Technology

In 1995, Pierre Omidyar created 'AuctionWeb' (later renamed eBay) and listed a broken laser pointer as a test. It sold for $14.83. When he contacted the buyer to confirm they understood it was broken, the buyer replied: 'I'm a collector of broken laser pointers.' Omidyar called it the moment he realized there was an online market for everything.

In 1787, clockmaker Levi Hutchins of Concord, New Hampshire, built the first known personal alarm clock. However, it could only ring at 4:00 AM — the time he needed to wake up for work. He never patented or commercialized the invention. The first adjustable alarm clock was patented in 1847 by Antoine Redier in France.

In 1989, British engineer Tim Berners-Lee proposed a hypertext information system at CERN to help scientists share data. The first website went live in 1991. Rather than patent the technology and become a billionaire, he and CERN released it into the public domain in 1993. Experts estimate his invention would have been worth trillions.

While English calls it the 'at sign', other languages gave it vivid nicknames: Italian and French call it 'snail' (chiocciola/escargot), Dutch and German say 'monkey tail' (aapstaart/Klammeraffe), Finnish and Swedish call it 'elephant trunk' (snabel-a), Russian uses 'dog' (sobaka), and Greek says 'little duck' (papaki).

The '#' symbol's formal name is 'octothorpe' — 'octo' referring to its 8 line endpoints. It is also known as 'hash', 'pound sign', and 'number sign'. Other languages have creative names for it: 'snail' in Italian, 'monkey tail' in Dutch, 'elephant trunk' in Finnish, and 'little duck' in Greek. Twitter popularized 'hashtag' after 2007.

In 1957, Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes sealed two shower curtains together with trapped air bubbles, intending to create a trendy 3D textured wallpaper. It failed as wallpaper and as greenhouse insulation. IBM eventually discovered its use as protective packaging for the IBM 1401 computer, launching the packaging industry as we know it.

On June 26, 1974, at a Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, a pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum became the first product in history to have its barcode scanned at a checkout. The scanner used laser technology from NCR Corporation. That historic pack of gum is now displayed in the Smithsonian Institution.

Hedy Lamarr, one of Hollywood's biggest stars in the 1930s–40s, was also a self-taught inventor. During World War II, she co-invented (with composer George Antheil) a radio guidance system for torpedoes using frequency-hopping spread spectrum — a technique that changes radio frequencies rapidly to avoid jamming. The US Navy initially ignored the patent. Decades later, this technology became the foundation for Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth. Lamarr received the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award in 1997.

Japan's bullet train network, the Shinkansen, is renowned for an average delay of just 54 seconds per train — including delays caused by natural disasters. Operating since 1964, it has an exceptional safety record with zero passenger fatalities from crashes. The trains are so precisely timed that workers use stopwatches and apologize publicly for delays over one minute.

Japan has one of the highest concentrations of vending machines in the world — roughly one machine for every 23 people. These machines dispense not just drinks and snacks, but also hot meals, umbrellas, fresh flowers, books, and even live insects. The vending machine culture reflects Japan's embrace of convenience and technology.