Windows 98

During a press conference in April 98, when a Microsoft employee attempted to install a scanner on Windows 98, the OS crashed. Bill Gates at the time joked "this must be why we're not shipping Windows 98 yet. " The product, codenamed Memphis, was finally released on June 25, that year.

Cockroaches

Cockroaches exist worldwide, with the exception of the Polar Regions and in elevations above 6,500 feet. The largest cockroach by wingspan is a Megaloblatta longipennis, measuring 18cms. The largest cockroach by weight is the 50gms Macropanesthia rhinoceros. The smallest species is Attaphila fungicola, reaching only 4 mm.

Clans

The first clans appeared with turn-based or Role Playing Games. Clans were the player guilds in the first graphical MMORPG- Neverwinter Nights- which ran from 1991 through 1997. The first real-time game clans, as we recognise them today, were formed in 1996 around games such as Quake, Descent and the Netmech multiplayer expansion pack for the PC game MechWarrior 2.

Blaupunkt

Electronic equipment manufacturer, Blaupunkt was founded in 1923 in Berlin as 'Ideal'. The company changed its name in 1938 to Blaupunkt, which means "blue dot"- also the company's symbol of quality. Blaupunkt is considered the first manufacturer of a Global Positioning System for cars (the Berlin RC303), which has become one of the company's best selling products.

Super Mario Bros

Super Mario Bros. is considered by The Guinness Book of World Records as the best-selling video game of all time. The game starred Mario, a plumber by profession. Mario was at one time more recognisable amongst American kids than Mickey Mouse. To this day, Mario is one of the world's most famous fictional characters.

Flash Memory Cells

A Solid State Disk uses flash memory to store data. The problem with flash memory cells is that it tends to fall after around a million writes. To address this problem, SSDs have a tracker that can check usage and transparently relocate the data from highly used sectors to others that have been utilised less.

Nike

Major sports good manufacturer Nike takes its name from the Greek goddess of victory, who goes by the same name. In Greek mythology, Nike was a goddess who personified triumph and victory. She was capable of running and flying at great speeds- other than which, she had no special powers of her own.

Intel

Intel's founders, Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce wanted to name their company 'Moore Noyce', but since this name sounded similar to "more noise"- which is associated with bad electronic interference- they used the name NM Electronics before deciding to call their company Integrated Electronics or 'Intel' for short.

HP

HP was founded in 1939 by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. Their first product was a precision audio oscillator, the Model 200A, that tested the frequency of sound. They innovated by using a small night-light bulb as a temperature dependent resistor, which allowed them to sell the product for one-fourth the price that competitors were selling at

Gynoid

Robots designed to look like a human female are known as Gynoid, from Greek gyne for woman. The term is not common, however, as android, which is actually the term for ‘male’ robots, is often used to refer to both ‘genders’ of robot. The term gynoid was first used in the writings of British sci-fi author Gwyneth Jones and later by Richard Calder

Koko

Koko the 'sign language' gorilla was born on July 4, 1971, in San Francisco, California. Her name is short for the name Hanabi-Ko, meaning "Fireworks Child" in Japanese, honouring her Fourth of July birthday (American Independence). Koko was the inspiration for Amy, the 'talking' ape, in the Michael Crichton book 'Congo'.

Piaggio

Piaggio was- and is today with Piaggio Aero- an aircraft factory. After World War 2, the company built the first ever scooters using aircraft materials and styling. They named these two wheelers 'Vespa', which is Italian for wasp, because of the scooter's shape: thicker rear part connected to the front part by a narrow waist, and the steering rod as the antennae.

Moche tribe

The Moche tribe worshipped a god called the Decapitator, which is depicted as a winged creature holding a knife in one hand and another holding a head by its hair. Moche's often sacrificed remains of young people, mostly believed to belong to warriors captured in territorial battles between the Moche and other nearby societies.

Yahoo!

Yahoo! was founded by Stanford students David Filo and Jerry Yang in 1994. In the beginning, it was merely a Web directory of other sites, organised in a hierarchy (rather than a searchable index of pages). The whole of Yahoo then resided on Yang's and Filo's student workstations, "Akebono" and "Konoshiki", both named after legendary sumo wrestlers.

MPEG-2

MPEG-2 is a standard used primarily to compress audio and video digital data. MPEG stands for Moving Pictures Experts Group, the organisation that created the standard. The MPEG-2 standard is primarily used for encoding data meant for HDTV, DVD, direct satellite broadcast and cable TV.

Stonehenge

The Stonehenge is composed of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones and is one of the most famous prehistoric sites in the world. Archaeologists think the standing stones were erected between 2500 BC and 2000 BC although the surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC.

Speed of light

The speed of light in a vacuum is exactly 29,97,92,458 metres per second. The 14th century Indian philosopher Sayana wrote, "[O Sun] you who traverse 2202 'yojanas' in half a 'nimesa'.". A 'yojana' is an ancient unit of length and 'nimesa' an ancient unit of time that was used in India. Conversions show the speed of light according to Sayana to be about 30,20,00,000 meters per second. Amazingly close!

Shigeru Miyamoto

Shigeru Miyamoto worked as a staff artist in Nintendo and had no prior programmimg experience when he created Donkey Kong. He also composed the music for the game himself on a small electronic keyboard. Mario, the plumber destined for great fame as a successful gaming franchise, was also seen in Donkey Kong.

Viruses

Viruses were first discovered by Russian-Ukrainian biologist Dmitry Ivanovsky in 1892. The term 'virus' in English, however, dates back to 1392 and takes its roots from the Latin word 'virulentus' which means poisonous.

Aerosol spray can

The modern aerosol spray can, widely used as containers for deodorants and insect repellents, was invented by a Norwegian chemical engineer Erik Rotheimin in 1962. He sold the patent to a US company at the time, but it wasn't until 1941 that it was first put to use. The cans were turned into an instrument for the US military to fight the malaria mosquito in the Pacific during World War 2.

Gran Turismo (GT)

Gran Turismo (GT), a racing game series developed for the PlayStations, has been successful due to its meticulous stimulation of driving the licensed cars in the game. Every car sounds and handles exactly like real cars. The only drawback in GT is that it contains no damage-modelling due to licensing agreements and partly due to the fact- as observed by developers- that many collisions during gameplay would completely destroy the cars involved.

Aurora polaris

The "aurora polaris" is a natural electric phenomenon that results in glow that can be observed in the night sky when at polar regions. In the northern hemisphere it is known as "aurora borealis", Latin for "northern dawn" since it often appears as a reddish glow, similar to a sunrise. In the south, the glow is known as the "aurora australis".

Andy Davidson

Andy Davidson is the creator of the original Worms computer game. The original concept for the game did not feature worms, but tanks and soldiers and it was called Artillery, and it was created purely as a bit of fun for him and his school friends in 1993. The positive reaction he witnessed encouraged him to develop it further, changing the characters to worms and the name of the game to Total Wormage.

Yubiwa Pipe

Believe it or not, but the first product to be launched by electronics giant, Casio in 1946 was the "yubiwa pipe," a cigarette holder that allowed the wearer to smoke a cigarette down to its absolute end. Japan was impoverished following World War 2 so cigarettes were valuable, and the invention was a success.

Oceans

The oceans, on the basis of depth, are divided into two zones: Photic and aphotic. Photic zone is the depth of the water that can be penetrated by sunlight, whereas the aphotic zone is the deeper part of the ocean that is not exposed to sunlight. Because the photic zone lies only a few hundred metres below the water, about 90 per cent of the ocean and its creatures are unknown to us.

Mayans

The ancient Mayans were keen astronomers and had mapped out the phases of celestial objects, especially the Moon and Venus. Many of their towering religious temples and pyramids-the closest place to the heavens-have doorways and other feature aligning to celestial events.

Skype

Skype is a basic computer-to-computer telephony service that allows users to speak to one to another from their computers via the Internet at no cost. Skype released its first beta version on August 29, 2003. The service has 100 million registered users as of April 27, 2006.

Extinction

Extinction is usually a natural phenomenon. It is estimated that more than 99.9 percent of all species that have ever lived on this planet are now extinct. This, of course, is taking in to account the entire dinosaur era.

Super Mario Bros

Super Mario Bros, made in 1993, was the first major motion picture to be based on a video game. The film follows the exploits of plumbers, Mario Mario (Bob Hoskins) and his brother Luigi Mario (John Leguizamo), in a parallel universe where even dinosaurs evolved into a humanoid form. Despite the game's success, however, the movie bombed at the box office.

Hubble Space Telescope

Immediately after the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, it was found that its main mirror suffered from spherical aberration, severely compromising the telescope's capabilities. However, this was rectified in a planned servicing mission to the telescope in 1993.