13 Things That Will Make You Go, "Hmmm...."

1. Kids, ages 6 through 17, were asked: “What medium would you choose if you could only have one?” 33% chose the Internet. 26% chose television. 1% chose a newspaper. (Source: Laporte, Leo. Leo Laporte's 2003 Technology Almanac. Indianapolis: Que, 2003.)
2. Cell phones:
   • Number of Americans who owned a cell phone in 1985: 300,000
   • Number of Americans who own a cell phone today: 128.4 million
   • Number of people estimated world-wide who will own a cell phone by the end of 2006: 1.9 billion
   • (Source: Laporte, Leo. Leo Laporte's 2003 Technology Almanac. Indianapolis: Que, 2003.)
3. Within the last year, the number of broadband subscribers has increased by 5.2 million. Check out the top 10 broadband cities: 1. New York, 2. L.A., 3. Boston, 4. San Francisco, 5. Philadelphia, 6. Seattle, 7. Dallas, 8. Chicago, 9. Washington, D.C., 10. Atlanta. (Source: Laporte, Leo. Leo Laporte's 2003 Technology Almanac. Indianapolis: Que, 2003.)
4. This year on April 3, the cell phone celebrated its 30th anniversary. Martin Cooper, the inventor of the cell phone, made the first call from the corner of 56th Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. Cooper's first call? To the competition. Mammoth by today's standards, the first phone weighed almost 2 lbs. And was 10 inches long. (Source: Edward, Bob. [2003, April 3.] Morning Edition [NPR] New York and Washington, D.C.: National Public Radio.)
5. Total number of SPAM messages received in 2001: 206 billion. Global cost: $8.6 billion. (Source: Laporte, Leo. Leo Laporte's 2003 Technology Almanac. Indianapolis: Que, 2003.)
6. TIME ™ magazine's Man of the Year in 1982 was the computer. (Source: Friedrich, Otto. “Machine of the Year: The Computer Moves In.” TIME, January 1983.)
7. The first multipurpose computer weighed more than 30 tons. It filled an 1,800-square foot room and had 6,000 manual switches. Today's average laptop weighs 6 pounds and fits into a shoulder bag. (Source: “ENIAC,” Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2003. © 1997-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights Reserved.)
8. 82% of American adults claim to “fully understand” how to operate their television. (Source: Fetto, John. “Can You Set Your VCR?” American Demographics, March 2002.)
9. In 2002, the electronic games software market totaled $17.5 billion worldwide – almost equal to the box-office earnings of the film industry. (Source: Console Wars.” The Economist. June 20, 2002.)
10. Monday logs in as the day of the week with the heaviest Internet usage; Saturday, the least. (Source: Laporte, Leo. Leo Laporte's 2003 Technology Almanac. Indianapolis: Que, 2003.)
11. Our brains take in more information in one day than the largest computer does in years. (Source: Glossary of Educational Terms. Summit Public Schools. May 13, 2002.)
12. In 1875, the director of the U.S. patent office resigned. He said that there was nothing left to invent. (Source: 2201 Fascinating Facts by David Louis. Publisher: Crown Pub [December 1988].)
13. Tohru Iwatani, the inventor of the video game Pac-Man, came up with the idea when he saw a pizza with a slice missing at a dinner party. Namco, the company that manufactures the game, estimates that the original arcade game has been played over 10 billion times. (Source: Interview with Designer for Pac-Man. Retrogamer. 1986.)