Your Apple product’s warranty may be void if you smoke near it.
100 Mind-Blowing Be Facts
The corporate giant Samsung will be a leading contributor to landfill waste in 2022.
This is the first website ever. In 1989, British scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web and published the first website ever which can be found here. Tim worked for CERN at the time. He hosted the first website on his NeXT Computer to allow scientists and universities to share information with ease. This archaic website described the World Wide Web (W3) project itself and was the start of the Internet Era as we know it today.
The original name of Microsoft Windows was “Interface Manager”. In 1981, Microsoft began the development of a program called “Interface Manager”. Most people won’t recognise that name because Interface Manager became Windows in 1983. Microsoft released Windows 1.0 in 1985, and it’s now the most common operating system in the world. It’s hard to believe the OS would be successful with its original name. Interface Manager perfectly describes what Windows would become. In the marketing department, making that name sound interesting or useful would have been impossible. Everyone recognises Windows, and millions of computers run on Windows 10 today. Interface Manager should be considered a work-in-progress name and something best left in the past.
How Many Computer Viruses Are Found Each Day? AV-TEST Institute identifies more than 350,000 new viruses and malicious programs each day. This includes malware, viruses, and unwanted applications. Millions of existing viruses continue to be identified every single day as well. In 2021, AV-TEST estimates a total number of 1191+ million total malware out there. Security researchers and antivirus software providers cannot keep up with the onslaught of new viruses. Creating and releasing a new virus requires little capital and little effort. It can take antivirus software months to catch up with current viruses. Nonetheless, the importance of a capable antivirus program cannot be overstated. Consumers need to protect themselves from viruses whenever possible.
How Many Websites Exist On The World Wide Web? More than 1.5 billion websites can be found on the World Wide Web today. The web reached one billion websites for the first time in September 2014. Surprisingly enough, about three-quarters of all websites are inactive, meaning there are about 200 million active websites. Inactive websites include parked domains and similar situations.
YouTube Has 2 billion Monthly Logged-in Users. Are you impressed by the number of active iPhones currently in use? Multiply that number by two and you will have a good idea of the number of people who count on YouTube tutorials and broadcasts for myriad reasons. An international presence is partly responsible for these big numbers. Localised versions of YouTube produce content for around 100 nations, broadcasting in approximately 80 languages. Do you upload content? You’re in good company. About 500 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube every minute, fulfilling this social media platform’s long-term goal to be a primary resource for folks around the planet.
Record Number of Websites Currently in Operation. Statistics continue to be gathered by resources like Statista.com who have been monitoring the phenomenon of new websites since 1991 when Yahoo led the way for the establishment of Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. According to historians, the first website, launched on August 6, 1991, didn’t dominate the Internet for long. There were 3,000 websites operated by businesses and individuals by 1994, reflecting extraordinary growth by any measure. The fact that there are now 1.88 billion websites in existence says plenty about how crowded cyberspace is becoming.
Facebook: It’s Become a Leading Factor in Divorce. Facebook has been the subject of myriad research studies, but few are as intriguing as one published in the Journal of Cyberpsychology, Behaviour and Social Networking that investigated relationship break-up rates. Findings, that “more frequent social media use and monitoring of one’s partner could lead to misunderstandings and feelings of jealousy,” in addition emotional and physical cheating can be traced to Facebook interactions. Additionally, another study undertaken by British attorneys using evidence culled from Facebook for divorce proceedings, concluded that Facebook can hurt people in committed relationships and even offer tips on how to avoid splitting up.
Top Android Apps for 2021. Having recently crunched sales numbers and pulled statistics related to Android app usage, analysts at the Android Authority website say 2022 will be more dynamic. “There are a ton of amazing Android apps out there. However, there are a few that stand out above the rest.” Apps that help consumers function are listed below, but for games and fun, this website is your resource: https://play.Google.com/store/apps/top?hl=en&gl=US. 1Weather, Google Drive, Waze and Google Maps, Google Search/Assistant/Feed, Last Pass, Microsoft SwiftKey, Nova Launcher, Podcast Addict, Poweramp, Solid Explorer, Tasker and IFTTT, Textra, TickTick, YouTube; YouTube Music, Zedge.
The Firefox logo isn’t a fox. Well, sort of. There is a common misbelief that because the browser is named Firefox, the logo must be a fox. This is both correct and incorrect at the same time, and it’s all Mozillas fault! The cute furry creature in the logo was originally a red panda. Over time, though, the team behind the browser changed their tune and began to call it a fox after all. So is it a fox or a red panda? Depends on who you ask!
Domain name registration used to be free. Way back when people didn’t realize how huge the Internet would be, registering a domain name was free until 1995. When a fee was introduced, it was high! Prices were typically $100 for two years of registration.
The Radio took 38 years to reach an audience of 50 million. You would think the invention of the radio would be a big deal, but it took 38 years for the radio to reach an audience of 50 million. Meanwhile, the iPod only took 3 years to reach the same milestone!
The first alarm clock could only ring at one time. One time! The first mechanical alarm clock that could only ring at 4 a.m. was invented by Levi Hutchins in 1787. It wasn’t until 1876 that a wind-up alarm clock was made that could be set for any time.
The first product scanned was a packet of chewing gum in 1974. Norman Joseph Woodland invented the barcode and received a patent in October 1952. It wasn’t until 22 years later when he was employed by IBM, that the barcode was developed to be used for product labeling. Known as the Universal Product Code (UPC), a system that is still used today.
People are still using dial-up. As of 2017, 2.1 million people still use AOL’s dial-up service. Mainly, these customers live in rural America, where it can be expensive and unreliable to get high-speed Internet. Meanwhile, dial-up is only $20 per month.
You can spell your email in Morse code. In 2004, the @ symbol became the first new character to be added to Morse code for the first time in many decades. The character is called a “Commat” and consists of the signals for A and C with no break in between.
The first word to ever be auto-corrected was “teh.” Back in the day, autocorrect wasn’t as efficient as it is now. To auto-correct “teh” to “the,” you had to press the left arrow and F3.
Comic Sans is the most hated font in the world. Comic Sans was designed to be an unserious, handwritten style font to use in comic books. Although everyone loves to hate this tasteless font (including myself!), it is very useful for dyslexic people. Because of its asymmetrical style, the letters are much easier to discern.
Finding a security bug in Facebook’s code will pay off. To be exact, Facebook pays $500 for reporting any vulnerability in its security. Even better, $500 is just the minimum that it starts at, so you could potentially earn more!
Kids who are on social media for 1 hour a day have less chance of being happy. This is probably not much of a surprise, but studies have shown that the more time kids spend on social media, the less likely they are to be happy with their overall life by 14%. By comparison, this is three times higher than the effects of living in a single-parent household.
Over 90% of the world’s currency is digital. I don’t know about you, but I rarely have cash! Between credit cards, debit cards, direct deposit, and online purchases, that leaves only about 8% of global currency to be physical money.
Technical degrees are almost useless by the time you graduate. A degree looks good on paper, but in fact, technology is advancing faster than ever. The amount of technical information doubles every two years. So, if you start a four-year degree, then half of what you learn by the time you finish will be obsolete.
The first photo ever uploaded to the Internet was of a comedy band. A four-piece all-female parody pop group lays claim to being in the first photo to ever be uploaded to the Internet. The group, called “Les Horribles Cernettes,” were colleagues with Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. He asked them for some scanned photos of their band so he could publish them online, and history was made!
A “jiffy” is a real measurement. If you’ve ever said, “I’ll be back in a jiffy,” you were saying, “I’ll be back in 10 milliseconds.” A jiffy is an actual measurement of time, referring to the length of one cycle of the computer’s system clock – about 10 milliseconds. When used in physics, it stands for the amount of time that it takes light to travel one centimetre.
Most Internet traffic isn’t from real humans. About 51% of Internet traffic is non-human. Over 30% is from hacking programs, spammers, and phishing. Be careful with your computer security!
There are only 21 million Bitcoins that can be mined in total. You’d think as it’s a digital currency, the number of bitcoins available would be unlimited. However, if this was the case, that would devalue the currency and render it worthless.
Robot laws are being put into place. The European Union is suggesting laws that implement an emergency kill switch in all robots. Additionally, they will be required to be programmed to never harm a human.
Premise-based phone systems are phasing out Panasonic announced its PBX system will be deactivated in 2023.
Statisa show there will be 18.22 billion mobile devices in use by 2025.
Genpact predicts that by 2025, firms that have adopted AI will be 10 times more efficient and have twice the market share than those that haven’t.
Statista predicts there will be 30.9 billion IoT devices by 2025.
Mr Potato Head was the first toy to be advertised on TV.
In 1862, the King of Siam offered Abraham Lincoln many elephants because a “Country as great as the United States should not be without elephants.” Lincoln politely declined.
The collars on men’s dress shirts used to be detachable. This was to save on laundry costs as the collar was the part that needed cleaning the most frequently.
Strawberries can also be white or yellow, and some can even taste like pineapples!
When watermelons are grilled or baked, they lose their granular texture and can even be used as a meat substitute, a “watermelon steak.”
Hackers uncovered a flaw in Hotmail’s security in 1999, which allowed access to any Hotmail email account by entering “eh” as the password. This crippling flaw was deemed to be “the most widespread security incident in the history of the web.” The group that took responsibility for the flaw’s exposure, known as Hackers Unite, claimed that they didn’t want to destroy anything by leaking it but rather wanted to draw seemingly much-needed attention to Microsoft’s failing security systems. Experts believe that the ability to access any email account with a simple password was unintentionally left behind as a “backdoor” by Microsoft’s engineers, something Microsoft has never admitted. Instead, they merely palmed it off as an “unknown security issue.”
There are twice as many pyramids in Sudan then there are in Egypt. When most people think of pyramids, they instantly think of Egypt, but this couldn’t be more wrong! Sudan has somewhere between 200 to 255 pyramids, while Egypt is home to just 118 to 138 of them. So how did so many pyramids end up down in Sudan? From 3,000 BC, Egypt’s armies were sent south to conquer whoever they found, reaching as far as modern-day Sudan. There they lorded over the locals until the Egyptian empire collapsed in 1,070 BC, but their influence remained for much longer. Less than three hundred years later, the new rulers of this region, the Kush, still believed in the Egyptian Gods and started constructing pyramids en masse.
February used to be the last month of the year, which is why it has the shortest number of days.
Elizabeth Tower, the clocktower in London that holds Big Ben, is leaning over so much it can now be seen with the naked eye. In 4,000 years, it will be at the same angle as the tower in Pisa is now.
The water-repellent liquid spray called “NeverWet” can be used to create invisible-ink street graffiti that only appears when it rains.
Traditionally, when a US aircraft landed on the wrong carrier, it would be covered in graffiti before being sent back to the right one.
Yarn bombing is a type of graffiti where crocheted or knitted yarn is used to cover objects or trees. While some yarn bombs can last for years, they can be easily removed if necessary.
Most graffiti artists wish to be called “writers” and accompany their work with a unique signature called a “tag.” This is especially true for graffiti artists who want public recognition.
Banksy is the most popular graffiti artist, known for his stencil art with political and anti-war themes. They remain anonymous and are based in Bristol, England, but their work can be seen worldwide.
Graffiti used to be a term used to refer to inscriptions and figure drawings found on the walls of ancient ruins, like Pompeii or the Roman Catacombs. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius preserved the graffiti in Pompeii.
A black book, or piecebook, is a graffiti artist’s sketchbook. It’s often closely guarded from authorities because it could be used as evidence in vandalism cases.
Record-breaking vaccine. The record for a vaccine to be developed and licensed was four years. The record holder was the mumps vaccine which was licensed in 1967. Following the UK government’s approval of the Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19 in early December 2020, that record is now just under 11 months.
The biggest shark attack. When the USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine on 30 July 1945 survivors were left in the water for four days, during which time around 600 men died of exposure, dehydration, and shark attacks. Experts believe it may be the single greatest concentration of shark attacks on humans in history.
Police state. The Metropolitan Police Act of 1839 criminalised a range of nuisances. Knocking on a door and running away, flying kites, singing obscene ballads, sliding on ice in the street. Technically all of these activities are still offences within the Metropolitan police area of London. You can be given a fine of up to £500.
Illegal drunkenness. Since 1872 it’s been illegal to be drunk in a pub.
For King and Country. The last survivor of the defence of Rorke’s Drift, Frank Bourne, lived to be 91. He died on 8 May 1945 – VE Day.
Rodent reprobates. In 1510, rats who destroyed a field of barley were summoned to face trial. Their defence lawyer, Bartholomew Chassenee, argued that attending court would put his clients at risk from local cats and dogs. A reasonable fear of death was a sufficient reason to excuse a human from court. If rats were to be subject to the same laws, surely the same mitigation had to apply? The judge postponed the trial indefinitely.
Prediction of death. Mark Twain kind of predicted his death. In 1909, he said: ‘I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt, “Now there are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together”.’ He died of a heart attack on 21 April 1910 – one day after the comet had come again and appeared at its brightest. Halley’s comet only passes by Earth approximately every 76 years and has been the subject of a string of predictions since 1705.
Dartmoor delights. The highest concentration of Bronze Age remains in Britain is on Dartmoor, South Devon. In the 400 square miles of national park, every type of monument above can be found, including 18 stone circles and 75 stone rows.
Havoc! One of the few known medieval battlefield orders is the cry of ‘Havoc!’. Havoc released the army from any formation and gave freedom to loot, and was an order only ever to be given when it was utterly certain that a battle was won and discipline was no longer required. It was considered so dangerous that it was expressly forbidden without permission from the army’s commander. A wrongly timed cry of havoc could cost a battle and there were severe punishments for crying havoc without permission – sometimes extending to beheading.
Telephone greeting. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the first practical telephone in 1876, decided that the correct salutation for answering should be ‘Ahoy.’
Reign of Terror. While the guillotine is commonly associated with the brutality of the French Revolution, the Nazis also used the guillotine during the 12 years they were in power. In October 1936, Hitler secretly ordered 20 guillotines to be distributed to prisons in cities across Germany. According to Nazi records, they were used to execute approximately 16,500 people between 1933 and 1945, including resistance fighters and political protesters – a similar number to the French Reign of Terror.
Oldest toilets. The Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae (c.3,000 BC) had drainage systems believed to be toilets attached to each interconnected dwelling. The Queen’s Toilet at the Palace of Knossos in Crete (1,700 BC) contained large Earthenware pans connected to a flushing water supply.
Prohibition myths. It wasn’t illegal to drink alcohol during Prohibition – the 18th Amendment and subsequent Volstead Act prohibited the production, sale and transport of ‘intoxicating liquors’ within America, but their possession and consumption were never outlawed. Any alcohol already stashed away could be enjoyed in people’s own homes.
Britain’s last witch. Scottish medium Helen Duncan was one of the last people to be imprisoned under the Witchcraft Act of 1735 – in 1943, on the grounds of fraudulent spiritual activity.
The Tower’s last prisoner. Having flown to Scotland in May 1941 in an attempt to negotiate peace with Britain, Rudolf Hess, the deputy leader of the German Nazi Party, was briefly interned at the Tower of London in May 1941. He was the last state prisoner to be held there.
The oldest prosthetic. In 1997, an excavation near the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes revealed the oldest prosthesis ever discovered: an engraved wooden toe, fitted to the right foot of an Egyptian noblewoman who lived 3,000 years ago. The ‘Cairo toe’ was practical, modified over time to accommodate the woman’s gait. But it was also designed with aesthetics in mind, intended to be worn in open-toe sandals, not concealed.
‘Groaning ale’. In early modern Europe and colonial America, a ‘groaning ale’ would be brewed when a woman became pregnant. The ale would mature throughout the pregnancy, imbibed by the mother and midwife as labour began, and then the remnants of the sterile, 8% liquid washed over the newborn.
Out with their eyes! Henry, I permitted two of his granddaughters to be blinded and have the tips of their noses cut off after their father blinded the son of another baron. Their mother, Juliane, was so enraged she rebelled against Henry and attempted to kill him with a crossbow. She missed, leapt off her castle tower into the moat and made her escape.
Stalin’s eldest son died in a German concentration camp. Stalin’s son, Yakov Dzhugashvili, was raised by an aunt and didn’t meet his father until he was 14. During the war, Yakov fought as a Russian soldier and was captured by the Nazis. After he was revealed to be Stalin’s son, the Nazis attempted to use Yakov as leverage, but Stalin refused to negotiate, stating: ‘You have in your hands not only my son Yakov but millions of my sons. Either you free them all or my son will share their fate.’ Yakov died at Sachsenhausen concentration camp while attempting to climb the camp’s electric fence.
Christmas is cancelled. A Christmas-themed one from the brilliant Joanna McCunn on that old chestnut, did Cromwell ban Christmas… In 1644 the Puritan parliament declared every last Wednesday of the month would be a legally mandated fast day. Christmas Day fell on the last Wednesday of the month so no feasting was to be allowed that year. Time should be spent in even more solemn humiliation, repenting of your sins for making Christmas a time of carnal and sensual delights in the past. In 1647 they went the whole hog, banning all celebrations of Christmas and Easter for good! (Charles II reversed this when he came to the throne in 1660).
Throughout history, different cultures around the world have experienced time in different ways. In the Western world, we tend to think of time as linear and flowing from left to right. But this isn’t the case for everyone. Language affects how people conceptualize time, particularly the spatial metaphors they use to describe and map it. Those who read languages that flow from right to left, such as Arabic and Hebrew, generally view time as flowing in the same direction. The Aymara, who live in the Andes Mountains in South America, consider the future to be behind them, while the past is ahead. In their view, because the future is unknown, it’s behind you, where you can’t see it. Some Indigenous Australian cultures, which rely heavily on direction terms like north, south, east, and west in their languages, visualise the passage of time as moving from east to west. If they’re facing north, for example, the past would be to their right, or east, whereas the future would be to their left, which would be west.
Individual people can experience time differently, too. You’ve probably noticed how time seems to speed up when you’re racing against a deadline or having fun, and how it tends to drag when you’re bored. This is because when you’re focused on something, like a big work project or a party, your brain pays less attention to how time passes. But when you’re bored, or your brain is less stimulated, you become more aware of the passing of time, making it feel slower. One study proposed that dopamine—the neurotransmitter and hormone that helps us feel happy—may be an additional culprit. It showed that increased dopamine production, which happens when you’re enjoying something, may slow down your body’s internal clock, making time feel like it’s flying by.
Because astronomical time and atomic time don’t always line up, every so often, we get a leap second. Earth’s spin speed can be a bit unpredictable. Atmospheric winds, Northern Hemisphere winters with heavy snow, and other big weather systems can affect how fast the planet rotates. To keep the difference between astronomical time and atomic time to less than .9 seconds, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service will occasionally announce the need for a leap second. Most people won’t notice a leap second, but they can be a huge pain for tech companies. Because leap seconds are added irregularly, developers have no way of working them into their codes, which has caused websites like LinkedIn and Reddit to crash in the past. A bug caused by 2012’s leap second created so much chaos on Qantas’s servers, more than 400 flights wound up being delayed.
But Sosigenes made a bit of a miscalculation, so the calendar continued to be a little off. He thought a year lasted 365.25 days. It’s around 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds, equivalent to about 365.242 days. This tiny error had some pretty big consequences: By 1577, the Julian calendar was off by 10 days, meaning key Christian holidays were being celebrated on incorrect dates. Pope Gregory XIII took issue with this and established a commission to get the calendar back on track. In 1582, the Gregorian calendar was created. Rather than having an extra day every four years without exception, years that are divisible by 100—like 1700 or 1900—skip leap year. Unless the year is also divisible by 400, like the year 2000, in which case the Leap Year is back on! Even this system isn’t perfect, though: It has an error of one day in 3236 years.
Time zones can still be a bit complicated. Big countries like Canada and the United States have multiple time zones, whereas China, another large country, only has one. China adopted the Beijing Standard Time to foster unity, but the effect can feel a bit uncanny—two cities in the country can be at roughly the same latitude, but experience sunrise hours apart, according to their clocks. In some parts of China, for example, the sun doesn’t rise until nearly 10 a.m.
People have been tracking time for thousands of years. In 2013, archaeologists found what’s thought to be the world’s oldest lunar calendar while excavating a field in Scotland. The calendar, which is made of a series of 12 pits that mimic the moon’s phases, dates back to around 8000 BCE.
New clocks are set at 10:10 for a reason. If you’ve bought a new clock or watch recently, you may have noticed that the default setting was 10:10, give or take a few minutes. There are various theories behind this particular choice of time, but really, it all comes down to aesthetics. Setting the time to around 10:10 allows the hands of an analogue clock to be displayed in a neat, symmetrical way that doesn’t obscure any logos in the centre of the clock’s face. Clocks were once set to 8:20, and occasionally still are, but the hands’ downward angles can make it look like the timepieces are frowning.
Travelling back in time is possible—theoretically, at least. According to Einstein’s theory, you could travel back in time by moving faster than the speed of light, as long as you could somehow have infinite mass. Since that probably won’t work, you could create “wormholes” between two points in space-time. (This would also be tough since humanity still hasn’t invented the technology to build a wormhole.) Or you could try bending space-time by plucking some “cosmic strings.” Two of these theoretical strings, which are thin streams of pure energy that are moving in opposite directions at very near the speed of light, could theoretically warp space-time enough to create a closed time-like curve—also known as a time machine.
Men are the Most Users of Antivirus Software Programs. According to a study from AV-Test, 62% of its users were men, while the remaining 38 were said to be women.
Windows is the Most Susceptible Computer Operating System to Virus and Malware Attacks. While considering the statistics of computer operating systems based on cybersecurity, the Microsoft Windows OS was found to be the most vulnerable to malware, having 54.4% of all computer cyberattacks. Following the Windows OS was Linux, which has about 39.4%, and macOS, with 6.2%.
60% of the Overall Malware Attacks Were Distributed Using Encrypted Traffic. Cyberattackers prefer to distribute malware attacks via encrypted SSL/TSL traffic. It appears to be a preferred option, as encrypted channels make it hard for the malware to be detected or mitigated, as reported by WatchGuard.
100 Million Americans Relied on Microsoft Defender in 2022. In 2021, Microsoft Defender had 80 million US users. However, the number increased by over 20 million, reaching 100+ million, according to 2022 data. The significant spike may be attributed to increased Windows 11 use and Microsoft Defender improvements.
Linus was born in Finland, a bilingual country, and considers Swedish to be his “mother tongue”. He says he’s often “uncomfortable” speaking in English because of pronunciation differences but prefers to read English books.
It may be the biggest free software project now (see #1) but when the very first kernel was released back in 1991 it was made up of a comparatively minuscule 10k lines of code — baby Linux!
The first book to be published about Linux was Matt Welsh’s ‘Linux Installation and Getting Started’ back in 1993. The first dedicated magazine, Linux Journal, was published a year later in March 1994. The first issue carried an interview with Linus.
There are 272 active Linux distributions as per the information available in Distrowatch (there could be even more!)
Even though Linux may not be the most preferred desktop choice, it is a popular choice for developers/programmers worldwide. Hence, Microsoft introduced Windows Subsystem for Linux to let Windows users easily access Linux tools without dual booting.
Linus Torvalds wanted to name the project Freax (a combination of free and Unix) but his colleague had created an FTP server named Linux (a combination of Linus and Unix) for the project already. So, the project continued to be called Linux.
59% of Ubuntu users prefer their operating system to be in English.
At first glance, only 4-5% of Ubuntu users are female but Canonical believes that percentage to be higher in reality.
On 25th August 1991, 21-year-old Finnish computer science student Linus Torvalds announced that he was working on a new operating system which was ‘just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like GNU’.
Debian: The Mother of Many Linux Distributions: Debian was among the first GNU/Linux distributions to be community-driven. Debian 0.01 was the first Debian release and was made publicly available on September 15, 1993. Its first stable version – Debian 1.1 – was released on June 17, 1996. Debian is considered the ‘Mother’ of many Linux distributions. Popular Debian-based Linux distributions include Ubuntu, MX Linux, Deepin, and Pop! OS, Zorin OS, and Kali Linux to mention a few examples.
Ubuntu: The Global Leader in Linux Desktop Adoption: Ubuntu‘s status as the most popular Linux desktop globally can be largely attributed to its clean, simple, and intuitive user interface, ensuring a seamless user experience. This appeal makes it particularly well-suited for newcomers to the Linux world or Windows users making the transition to Linux. Ubuntu’s user-friendly design, combined with its extensive software ecosystem and strong community support, has established it as a go-to choice for those seeking an approachable and efficient introduction to the Linux operating system.
Linux Visual Effects in Titanic and Avatar: For those who doubt Linux’s capabilities in animation, consider this: the Oscar-winning visual effects of James Cameron’s legendary film “Titanic” were crafted using Linux-powered machines. Even more impressively, “Avatar“, Cameron’s groundbreaking 3D cinematic masterpiece, marked the last movie to be entirely developed on a Linux platform using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) applications.
Cost of Redeveloping the Linux Kernel: Redeveloping version 2.6.0 of the Linux kernel in a traditional, non-open source way was estimated to cost around $612 million in 2004. Another study in 2006, funded by the European Union, suggested that redoing version 2.6.8 would be even more expensive, at about $1.14 billion. These estimates show how much money could be saved by using the open-source approach of developing Linux.
As per Distrowatch, there are more than 75 active Linux distributions that are based on Ubuntu. While you are reading this – there could be more potential additions. You can read about some less-known Ubuntu-based Linux distributions as well (if you’re curious).
The average smart home could be at risk of more than 12,000 hacker attacks in one week. (Purplesec)
In 2024, spending in the cybersecurity industry is expected to be around USD 87 billion, an 8 per cent increase from 2023. (Statista)
By 2025, there will be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs globally. (Cybersecurity Ventures)
The cost of downtime to medical organisations due to attacks is estimated to be $15.5 million in 2023. (Comparitech)
In Europe, U.K. companies are the most likely to be targeted by phishing attacks, followed by Spain (Slash Next)
The cost of hacking is increasing (FBI and McAfee): The FBI revealed that although they considered the cost of cybercrime to be around $3.5 billion for the US in 2019, the actual toll could be a lot higher because many exploits and attacks go unnoticed. Even without a clear view of unreported crimes, the cost of cybercrime is increasing significantly every year. McAfee found the costs of an attack are increasing, but that the costs of manageing an event before and after an attack are higher now too.