Best and Popular
Inventions

The slide rule, also known colloquially in the United States as a slipstick,is a mechanical analog computer.The slide rule is used primarily for multiplication and division, and also for functions such as roots, logarithms and trigonometry, but is not normally used for addition or subtraction. Though similar in name and appearance to a standard ruler, the slide rule i.. Read More..

A mechanical calculator, or calculating machine, was a mechanical device used to perform automatically the basic operations of arithmetic. Most mechanical calculators were comparable in size to small desktop computers and have been rendered obsolete by the advent of the electronic calculator.The 17th century marked the beginning of the history of mechanical calculator.. Read More..

A punched card, punch card, IBM card, or Hollerith card is a piece of stiff paper that contained either commands for controlling automated machinery or data for data processing applications. Both commands and data were represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions.Now obsolete as a recording medium, punched cards were widely used throughout t.. Read More..

Braille was invented by a nineteenth century man named Louis Braille, who was completely blind.Braille’s story starts when he was three years old. He was playing in his father’s shop in Coupvray, France, and somehow managed to injure his eye. Though he was offered the best medical attention available at the time, it wasn’t enough—an infection soon developed an.. Read More..

The World Wide Web (WWW, W3) is an information system of interlinked hypertext documents that are accessed via the Internet.It has also commonly become known simply as the Web. Individual document pages on the World Wide Web are called web pages and are accessed with a software application running on the user's computer, commonly called a web browser. Web pages ma.. Read More..

A cable modem is a type of network bridge and modem that provides bi-directional data communication via radio frequency channels on a hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) and RFoG infrastructure. Cable modems are primarily used to deliver broadband Internet access in the form of cable Internet, taking advantage of the high bandwidth of a HFC and RFoG network. They are commonly .. Read More..

A web search engine is a software system that is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. The search results are generally presented in a line of results often referred to as search engine results pages (SERPs). The information may be a mix of web pages, images, and other types of files. Some search engines also mine data available in databases or ope.. Read More..

3D computer graphics (in contrast to 2D computer graphics) are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images. Such images may be stored for viewing later or displayed in real-time.3D computer graphics rely on many of the same al.. Read More..

In machine learning, artificial neural networks (ANNs) are a family of statistical learning algorithms inspired by biological neural networks (the central nervous systems of animals, in particular the brain) and are used to estimate or approximate functions that can depend on a large number of inputs and are generally unknown. Artificial neural networks are generally .. Read More..

A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data relating to the object to which it is attached. Originally barcodes systematically represented data by varying the widths and spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or one-dimensional (1D). Later they evolved into rectangles, dots, hexagons and other geometric patterns in two dimensi.. Read More..

Animation is the process of creating motion and shape change illusion by means of the rapid display of a sequence of static images that minimally differ from each other. The illusion—as in motion pictures in general—is thought to rely on the phi phenomenon. Animators are artists who specialize in the creation of animation.History:The first film that was recorded o.. Read More..

The ethernet is a system for connecting computers within a building using hardware running from machine to machine. It differs from the Internet, which connects remotely located computers by telephone line, software protocol and some hardware. Ethernet uses some software (borrowed from Internet Protocol), but the connecting hardware was the basis of the patent (#4,063.. Read More..

JavaScript is a dynamic programming language.It is most commonly used as part of web browsers, whose implementations allow client-side scripts to interact with the user, control the browser, communicate asynchronously, and alter the document content that is displayed.It is also used in server-side network programming with runtime environments such as Node.js, game dev.. Read More..

In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that detects two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer on a display, which allows for fine control of a graphical user interface.Physically, a mouse consists of an object held in one's hand, with one or more buttons. Mice often also feature other element.. Read More..

A digital signature is a mathematical scheme for demonstrating the authenticity of a digital message or document. A valid digital signature gives a recipient reason to believe that the message was created by a known sender, such that the sender cannot deny having sent the message (authentication and non-repudiation) and that the message was not altered in transit (int.. Read More..

Using cryptography, ecash was conceived by David Chaum as an anonymous electronic money or electronic cash system in 1983. It was realized through his corporation Digicash and used as micropayment system at one US bank from 1995 to 1998.Chaum started the company DigiCash in 1989 with "ecash" as its trademark. He raised $10 million from David Marquardt and by 1997 Nich.. Read More..

Konrad Zuse's greatest achievement was the world's first programmable computer; the functional program-controlled during-complete Z3 became operational in May 1941. Thanks to this machine and its predecessors, Zuse has often been regarded as the inventor of the modern computer.Z1 The Z1 was a mechanical computer designed by Konrad Zuse from 1935 to 1936 and b.. Read More..

A Venn diagram or set diagram is a diagram that shows all possible logical relations between a finite collection of different sets. Venn diagrams were conceived around 1880 by John Venn. They are used to teach elementary set theory, as well as illustrate simple set relationships in probability, logic, statistics, linguistics and computer science.In 1886, Venn publishe.. Read More..

Drum memory was a magnetic data storage device invented by Gustav Tauschek in 1932 in Austria.It was widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s as computer memory.Drum memory, an early form of computer memory that actualy did use a drum as a working part with data loaded to the drum. The drum was a metal cylinder coated with recordable ferromagnetic material. The dru.. Read More..

Facebook is an online social networking service headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Its website was launched on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.The founders had initially limited the website's membership to Harvard student.. Read More..

Ant robotics is a special case of swarm robotics. Swarm robots are simple robots with limited sensing and computational capabilities. This makes it feasible to deploy teams of swarm robots and take advantage of the resulting fault tolerance and parallelism. Swarm robots cannot use conventional planning methods due to their limited sensing and computational capabilitie.. Read More..

C++ is a general-purpose programming language. It has imperative, object-oriented and generic programming features, while also providing the facilities for low-level memory manipulation.History of C++The C++ programming language has a history going back to 1979, when Bjarne Stroustrup was doing work for his Ph.D. thesis. One of the languages Stroustrup had the opportu.. Read More..

The Macintosh is a series of personal computers (PCs) designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. Steve Jobs introduced the original Macintosh computer on January 24, 1984. This was the first mass-market personal computer featuring an integral graphical user interface and mouse.In December, 1983, Apple Computers ran its' famous "1984" Macintosh television comm.. Read More..

The NeXT Computer is a workstation computer developed, marketed, and sold by NeXT Inc., a company founded by Steve Jobs and several other veterans of the Macintosh and Lisa teams, from 1988 until 1990. It runs the Mach- and BSD-derived, Unix-based NeXTSTEP operating system, with a proprietary GUI using a Display PostScript-based back end. The motherboard is square and.. Read More..

The iPod is a line of portable media players and multi-purpose pocket computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first line was released on October 23, 2001, about 8½ months after iTunes (Macintosh version) was released. The most recent iPod redesigns were announced on September 12, 2012.Release of ipod The first generation of iPod was released October 23, 20.. Read More..

iPad is an iOS-based line of tablet computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPad was released on April 3, 2010; the most recent iPad models, the iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3, were released on October 22, 2014. The user interface is built around the device's multi-touch screen, including a virtual keyboard. The iPad includes built-in Wi-Fi and cellula.. Read More..

The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products,designed primarily by Steve Wozniak (Jobs oversaw the development of the Apple II's unusual case and Rod Holt developed the unique power supply). It was introduced in 1977 at the West Coast Computer Faire by Jobs and was the first consumer product sold b.. Read More..

The Apple Lisa was the first personal computer to use a GUI. Other innovative features for the personal market included a drop-down menu bar, windows, multiple tasking, a hierarchal file system, the ability to copy and paste, icons, folders and a mouse. It cost Apple $50 million to develop the Lisa and $100 million to write the software, and only 10,000 units were eve.. Read More..

Apple iMac was introduced in 1998 and its innovative design was directly the result of Jobs's return to Apple. Apple boasted "the back of our computer looks better than the front of anyone else's."Described as "cartoonlike", the first iMac, clad in Bondi Blue plastic, was unlike any personal computer that came before. In 1999, Apple introduced the Graphite gra.. Read More..

Far Manager is an orthodox file manager for Microsoft Windows and a clone of Norton Commander. Far Manager uses the Win32 console and has a keyboard-oriented user interface (although limited mouse operation, including drag-and-drop, is possible).Originally, Far Manager was written by Eugene Roshal (the creator of WinRAR), but since 2000 the development is carried on b.. Read More..

RAR is a proprietary archive file format that supports data compression, error recovery and file spanning. It was developed by a Russian software engineer, Eugene Roshal (the name RAR stands for Roshal ARchive) and the RAR software is licensed by win.rar GmbH.RAR is currently the most efficient method for compressing files. RAR works like ZIP files do on Windows, and .. Read More..

WinRAR is a shareware file archiver and compressor utility for Windows. It can create archives in RAR or ZIP file formats,and unpack numerous archive file formats. There is an Android app called "RAR for Android", and command-line versions called "RAR" and "UNRAR" (widely released since autumn of 1993), available for Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, Windows console mode, and.. Read More..

An optical computer mouse uses a light source, typically a light-emitting diode, and a light detector, such as an array of photodiodes or an image sensor, to detect movement relative to a surface. It is an alternative to the mechanical mouse, which uses moving parts to perform the same function.The earliest optical mice detected movement on pre-printed mousepad surfac.. Read More..

3D printing is any of various processes used to make a three-dimensional object.In 3D printing, additive processes are used, in which successive layers of material are laid down under computer control.These objects can be of almost any shape or geometry, and are produced from a 3D model or other electronic data source. A 3D printer is a type of industrial robot.The ea.. Read More..

A pointing stick is an isometric joystick used as a pointing device, as with a touchpad or trackball, and typically mounted in a computer keyboard. Movements of the pointing stick are echoed on the screen by movements of the pointer (or cursor) and other visual changes.The pointing stick operates by sensing applied force, by using a pair of resistive strain gauges. A .. Read More..

C is a general-purpose, imperative computer programming language, supporting structured programming, lexical variable scope and recursion, while a static type system prevents many unintended operations. By design, C provides constructs that map efficiently to typical machine instructions, and therefore it has found lasting use in applications that had formerly been co.. Read More..

Teleo was a peer-to-peer Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network founded by Wendell Brown, Andy Moeck and Craig Taro Gold in January 2004. The San-Francisco-based company's VoIP system enabled desktop and laptop PC users to send and receive phone calls over the Internet. Users could speak to other Teleo users for free, call traditional telephone numbers for a .. Read More..

LiveOps is a cloud call center company founded in January 2000. It was formed by the merger of Silicon Valley startup CallCast, founded by Wendell Brown and Bill Trenchard,and competing startup LiveOps, founded by Steve Doumar and Doug Feirstein in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.In 2004, the company moved its headquarters to Redwood City, CA. LiveOps has since expanded beyo.. Read More..

The Beaufort cipher, created by Sir Francis Beaufort, is a polyalphabetic substitution cipher that is similar to the Vigenere cipher, except that it enciphers characters in a slightly different manner.Using the cipherTo encrypt, first choose the plaintext character from the top row of the tableau, call this column P. Secondly, travel down column P to the corresponding.. Read More..

ENIAC, in full Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer,  ENIAC, the first programmable general-purpose electronic digital computer, built during World War II by the United States. In the United States, government funding during the war went to a project led by John Mauchly, J. Presper Eckert, Jr., and their colleagues at the Moore School of Electrical Engineerin.. Read More..

In telecommunication, Hamming codes are a family of linear error-correcting codes that generalize the Hamming(7,4)-code invented by Richard Hamming in 1950. Hamming codes can detect up to two-bit errors or correct one-bit errors without detection of uncorrected errors. By contrast, the simple parity code cannot correct errors, and can detect only an odd number of bits.. Read More..

Dynamic Random Access Memory, DRAM is one of the most commonly found RAM modules in PC compatible personal computers and workstations. It stores its information in a cell containing a capacitor and transistor; because of this design, these cells must be refreshed with new electricity every few milliseconds for the memory to keep holding its data. DRAM was first invent.. Read More..

Playfair cipher, type of substitution cipher used for data encryption.In cryptosystems for manually encrypting units of plaintext made up of more than a single letter, only digraphs (pairs of letters) were ever used. By treating digraphs in the plaintext as units rather than as single letters, the extent to which the raw frequency distribution survives the encryption .. Read More..

The Internet's open and efficient TCP/IP protocol is the foundation of an inter-networking design has made it the most widely used network protocol in the world.Vinton Cerf and Bob KahnWhile it's true that both Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn made of their many of their own notable accomplishments, it was their partnership that drove the creation of the TCP/IP protoc.. Read More..

PHP is a server-side scripting language created in 1995 and designed for web development but also used as a general-purpose programming language. As of January 2013, PHP was installed on more than 240 million websites (39% of those sampled) and 2.1 million web servers.Originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994,the reference implementation of PHP (powered by the Zend.. Read More..

The Internet got its start in the United States more than 50 years ago as a government weapon in the Cold War. For years, scientists and researchers used it to communicate and share data with one another. Today, we use the Internet for almost everything, and for many people it would be impossible to imagine life without it.THE SPUTNIK SCAREOn October 4, 1957, the Sovi.. Read More..

Computer scanners (or "optical scanners") take images and turn them into signals that a computer can understand.Although image scanners did exist prior to the invention of the charge-coupled device(CCD),most modern scanners now capture images in this way.A scanner houses an array of CCDs for capturing light.when a photograph or book is scanned, a lamp illuminates the .. Read More..

UNISURF was a pioneering surface CAD/CAM system, designed to assist with car body design and tooling. It was developed by French engineer Pierre Bezier for Renault in 1968, and entered full use at the company in 1975.By 1999, around 1,500 Renault employees made use of UNISURF for car design and manufacture.CAD/CAMBezier began researching CAD/Computer-aided manufacturi.. Read More..

A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles. Floppy disks are read and written by a floppy disk drive (FDD).Floppy disks, initially as 8-inch (200 mm) media and later in 5¼-inch (133 mm) and 3½-inch (90 mm) sizes, were a u.. Read More..

A hard disk drive (HDD) is a data storage device used for storing and retrieving digital information using one or more rigid ("hard") rapidly rotating disks (platters) coated with magnetic material. The platters are paired with magnetic heads arranged on a moving actuator arm, which read and write data to the platter surfaces.Data is accessed in a random-access manner.. Read More..

A virtual machine is an emulation of a particular computer system. Virtual machines operate based on the computer architecture and functions of a real or hypothetical computer, and their implementations may involve specialized hardware, software, or a combination of both.OriginIBM create the CP/CMS, which were the first systems that actually allowed full virtualizatio.. Read More..

Reduced instruction set computing(RISC) is a CPU design strategy based on the insight that a simplified instruction set (as opposed to a complex set) provides higher performance when combined with a microprocessor architecture capable of executing those instructions using fewer microprocessor cycles per instruction.A computer based on this strategy is a reduced instru.. Read More..

The relational model for database management is a database model based on first-order predicate logic, first formulated and proposed in 1969 by Edgar F. Codd.In the relational model of a database, all data is represented in terms of tuples, grouped into relations. A database organized in terms of the relational model is a relational database.HistoryThe relational mode.. Read More..

The Universal Product Code (UPC) is a barcode symbology a specific type of barcode. Its most common form, the UPC-A, consists of 12 numerical digits, which are uniquely assigned to each trade item. Along with the related EAN barcode, the UPC is the barcode mainly used for scanning of trade items at the point of sale, per GS1 specifications.UPC data structures are a co.. Read More..

Watson is an artificially intelligent computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language,developed in IBM's DeepQA project by a research team led by principal investigator David Ferrucci. Watson was named after IBM's first CEO and industrialist Thomas J. Watson.The computer system was specifically developed to answer questions on the quiz.. Read More..

Python is a toy programming language. It emphasizes programmer efficiency over runtime efficiency, making it incompatible with modern computers, such as Commodore 64.HistoryPython was developed by Guido van Rossum. Van Rossum was very disappointed by ABC (programming language), which "did not allow him to perform some main functions due to its complexity and lack of b.. Read More..

Email is the electronic version of the interoffice, inter-organizational paper-based mail system. Email is not simply the exchange of text messages. Email is really a system, a system of interlocking parts, each of which is essential for ordinary people to communicate effectively with one or many others, in an environment where different kinds of information must be s.. Read More..

Public-key cryptography, asymmetric form of cryptography in which the transmitter of a message and its recipient use different keys (codes), thereby eliminating the need for the sender to transmit the code and risk its interception.Invention HistoryIn 1970 James H. Ellis, a British cryptographer at the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), conceived of the.. Read More..

Java is a programming language and environment invented by James Gosling and others in 1994. Java was originaly named Oak and was developed as a part of the Green project at the Sun Company.Invention HistoryJames Gosling, Mike Sheridan, and Patrick Naughton initiated the Java language project in June 1991.Java was originally designed for interactive television, but it.. Read More..

A supercomputer is a computer with a very high-level computational capacity. Performance of a supercomputer is measured in floating point operations per second (FLOPS). As of 2015, there are supercomputers which can perform up-to quadrillions of FLOPS.Widely considered to be the founder of supercomputing, Seymour Cray was known for his passion for technological creati.. Read More..

A word processor is an electronic device or computer software application, that performs the task of composition, editing, formatting, and sometimes printing of documents.The First Word ProcessorReleased in 1979 by Micropro International, WordStar was the first commercially successful word processing software program produced for microcomputers and the best selling so.. Read More..

A spreadsheet is an interactive computer application program for organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets developed as computerized simulations of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data represented as cells of an array, organized in rows and columns. Each cell of the array is a model–view–controller element that m.. Read More..

Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed.Invention HistoryFlash memory was invented by Dr. Fujio Masuoka while working for Toshiba circa 1980.According to Toshiba, the name "flash" was suggested by Masuoka's colleague, Sh?ji Ariizumi, because the erasure process of the memory contents remin.. Read More..

A modem (modulator-demodulator) is a device that modulates signals to encode digital information and demodulates signals to decode the transmitted information. The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded to reproduce the original digital data. Modems can be used with any means of transmitting analog signals, from light emitting diodes to.. Read More..

A laptop or a notebook is a portable personal computer with a clamshell form factor, suitable for mobile use.Although there used to be a distinction between laptops and notebooks (the former were bigger and heavier than the latter), there is often no longer any difference in practice.Laptops are commonly used in a variety of settings, including at work, in education, .. Read More..

A touchpad is a pointing device featuring a tactile sensor, a specialized surface that can translate the motion and position of a user's fingers to a relative position on the operating system that is outputted to the screen. Touchpads are a common feature of laptop computers, and are also used as a substitute for a mouse where desk space is scarce. Because they va.. Read More..

A computer has two fundamentally different types of memory. The main memory is Direct RAM (DRAM) which represents the active storage components of a computer’s memory. DRAM is fast but it stores relatively little information. The other type of memory is the hard drive which uses a solid, locally magnetized, metal disc to store information. (For this reason, a powerf.. Read More..

Colossus, the first large-scale electronic computer, was used against the German system of teleprinter encryption known at Bletchley Park as ‘Tunny’. Technologically more sophisticated than Enigma, Tunny carried the highest grade of intelligence. From 1941 Hitler and the German High Command relied increasingly on Tunny to protect their communications with Army Gro.. Read More..

A compiler is a computer program (or set of programs) that transforms source code written in a programming language (the source language) into another computer language (the target language, often having a binary form known as object code).The most common reason for converting a source code is to create an executable program.The first compiler was written by Grace Hop.. Read More..

Kaspersky Anti-Virus is an antivirus program developed by Kaspersky Lab. It is designed to protect users from malware and is primarily designed for computers running Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, though a version for Linux is available for business consumers.Kaspersky Anti-Virus features include real-time protection, detection and removal of viruses, trojans, worms,.. Read More..

Pinscreen animation makes use of a screen filled with movable pins, which can be moved in or out by pressing an object onto the screen. The screen is lit from the side so that the pins cast shadows. The technique has been used to create animated films with a range of textural effects difficult to achieve with any other animation technique, including traditional cel an.. Read More..

Content-addressable memory (CAM) is a special type of computer memory used in certain very-high-speed searching applications. It is also known as associative memory, associative storage, or associative array, although the last term is more often used for a programming data structure.It compares input search data (tag) against a table of stored data, and returns the ad.. Read More..

Google is an American multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products. These include online advertising technologies, search, cloud computing, and software.Most of its profits are derived from AdWords,an online advertising service that places advertising near the list of search results.HistoryGoogle was founded by Larry Page and.. Read More..

A bulletin board system is a computer server running custom software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users through email, public message boards, and sometimes via direct .. Read More..

Internet Protocol Address (or IP Address) is an unique address that computing devices such as personal computers, tablets, and smartphones use to identify itself and communicate with other devices in the IP network. Any device connected to the IP network must have an unique IP address within the network. An IP address is analogous to a street address or telephone numb.. Read More..