmer”, that title belongs to Charles Babbage.
The Antikythera Mechanism is the Oldest Analog Computer
The ancient Greek device, the Antikythera mechanism (circa 200 – 100 BC), is generally considered to be the world’s oldest known mechanical analog computer.
Virtual Reality is a New Technology
Neither Virtual Reality (VR), nor Augmented Reality (AR), nor the peripherals used (like the DataGlove or headsets) are new technologies.
Apple Macs Can’t Get Viruses or Malware
Apple Macintosh computers (Macs) are vulnerable to malware, including viruses, but infection is less common then on Microsoft Windows computers.
The First Hard Drive Was Announced in 1956
The engineers at IBM’s San Jose California laboratory invented the hard disk drive as early as 1953, but it’s first commercial use wasn’t until 1956.