18 Super Quick Gadget Facts!
Hey friends, Happy Wednesday!
The last time I did a special edition was for the 50th week of the newsletter where I wrote about how vacuum robots work. So I thought I’d do two special editions for December including the one you’re reading now. Let's go.
I aim to write my newsletter issues in a way one can follow them while traveling on a bus, having a coffee, waiting for food, etc.
Answer to the question I posed last week
Last week, I asked why the compartments of a refrigerator are cold even when there are no items. This is because the heat transfer first happens between the refrigerant and the air in the compartments. After which, the cool air turns the items cold through heat transfer.
18 Gadget facts
Self-cleaning water bottles emit UV-C light rays within the water bottle to damage the DNA of microorganisms in the water, making them incapable of reproduction. This makes it safer to drink.
The term "bug" in computer science originated in 1947 when a moth caused a malfunction in the Harvard computer. Engineers discovered and removed the bug from the relay. This is how we started using the term "debugging.”
A winglet is a small extension at the tip of an aircraft wing designed to reduce induced drag by preventing the formation of wingtip vortices.
QR codes were originally designed in 1994 by Denso Wave for tracking automotive parts. It’s all around the world today. It’s interesting to see how one invention helps solve a problem in a completely different avenue.
Many spacecraft have solar panels so that they can use the sun’s energy for electricity to power the spacecraft.
Bluetooth technology is named after a 10th-century Danish king, Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson. The technology was intended to unite various devices, similar to how King Bluetooth united Denmark.
Modern drones are equipped with ultrasonic or infrared sensors that emit signals and detect the reflections. By analyzing these reflections, the drone can identify obstacles in its path and adjust its flight to avoid collisions.
Wireless charging pads create an electromagnetic field between the charging pad and the device. This field induces an electric current in the device, charging the battery without the need for physical connectors.
Infrared thermometers were first used in space. NASA developed them to measure the temperature of celestial objects without physical contact.
Fitness trackers detect heartbeats using photoplethysmography (PPG), where LED lights on the device emit light into the skin, and a sensor measures the amount of light reflected. Now we can calculate the heart rate based on blood volume changes. (There is more blood flow to our wrists when our heart beats, and so more green light is absorbed as blood is red)
The "Mydoom" virus, which emerged in 2004, is considered one of the largest computer viruses. It spread through email and search engines and caused damages worth $30 billion.
The first commercially available GPS receiver, the Magellan NAV 1000, was introduced in 1989. It cost around $3,000 and was designed for marine navigation.
When you touch the screen of a touchscreen phone, it changes the voltage at that point (there are several capacitors all over the screen that you cannot see) due to the flow of charged particles in your body (our body can conduct electricity). The phone detects this voltage change and responds by executing the corresponding action or button press at the location, allowing you to interact with the screen.
The QWERTY keyboard layout, widely used today, was designed for a typewriter. Its layout aimed to prevent the jamming of early mechanical typewriters.
The fastest internet speed ever recorded is 319 terabits per second, achieved using a specially developed fiber optic cable system.
Noise-canceling headphones have built-in microphones that capture ambient noise. A processor analyzes and generates an inverted sound signal, causing destructive interference. This enables clear playback of intended music without external disturbances.
Deep Blue, a computer developed by IBM, became the first computer to defeat a world chess champion (Garry Kasparov) in 1997.
Bladeless fans do have blades; they're just hidden. The "bladeless" design refers to the absence of visible external blades, but there are blades inside the base that create the airflow.
Gadget of the week
GEMINI: Google and Alphabet recently released a large language model (LLM) Gemini to compete with OpenAI’s GPT models. Gemini Pro outperformed GPT-3.5 in 6 out of the 8 industry benchmarks. Also, it can understand not just text but also images, videos, and audio.
That’s all folks. Thank you for reading!
Have an amazing rest of the week, and take care!
Until next to next Wednesday,
Chendur
