Long Reads

Longer explainers,
fewer dead ends.

Deeper how-tos, history, and tech explainers from the Make Tech Easier editorial team. Pieces here get extra research and review.

Internet

A Japanese man named Jiroemon Kimura, who lived to 116, was born in 1897 when Queen Victoria still ruled and died in 2013, meaning a single human life personally overlapped with the invention of the airplane, the atomic bomb, the internet, and Instagram

Jiroemon Kimura was born in 1897 during Queen Victoria's reign and died in 2013 at age 116, having personally lived through the invention of the airplane, the atomic bomb, the internet, and the smartphone he used to look at photographs in his final years.

By Make Tech Easier Editorial Team · May 31, 2026
Computing

The Voyager 1 spacecraft launched in 1977 is now over 15 billion miles from Earth, and a radio signal from NASA takes more than 22 hours to reach it, meaning every command is really an instruction for where the probe will be by tomorrow

Voyager 1 is now over 15 billion miles from Earth, and a radio command sent from NASA takes more than 22 hours to reach it. Every instruction is really aimed at where the spacecraft will be by tomorrow.

By Make Tech Easier Editorial Team · May 31, 2026
Internet

The Hollywood sign originally read HOLLYWOODLAND when it was built in 1923 as a real estate advertisement for a housing development, and it was only meant to stand for 18 months, but nobody ever got around to taking it down and the city eventually adopted it as a landmark

The Hollywood sign began as a flashing 1923 billboard for a failed real estate subdivision called Hollywoodland. It was meant to come down after 18 months. A century later, here's how a temporary ad became a landmark.

By Make Tech Easier Editorial Team · May 31, 2026
Tech Explained

In 1992, a container ship leaving Hong Kong lost 28,800 plastic bath toys overboard in the North Pacific, and oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer spent the next two decades tracking yellow ducks and blue turtles as they washed up in Alaska, Maine, and eventually the coast of Scotland, quietly rewriting the textbook map of ocean currents.

On January 10, 1992, a container ship hit a violent storm somewhere near the International Date Line on its way from Hong Kong to Tacoma, Washington.

By Make Tech Easier Editorial Team · May 31, 2026
Tech Explained

In 1942, Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr and avant-garde composer George Antheil received US Patent 2,292,387 for a frequency-hopping radio system synchronised by a perforated paper roll borrowed from a player piano, a technique the Navy filed away as unworkable and which now underpins every Wi-Fi router, Bluetooth earbud, and GPS receiver on Earth.

On August 11, 1942, the US Patent Office issued Patent No. 2,292,387 to Hedy Kiesler Markey, the legal name of MGM star Hedy…

By Make Tech Easier Editorial Team · May 31, 2026
Tech Explained

In 1979, a Sony engineer named Nobutoshi Kihara built the first Walkman prototype in four days because his boss Masaru Ibuka wanted to listen to opera on long flights, and the team launched it with no advertising budget, no headphone jack standard, and an internal forecast of 5,000 units a month that the device beat in its first fortnight.

In February 1979, Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka walked into the office of audio engineer Nobutoshi Kihara carrying a bulky TC-D5 cassette recorder and a complaint.

By Make Tech Easier Editorial Team · May 31, 2026