Touchscreens sense your body's electricity

Capacitive screens hold a tiny electrical field; your conductive finger distorts it, and the phone calculates where. That is why gloves usually do not work.

#technology #phones #engineering

The internet travels as pulses of light

Fibre optic cables carry data as laser light bouncing inside glass thinner than a hair, moving at roughly two-thirds the speed of light in vacuum.

Almost all international data crosses the seabed

Satellites carry a tiny share — around 99% of intercontinental internet traffic runs through submarine cables, some no thicker than a garden hose.

GPS would fail without Einstein

Satellite clocks tick faster in weaker gravity and slower from speed. Without relativity corrections of about 38 microseconds a day, positions would drift kilometres off.

Moore's law was an observation, not a law

In 1965 Gordon Moore noticed transistor counts doubling roughly every year, later revised to two. That guess became the industry's roadmap for half a century.

Your battery works by shuttling lithium ions

Charging pushes ions into the graphite anode, using them pushes them back. Each cycle degrades the structure slightly — which is why batteries age.

Data centres spend enormous energy just staying cool

Cooling can account for a large share of a facility's power, which is why operators build them in cold climates, underwater, or run them warmer on purpose.