15 common but misconceptions about science and technology

Do you know the number of bars on the phone does not mean the quality of the call, the laptop cannot cause infertility and that technological breakthroughs are not synonymous with progress in quality of life?

Technology has become an extremely important part of human life. Once anyone has access to products that are considered to be the pinnacle of science, wrong thoughts will quickly emerge. Let's take a look at 15 misconceptions but . popular of people about smartphones, laptops and many other technology products.

The more bars the phone has, the better the call quality

In fact, the number of bars indicates the distance from your location to the nearest mobile broadcast station. This is also a factor affecting the weak signal strength, but the quality of the call will depend on many other factors, such as the number of people using the same mobile network at the same time.

Mac cannot be infected with virus

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Trojan Flashback with 600,000 victims is the clearest proof that the concept of "Mac-free of malicious code" is completely wrong. However, because Windows has more users in general and more corporate customers in particular, Microsoft's operating system is still the most popular object of hackers and cyber criminals.

Anyway, while the risk of targeting Mac OS is quite low, Mac users still need to be aware that malicious code on the Mac can cause as much damage as malicious code on Windows.

Laptops can make men infertile

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Many studies have concluded that laptops and mobile phones or Wi-Fi waves are the risk of men being infertile. However, basic science shows that the laptop itself is not a problem, but the heat generated from new laptops is the biggest threat to the reproductive health of gentlemen. The natural reason designed for testes outside the human body is very simple: to " keep cool " the testicles.

Therefore, male users need to avoid placing any high temperature objects on their thighs for a long time. Obviously, laptops are the most obvious object of this advice. If you put a laptop on your desk, you have nothing to worry about.

QWERTY key layout helps people type the fastest key

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QWERTY's longevity is one of the proofs that the latest, most scientific inventions can still yield to old technologies. When the DVORAK keyboard, a type of keyboard that focuses the vowels and consonants most frequently used in the center of the keyboard (to reduce the movement distance of the fingers) is released, human has become so familiar with the QWERTY key layout.

However, it must be pointed out that QWERTY's birth also marked a technological advance: solving the problem of keys being blocked on typewriters at the end of the nineteenth century. Later, many people even set out. The hypothesis that QWERTY was invented to minimize the speed of keystrokes (thereby minimizing the risk of two keys being blocked at the same time) of the user at that time, but in fact the structural problems of the typewriter is the reason for QWERTY's birth.

The more modern technology is, the higher the quality

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There are many examples that show this point is wrong. For example, the launch of the MP3 format or iPod's success makes it easier for users to access and store their favorite music. However, the quality of MP3 or iPod is still considered to be much lower than CD - the amount of data lost during the compression process will still make the music quality significantly affected.

Previously, nostalgic users also thought that coal discs sound better than CDs. The reason is because the coal disc provides analog signals, and the CD needs to use a digital decoder to convert the digital signal into an analog signal. The quality of the poor decoders of the first period after the CD was released helped keep the disc alive today.

Similarly, the image quality of the CMOS sensor at the beginning was considered to be much worse than the CCD sensor quality on a digital camera. However, important factors such as power consumption or easy production cycle have helped CMOS to surpass CCD. In the case of a coal disc, the user quickly selected the durability of the CD to replace the ones with warm sound, but very fragile if scratched.

Henry Ford was the creator of the car and created the assembly line model

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Karl Benz ( one of the founders of Mercedes-Benz ) was the first to invent the car, and Ransom Eli Olds (the founder of two destiny car brands Oldsmobile and REO) was the first one. use assembly line production process in car industry.

However, Ford was a huge successor in the history of global car manufacturing: he successfully applied assembly lines to reduce production costs and put cars into mass production, helping for this medium to reach the middle class of the United States.

Data deleted from the trash will disappear completely

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This is a very wrong thought. Data rarely disappears completely from storage media (hard drive, USB .). Data experts can recover data that you deleted "permanently" from the hard drive quite easily.

Charge only when the battery is exhausted

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With old rechargeable battery technologies, this is a relatively correct secret. However, the new generation of rechargeable lithium batteries, which have been used in recent years, have been improved to make it easier for users to charge the battery without affecting battery life. In fact, the battery life tutorials often give advice that users should not leave the smartphone or laptop battery at 0%.

The more "dot" the camera, the more beautiful the photo is

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In the age of photography, many people still carry this wrong thought. Since the image quality is similar to the amount of light that the sensor receives, the quality of the actual camera will be determined by the size of the sensor. That's why full-frame cameras (the ones with the largest sensor among end-user cameras) are the most expensive and have the best picture quality.

That's why cameras with different " dot " numbers have similar image quality: the size of each pixel is as important as the number of megapixels available on the camera.

Dominant names will always make money

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We are not talking about defeating heroes like Sony, Nintendo or BlackBerry. Instead, we're talking about companies that are still in the top ranks like Amazon or Twitter. In 2014, Amazon recorded sales of up to $ 89 billion: the company founded and led by billionaire Jeff Bezos is still a dominant name in e-commerce. However, the loss of up to USD 241 million in the past year has also raised huge questions about the feasibility of the electronic retail segment.

Likewise, the future of music streaming services costs as much as Spotify and Pandora are not really solid. Although it has a strong influence on the sales of traditional digital music industry, especially Apple iTunes, these two big men still face big losses: Pandora lost 40 million USD in Q2 / 2014 , while Spotify had a loss of more than 100 million USD in 2013. The more activities are expanded, the more revenue is increased, the more these services increase . losses: Tens of millions of users cannot compensate for copyright costs. giant that Spotify incurs.

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But the biggest surprise is probably Twitter: every quarter of the financial year, Twitter continues to increase . losses, although this social network is still behind Facebook in popularity. In the third quarter of last year, this social network lost $ 175 million. Unlike Facebook, perhaps Twitter will have to continue to struggle with the problem of making money from users for a very long time.

Breakthrough technologies will often be very well received

In the past 30 years alone, we have witnessed a series of technological revolutions that contribute to a complete change in people's lives, such as the PC revolution or smartphone revolution. New products often give pioneering companies huge profits, most notably, thanks to the anticipation of the popular consumer smartphone trend, becoming the world's No. 1 consumer. from "bad life, dead" just over 10 years ago.

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Yet, there were times when scientific and technological breakthroughs were abandoned by people themselves. The most well-known example is the machine-breaking movement at the beginning of the nineteenth century by workers fearing losing their jobs. Next is . the phone, a groundbreaking communication tool. When it was first invented, the phone was deeply hated by people in the United States and Britain - they considered it a serious influence on their private family life.

LED TV is better than LCD TV

This is an extremely misleading but extremely popular thought, but people with basic understanding understand that LED TV is actually just a type of LCD TV. In fact, the words "LED" and "LCD" are used to refer to two completely different parts of the TV, in which the LCD is used to refer to the liquid crystal screen, while LED is the backlight for the screen. TV picture.

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What is the reason for this misconception? Probably because the phrase "LED LCD TV" is too long, making people shorten to " LED TV ". In the old " LCD and LED " comparison, " LCD TV " is the term for old LCD series using CCFL lighting technology, a technology with contrast and depth of color that is much lower than LED. The concept of " LED TV is better than LCD TV " probably started here.

You no longer need to worry about this comparison. In recent years, almost all new models of TVs and computer monitors use LED technology.

Vice President Al Gore invented the Internet?

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Former Vice President Al Gore is often criticized by political rivals for claiming to " invent " the Internet, but the fact is that Al Gore is not the inventor of the global computer network, and not once dared to " explode " like that.

That does not mean that Al Gore does not contribute greatly to the birth of the Internet. Mr. Gore has greatly contributed to the US Parliament through important bills to " open " the Internet to the entire public, such as the High-Speed ​​Computing and Communications Bill, which is also called " Gore bill ". The vice-president himself claimed to be " a pioneer in creating the Internet ", and the truth is.

Thomas Edison invented the light bulb

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Many people invented light bulbs in front of Edison. This famous inventor was the one who created an electric light bulb that could be mass-produced in 1897. But, almost a century ago, in 1800, Alessandro Volta (the inventor created the battery). ) was able to create glowing wires, while only two years later, an English inventor named Humphry Davy created a "curved electric light" pattern.

Amazon "is about to" use drones for delivery

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Amazon has attracted strong attention when it announced that it will "use" drones early to deliver goods, but in fact this seems to be just a promotion or a dream of a No. 1 online sales site. gender. Although in 2014, the drone has really become a part of the lives of the American people, the commercial drone certainly still has many difficulties.

Recently, the Federal Aviation Administration FAA proposed a number of regulations that forced commercial drone operators to not allow drones to fly out of the driver's view. The huge number of products distributed by Amazon means that the company will need a large number of drones, making it almost impossible to meet FAA requirements.

Anyway, the Prime Air project, which is still in the Amazon testing phase, will take a lot of time to overcome technological and legal obstacles.