Gadgets
The idea for The Sims, life-simulation computer game, is believed to be based on the experience of its creator Will Wright. His house was destroyed in 1991 in a firestorm and his family had to move and start afresh.
The first game of this franchise was released on February 4, 2000 and as of February 2005 it has shipped 16 million copies worldwide which made it the best-selling PC game in history.
The Sims franchise holds the record for best-selling computer game franchise of all time with over 100 million copies of Sims 1, 2, 3 and all expansion packs being sold worldwide to date.
In addition to extraordinary sales the game also has been a success in other ways - attracting casual gamers and female gamers. According to statistics, female gamers make up approximately 50% of all audience.
The first credit cards were issued in the United States in the 1920s by oil companies and hotel chains, and the purpose of these first cards was not the convenience, but to build customer loyalty.
Before plastic era the credit cards (or credit tokens) were made of metal coins or plates, celluloid, cardboard.
The first bank credit card named Charg-It was invented in 1946 by a Brooklyn banker. Unlike today’s cards allowing for purchases with countless third parties all over the world, Charg-It was based on the program between bank customers and local merchants only.
The idea of SMS – short message service began to be discussed in the the beginning of the 1980s, but the companies started to develop its commercial possibilities only in the early 1990s. However, the initial growth was slow as the companies could not work out the reliable systems of charging for this service. In 1995 there were only 0.4 messages on average per GSM customer per month.
But once procedures were in place the texting skyrocketed. By the end of 2000, the average number of messages reached 35 per user per month, and on Christmas Day 2006, over 205m texts went out in the UK alone.
Today, this service is used by 74% of all mobile phone subscribers, or 2.4 billion people.
In some languages SMS is used as a synonym for a text message, or even a verb, though technically speaking SMS is a certain communication protocol, and some companies use different protocols for sending and receiving text messages.
The TV remote control as we know it today was invented by Robert Adler, a US inventor with 180 patents for electronics devices. His widow said the remote was not his favourite invention, as he rarely watched television and was "more of a reader".
One of the earliest examples of remote control was developed in 1893 by Nikola Tesla. He called his patent Method of an Apparatus for Controlling Mechanism of Moving Vehicle or Vehicles.
Remote control mechanisms were used by the Germans for motorboats during WWI, and the Soviet Red Army for their teletanks during 1930s in the war against Finland and the early stages of the Great Patriotic War.
The first TV remote control attached to the TV with a cord was produced by Zenith Radio Corporation in 1950. It was called "Lazy Bones". The founder-president of corporation yarned for a device that could be used to mute the sound of commercials.
The next generation of TV remote controls operated by flashing at photo cells in the TV. However, it had its disadvantages too: if the TV sat in an area where the sun shone directly on it, the remote’s tuner might start rotating.
The ancient Egyptians were the first to use urine to determine pregnancy. To this end they moistened the wheat seeds with urine, and the germination was the equivalent of today’s two stripes (or a plus sign). Testing of this theory in 1960s proved that the urine of pregnant women did indeed promote growth most of the times.
In the 1890s the scientists suggested that certain organs of human body secrete fluids that influence the workings of a human. English physiologist Ernest Henry Starling named these fluids "hormones", after the Greek word hormon meaning "that which sets in motion".
However, the hormone that can be found in a pregnant woman's urine and blood and is detected by today’s pregnancy tests was discovered only in the 1920s by German scientists. Selmar Aschheim and Bernhard Zondek introduced testing which identified the presence of hCG in urine in 1928. To test for pregnancy they injected an immature female mouse with woman’s urine. In the case of pregnancy, the mouse’s ovary would show an estrous reaction (be in heat) despite its immaturity.
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