7 Fun Tech Facts That Sound Completely Made Up

There are fun facts, and then there are facts that just sound made up.

Believe it or not, though, these seven fun tech facts are one-hundred-percent true.

1. The First Web Camera Was Made to Watch a Coffee Pot

Of all the noble reasons to invent something, this may be the best one.

The first webcam traces its origins back to the Trojan Room at the University of Cambridge, where researchers grew tired of walking to the communal coffee pot only to find it empty.

The solution? They pointed a camera at the machine, wired it to a computer, and created a way to check the pot remotely.

One of the earliest internet-connected cameras wasn’t built for meetings, security, or content creation.

They just wanted to avoid disappointment.

2. Google Really Did Rent Goats Instead of Lawnmowers

This one sounds like an internet joke, which is fitting, because it came from Google.

In 2009, Google said it rented goats to clear weeds and brush around its headquarters instead of relying on noisy, gas-powered mowers.

What a sight it would’ve been.

According to Google’s own blog, about 200 goats showed up with a herder and a border collie, spent roughly a week grazing, and cost about the same amount as a regular mowing job.

It’s nice to be reminded that sometimes the best solution isn’t complicated.

It’s a herd of hungry goats on a hill.

3. One Woman Accidentally Cut Off the Internet in Two Countries

The internet is enormous and untouchable.

Until it isn’t.

In 2011, a 75-year-old woman in Georgia reportedly searching for scrap metal damaged a cable, disrupting internet access in Georgia and Armenia for several hours.

It’s one of those fun tech facts that stops being funny for a second once you think about what it means.

For all the hype we give “the cloud” and “cyberspace,” the internet still depends deeply on the physical world.

4. The Government Used a PlayStation 3 for Supercomputing

When you hear “PlayStation,” what do you think?

Chances are, it’s not affordable supercomputing.

But that’s what the American Air Force heard.

Yep.

The U.S. Air Force built a supercomputer using more than 1,700 PlayStation 3 consoles.

Why?

The PS3 was pretty inexpensive for the computing power it offered at the time. It was a cost-effective way to process large amounts of data.

The line between entertainment and infrastructure is thinner than it looks.

5. Apple Flip Phones Were Going to Look Like Literal Apples

It’s easy to forget that Apple’s story began well before the iPhone in 2007.

Long before the iPhone launched, design experiments were already imagining what Apple flip phones could look like. Some of those early concepts included flip-style designs, and later concepts leaned so heavily into novelty that they look cartoonish by today’s standards.

They looked like apples.

But like many companies in the early days of consumer tech, Apple was willing to get weird before it got refined.

Minimalism eventually won out, but not without some strange competition.

6. More People Had Cellphones Than Toilets

In 2013, global estimates showed that more people had access to cellphones than to proper toilets.

Phones are advanced. Toilets seem basic.

Surely, sanitation came first.

Nope.

Phones can be sold, upgraded, and distributed through private markets at a massive scale. Sanitation infrastructure is slower. It depends on construction, policy, public investment, and long-term systems that many places still don’t have in place.

That’s the truth. We live in a world where modern communication tools can reach billions of people faster than basic sanitation can.

7. The Password for the Nuclear Missiles Was a String of Zeros

If you were writing a satire about catastrophic security failures, this might feel too on-the-nose to use.

And yet.

Bruce Blair, a former Minuteman launch control officer, wrote that, prior to 1977, the launch-enable panel for Minuteman missiles had to be set to 00000000.

This is easily one of the most jaw-dropping fun tech facts.

It reveals something deeply human: the most dangerous failures in technology are not always caused by a lack of awareness.

Sometimes they happen because people are just trying to make things easier.

Concluding Thoughts on Fun Tech Facts

Weird as they are, these fun tech facts all point to the same thing.

Behind the biggest systems and smartest inventions are people trying to save time, spend less money, or work around a problem.

That same human element still shapes modern IT and cybersecurity services today.

It just goes to show:

Technology is, and always has been, deeply human.

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Danielle Mundy is a Content Marketing Specialist for Tier 3 Technology. She graduated magna cum laude from Iowa State University, where she worked on the English Department magazine and social media. She creates engaging multichannel marketing content—from social media posts to white papers.