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Quiz about Origins of Todays Technology
Quiz about Origins of Todays Technology

Origins of Today's Technology Trivia Quiz


Our world today is hyper connected and many of the technology innovations we take for granted. Most of the inventions had pretty humble beginnings but a profound impact.

A multiple-choice quiz by nytoffee. Estimated time: 5 mins.
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Author
nytoffee
Time
5 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
336,445
Updated
Jul 23 22
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
7 / 10
Plays
848
- -
Question 1 of 10
1. Back in 1980, a famous telephone company hired McKinsey, the management consulting firm, to forecast the growth of cellular telephony in the US market up to the end of the millennium. What was the name of this storied telephone operator? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. Which legendary salesman was President of International Business Machines (now just called IBM) and oversaw a period of tremendous growth from 1914-1956? He is alleged to have said back in 1943 "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers". Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. 'Me at the Zoo' is the rather humble title of the first video ever uploaded on YouTube. It features YouTube founder Jawed Karim at a famous zoo in the USA. Which one?

Hint - it is usually ranked as the best/favourite zoo in the USA.
Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. Surely one of the most profound inventions of the 20th century was the Integrated Circuit or Microchip. Two electrical engineers were separately working on its development and both applied for a patent in 1959. Jack Kilby was working for Texas Instruments at the time; for whom was Robert Noyce working?

Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. Alexander Graham Bell is credited as the inventor of the telephone. The first call is said to have taken place on March 10th 1876 in Boston. What are the words that Bell is said to have uttered? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone & Evan Williams established Twitter in 2006. What was the maximum number of characters allowed per tweet?

Hint - it's close to the maximum number for a Short Message Service or Text.
Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. Apple is today one of the most admired and profitable technology companies on the planet. Steve Jobs is very much seen as the face of Apple but in 1985 he was effectively fired. Who was the CEO at the time who asked the Board of Directors to get rid of Jobs? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. The term 'to Google' is part of everyday language today and the verb 'google' began to appear in dictionaries in around 2006. Google Inc (the company) is located in an amazing part of Northern California which is home to many of the world's high-tech giants. What is the name of this area? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. The story of the explosive growth of Facebook and especially its founder Mark Zuckerberg became a popular and successful Hollywood movie in 2010 called 'The Social Network'. At which storied and prestigious college does the Facebook story start? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. One of the most profound technology inventions to affect our lives in the 20th century and beyond has been the internet. The internet infrastructure (usually considered to be TCP-IP) had been used by various research projects and organisations but the advent of the World Wide Web as an application enabled the interconnectivity between various systems that we today take for granted.

Who is the computer scientist and MIT Professor credited with inventing the World Wide Web?
Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Back in 1980, a famous telephone company hired McKinsey, the management consulting firm, to forecast the growth of cellular telephony in the US market up to the end of the millennium. What was the name of this storied telephone operator?

Answer: AT&T

The prediction was 900,000 but the actual figure was 109,000,000, so not one of McKinsey's greatest predictions. To be fair, most other analysts continued to underestimate the cellular market, so McKinsey was far from unique.

For an interesting view of how cell phones developed and emerged see:
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2007/3/2007_3_8.shtml

AT&T has changed ownership since then but is still a huge brand in the USA telecomms market.
2. Which legendary salesman was President of International Business Machines (now just called IBM) and oversaw a period of tremendous growth from 1914-1956? He is alleged to have said back in 1943 "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers".

Answer: Thomas Watson

Thomas Watson joined IBM or as it then was Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTRC) in 1914. He passed away in 1956.

Thomas Edison was a prolific & famous inventor with more than 1,000 US patents to his name, probably best remembered for the humble lightbulb.

Ken Olsen was a well known computer executive who co-founded Digital Equipment Corporation in 1957.

Dr John H. Watson was the fictional character who was an ally of Sherlock Holmes.
3. 'Me at the Zoo' is the rather humble title of the first video ever uploaded on YouTube. It features YouTube founder Jawed Karim at a famous zoo in the USA. Which one? Hint - it is usually ranked as the best/favourite zoo in the USA.

Answer: San Diego Zoo

If you want to watch this slide of history it is at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw

By 2011, YouTube has grown so much that there are 65,000 new video clips uploaded and 100,000,000 videos streamed each day. It's said to be the fastest-growing website in internet history.
4. Surely one of the most profound inventions of the 20th century was the Integrated Circuit or Microchip. Two electrical engineers were separately working on its development and both applied for a patent in 1959. Jack Kilby was working for Texas Instruments at the time; for whom was Robert Noyce working?

Answer: Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation

Fairchild Semicondctor was founded in 1957 and was very successful initially as one of the two companies with microchip technology. In the late 1960s several executives left to start up other companies. These became known as the 'Fairchildren'. Perhaps the most famous example was Robert Noyce himself who left together with Gordon Moore (he of Moore's Law), the Head of R&D from Fairchild, to set up a Intel in 1968.

IBM is a goliath of the computing world and has been involved in many breakthroughs. Not this one though.

Digital Equipment Corporation was founded in 1957. It mainly sold mid-sized computers and its products were very popular in the 1960s & 1970s. However, by the 1980s the advent of the microcomputer caused its business to decline.

Cray is a company known for its Supercomputers, which started in 1972.
5. Alexander Graham Bell is credited as the inventor of the telephone. The first call is said to have taken place on March 10th 1876 in Boston. What are the words that Bell is said to have uttered?

Answer: Mr Watson, come here I want you

"Once more..." and "We few..." are from Shakespeare's "Henry V" - got to get some culture in somehow.

"Is that Pizza Hut?" highlights the problem of being an early user of the telephone, fax machine or many other technology innovations. They don't really have any value until there are lots of other people using them. This is called the network effect.
6. Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone & Evan Williams established Twitter in 2006. What was the maximum number of characters allowed per tweet? Hint - it's close to the maximum number for a Short Message Service or Text.

Answer: 140

Dorsey had the honour of tweeting the first official tweet on March 21st 2006.

The advent of Instant Messaging, Texting and Twitter has led to a marked difference in the way younger generations use the English language.
7. Apple is today one of the most admired and profitable technology companies on the planet. Steve Jobs is very much seen as the face of Apple but in 1985 he was effectively fired. Who was the CEO at the time who asked the Board of Directors to get rid of Jobs?

Answer: John Sculley

John Sculley was a successful ex-President of Pepsi and Steve Jobs had persuaded him to come to Apple. They fell out though and Jobs tried a coup d'etat to usurp Sculley but it failed.

Jobs came back to Apple in 1996 and seems to have done pretty well since then...

Spindler succeeded Sculley as CEO of Apple and Amelio succeeded Spindler. Neither was very successful. They shouldn't feel too bad though. Success in the fast paced world of technology is often quite fleeting.
8. The term 'to Google' is part of everyday language today and the verb 'google' began to appear in dictionaries in around 2006. Google Inc (the company) is located in an amazing part of Northern California which is home to many of the world's high-tech giants. What is the name of this area?

Answer: Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is home to Apple, Intel, Google, Facebook, Oracle, HP and scores of other technology giants. Success is often fleeting though so it's the ecosystem that is most important.

Entrepreneurs are drawn to the Valley, and venture capitalists are everywhere searching for the next big idea. Perhaps most importantly, people are actually encouraged to fail. No-one is considered to have proper 'street cred' until they have been through a couple of failed start-ups. It helps to hone future success.

Silicon Mountain Range doesn't exist (as far as I know).

Silicon Roundabout is a small area of London (near Old St) that is a much smaller equivalent of Silicon Valley.

Silicone Enhancements would perhaps be something more relevant for the entertainment industries of Southern California...
9. The story of the explosive growth of Facebook and especially its founder Mark Zuckerberg became a popular and successful Hollywood movie in 2010 called 'The Social Network'. At which storied and prestigious college does the Facebook story start?

Answer: Harvard

The number of Facebook users is difficult to keep up with but by early 2011 it was well past 500 million.

Social media in general i.e. people communicating via Twitter, Facebook etc. is said to have had a significant impact on the pro-democracy demonstrations in North Africa and the Middle East in 2011.
10. One of the most profound technology inventions to affect our lives in the 20th century and beyond has been the internet. The internet infrastructure (usually considered to be TCP-IP) had been used by various research projects and organisations but the advent of the World Wide Web as an application enabled the interconnectivity between various systems that we today take for granted. Who is the computer scientist and MIT Professor credited with inventing the World Wide Web?

Answer: Sir Tim Berners-Lee

Charles Babbage was a 19th century mathematician and engineer who originated the concept of the programmable computer, and is considered by many to be the 'father of the computer'.

Gordon Moore was one of the co-founders of Intel Corporation. His law (Moore's Law) states that the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an IC doubles approx every 2 years. It has held true for over 50 years (since first IC in 1958) and helps to explain the incredible increase in performance, reduction in size and cost of electronics items.

One day though, this incremental and predictable improvement will be rendered totally obsolete by a new technology innovation. Perhaps it will be Quantum Computing, perhaps it will be something we haven't even dreamt of yet.
Source: Author nytoffee

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor stedman before going online.
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