Make Tech Easier https://maketecheasier.com/homepage/ Uncomplicating the complicated, making life easier Tue, 13 Oct 2026 06:17:39 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.10 https://maketecheasier.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/cropped-site-icon-32x32.png Make Tech Easier https://maketecheasier.com/homepage/ 32 32 A 14-year-old in Pennsylvania mounted a webcam outside her family’s Jeep and projected the feed onto the pillar beside the windshield, covered in a fabric that shows the picture only to the driver, and won $25,000 for making the blind spot vanish while passengers saw plain black cloth https://maketecheasier.com/a-14-year-old-in-pennsylvania-mounted-a-webcam-outside-her-familys-jeep-and-projected-the-feed-onto-the-pillar-beside-the-windshield-covered-in-a-fabric-that-shows-the-picture-only-to-the-dr/ https://maketecheasier.com/a-14-year-old-in-pennsylvania-mounted-a-webcam-outside-her-familys-jeep-and-projected-the-feed-onto-the-pillar-beside-the-windshield-covered-in-a-fabric-that-shows-the-picture-only-to-the-dr/#respond Tue, 13 Oct 2026 14:30:00 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=863098 https://maketecheasier.com/a-14-year-old-in-pennsylvania-mounted-a-webcam-outside-her-familys-jeep-and-projected-the-feed-onto-the-pillar-beside-the-windshield-covered-in-a-fabric-that-shows-the-picture-only-to-the-dr/feed/ 0 A bell in an Oxford University physics lab has been ringing almost nonstop since 1840 on the same pair of dry-pile batteries — about 10 billion rings so far, and nobody is quite sure what is inside the batteries https://maketecheasier.com/a-bell-in-an-oxford-university-physics-lab-has-been-ringing-almost-nonstop-since-1840-on-the-same-pair-of-dry-pile-batteries-about-10-billion-rings-so-far-and-nobody-is-quite-sure-what-is-i/ https://maketecheasier.com/a-bell-in-an-oxford-university-physics-lab-has-been-ringing-almost-nonstop-since-1840-on-the-same-pair-of-dry-pile-batteries-about-10-billion-rings-so-far-and-nobody-is-quite-sure-what-is-i/#respond Tue, 13 Oct 2026 10:15:00 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=863095 https://maketecheasier.com/a-bell-in-an-oxford-university-physics-lab-has-been-ringing-almost-nonstop-since-1840-on-the-same-pair-of-dry-pile-batteries-about-10-billion-rings-so-far-and-nobody-is-quite-sure-what-is-i/feed/ 0 Only about 60 ships in the world can fix a broken undersea cable — and two-thirds of the repair fleet will hit retirement age by 2040 without a $3 billion fix https://maketecheasier.com/only-about-60-ships-in-the-world-can-fix-a-broken-undersea-cable-and-two-thirds-of-the-repair-fleet-will-hit-retirement-age-by-2040-without-a-3-billion-fix/ https://maketecheasier.com/only-about-60-ships-in-the-world-can-fix-a-broken-undersea-cable-and-two-thirds-of-the-repair-fleet-will-hit-retirement-age-by-2040-without-a-3-billion-fix/#respond Thu, 24 Sep 2026 16:04:17 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=862018 https://maketecheasier.com/only-about-60-ships-in-the-world-can-fix-a-broken-undersea-cable-and-two-thirds-of-the-repair-fleet-will-hit-retirement-age-by-2040-without-a-3-billion-fix/feed/ 0 Microsoft warns fake passkey setup requests are being used to compromise work accounts https://maketecheasier.com/how-to-set-up-passkeys-on-your-google-account-and-keep-2-step-verification-as-backup/ https://maketecheasier.com/how-to-set-up-passkeys-on-your-google-account-and-keep-2-step-verification-as-backup/#respond Thu, 24 Sep 2026 15:30:11 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=862007 https://maketecheasier.com/how-to-set-up-passkeys-on-your-google-account-and-keep-2-step-verification-as-backup/feed/ 0 Windows 11 24H2 Home and Pro editions reach end of updates on October 13, 2026 — here’s what you must do https://maketecheasier.com/windows-11-24h2-home-and-pro-editions-reach-end-of-updates-on-13-october-2026-heres-what-you-must-do/ https://maketecheasier.com/windows-11-24h2-home-and-pro-editions-reach-end-of-updates-on-13-october-2026-heres-what-you-must-do/#respond Thu, 24 Sep 2026 14:30:56 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=861998 https://maketecheasier.com/windows-11-24h2-home-and-pro-editions-reach-end-of-updates-on-13-october-2026-heres-what-you-must-do/feed/ 0 A 12-year-old in Silicon Valley asked his parents how blind people read, was told to go Google it, and built a braille printer from a $349 LEGO robotics kit at the kitchen table — the machines schools were buying cost $2,000, and Intel ended up putting venture money into a seventh-grader’s company https://maketecheasier.com/a-12-year-old-in-silicon-valley-asked-his-parents-how-blind-people-read-was-told-to-go-google-it-and-built-a-braille-printer-from-a-349-lego-robotics-kit-at-the-kitchen-table-the-machines/ https://maketecheasier.com/a-12-year-old-in-silicon-valley-asked-his-parents-how-blind-people-read-was-told-to-go-google-it-and-built-a-braille-printer-from-a-349-lego-robotics-kit-at-the-kitchen-table-the-machines/#respond Thu, 24 Sep 2026 08:59:26 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=862000 https://maketecheasier.com/a-12-year-old-in-silicon-valley-asked-his-parents-how-blind-people-read-was-told-to-go-google-it-and-built-a-braille-printer-from-a-349-lego-robotics-kit-at-the-kitchen-table-the-machines/feed/ 0 The computer driving NASA’s Perseverance rover across Mars is a $200,000 version of the chip from the 1998 iMac, running at 200 megahertz with a couple hundred megabytes of memory — because a processor that shrugs off a million rads of radiation matters more than speed https://maketecheasier.com/the-computer-driving-nasas-perseverance-rover-across-mars-is-a-200000-version-of-the-chip-from-the-1998-imac-running-at-200-megahertz-with-a-couple-hundred-megabytes-of-memory-because-a/ https://maketecheasier.com/the-computer-driving-nasas-perseverance-rover-across-mars-is-a-200000-version-of-the-chip-from-the-1998-imac-running-at-200-megahertz-with-a-couple-hundred-megabytes-of-memory-because-a/#respond Thu, 24 Sep 2026 08:44:57 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=861994 https://maketecheasier.com/the-computer-driving-nasas-perseverance-rover-across-mars-is-a-200000-version-of-the-chip-from-the-1998-imac-running-at-200-megahertz-with-a-couple-hundred-megabytes-of-memory-because-a/feed/ 0 Every morning in the city next door to Silicon Valley, staff load three 5.25-inch floppy disks to boot the computers that run San Francisco’s subway trains — a 1998 system that moves data slower than dial-up, and replacing it is costing the city $212 million https://maketecheasier.com/every-morning-in-the-city-next-door-to-silicon-valley-staff-load-three-5-25-inch-floppy-disks-to-boot-the-computers-that-run-san-franciscos-subway-trains-a-1998-system-that-moves-data-slo/ https://maketecheasier.com/every-morning-in-the-city-next-door-to-silicon-valley-staff-load-three-5-25-inch-floppy-disks-to-boot-the-computers-that-run-san-franciscos-subway-trains-a-1998-system-that-moves-data-slo/#respond Thu, 24 Sep 2026 08:36:44 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=861991 https://maketecheasier.com/every-morning-in-the-city-next-door-to-silicon-valley-staff-load-three-5-25-inch-floppy-disks-to-boot-the-computers-that-run-san-franciscos-subway-trains-a-1998-system-that-moves-data-slo/feed/ 0 Microsoft sealed hundreds of servers in a nitrogen-filled cylinder and sank it 117 feet to the seabed off Scotland’s Orkney Islands in 2018, and when divers hauled it up two years later, crusted in barnacles, the machines had failed at one-eighth the rate of identical servers on land https://maketecheasier.com/microsoft-sealed-hundreds-of-servers-in-a-nitrogen-filled-cylinder-and-sank-it-117-feet-to-the-seabed-off-scotlands-orkney-islands-in-2018-and-when-divers-hauled-it-up-two-years-later-crusted-in-b/ https://maketecheasier.com/microsoft-sealed-hundreds-of-servers-in-a-nitrogen-filled-cylinder-and-sank-it-117-feet-to-the-seabed-off-scotlands-orkney-islands-in-2018-and-when-divers-hauled-it-up-two-years-later-crusted-in-b/#respond Thu, 24 Sep 2026 08:23:37 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=861988 https://maketecheasier.com/microsoft-sealed-hundreds-of-servers-in-a-nitrogen-filled-cylinder-and-sank-it-117-feet-to-the-seabed-off-scotlands-orkney-islands-in-2018-and-when-divers-hauled-it-up-two-years-later-crusted-in-b/feed/ 0 When you type bbc.com, the browser may trigger several invisible network exchanges: it asks a DNS resolver for the site’s address, opens a TCP connection with three packets, negotiates encryption keys, and only then requests the page, with each uncached round trip adding delay https://maketecheasier.com/what-browser-does-before-loading-page/ https://maketecheasier.com/what-browser-does-before-loading-page/#respond Tue, 22 Sep 2026 00:31:51 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=861955 https://maketecheasier.com/what-browser-does-before-loading-page/feed/ 0 Christopher Latham Sholes, the printer and Wisconsin state senator who designed the QWERTY keyboard, was appointed Milwaukee’s postmaster by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War — he tinkered with a page-numbering machine on the job before turning to typewriters https://maketecheasier.com/christopher-sholes-invented-qwerty-keyboard/ https://maketecheasier.com/christopher-sholes-invented-qwerty-keyboard/#respond Mon, 21 Sep 2026 07:57:42 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=861945 https://maketecheasier.com/christopher-sholes-invented-qwerty-keyboard/feed/ 0 Why did the QWERTY keyboard, arranged in the 1870s to stop mechanical typebars from jamming, outlast every layout designed to beat it over the next 150 years? https://maketecheasier.com/why-qwerty-outlasted-better-layouts/ https://maketecheasier.com/why-qwerty-outlasted-better-layouts/#respond Mon, 21 Sep 2026 03:57:02 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=861938 https://maketecheasier.com/why-qwerty-outlasted-better-layouts/feed/ 0 Pixel 3 Night Sight can capture a photo in near-darkness because it doesn’t take one picture — it can take up to 15 short exposures, align them with sub-pixel precision and average down the noise while the phone keeps collecting light after you press the shutter https://maketecheasier.com/pixel-night-sight-stacks-exposures/ https://maketecheasier.com/pixel-night-sight-stacks-exposures/#respond Fri, 18 Sep 2026 15:47:35 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=861931 https://maketecheasier.com/pixel-night-sight-stacks-exposures/feed/ 0 Screens use red, green and blue because human retinas carry only three types of colour-sensing cones, tuned near those wavelengths — a display isn’t reproducing colour, it’s tricking three specific proteins in your eye into firing in the right ratio https://maketecheasier.com/how-rgb-screens-trick-human-eyes/ https://maketecheasier.com/how-rgb-screens-trick-human-eyes/#respond Thu, 17 Sep 2026 04:43:03 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=861923 https://maketecheasier.com/how-rgb-screens-trick-human-eyes/feed/ 0 Voyager 1 is over 15.8 billion miles from Earth and its generators lose about four watts of power every year https://maketecheasier.com/voyager-1-loses-power-each-year/ https://maketecheasier.com/voyager-1-loses-power-each-year/#respond Wed, 16 Sep 2026 07:22:27 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=861917 https://maketecheasier.com/voyager-1-loses-power-each-year/feed/ 0 When you delete a file from a traditional hard drive, the operating system usually removes the pointer to it — the bytes themselves can sit undisturbed until something else writes over that patch of disk, which is why recovery tools can rebuild photos months later https://maketecheasier.com/how-hard-drive-file-recovery-works/ https://maketecheasier.com/how-hard-drive-file-recovery-works/#respond Mon, 14 Sep 2026 14:16:27 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=861905 https://maketecheasier.com/how-hard-drive-file-recovery-works/feed/ 0 The Gulf Offshore Research Institute has been awarded $20 million to turn idle Gulf oil platforms into hubs for energy, minerals and aquaculture https://maketecheasier.com/gulf-oil-platforms-energy-aquaculture/ https://maketecheasier.com/gulf-oil-platforms-energy-aquaculture/#respond Mon, 14 Sep 2026 10:03:41 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=861902 https://maketecheasier.com/gulf-oil-platforms-energy-aquaculture/feed/ 0 How did a metal box first secured to a converted tanker in April 1956 cut ocean freight loading costs by more than 90 per cent? https://maketecheasier.com/shipping-container-cut-loading-costs/ https://maketecheasier.com/shipping-container-cut-loading-costs/#respond Thu, 10 Sep 2026 08:10:44 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=861894 https://maketecheasier.com/shipping-container-cut-loading-costs/feed/ 0 In December 2014, Google introduced a reCAPTCHA checkbox that let many users skip distorted letters while the system weighed browser characteristics and a Google tracking cookie before deciding whether to show another challenge https://maketecheasier.com/how-google-recaptcha-checkbox-works/ https://maketecheasier.com/how-google-recaptcha-checkbox-works/#respond Wed, 09 Sep 2026 08:45:42 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=861888 https://maketecheasier.com/how-google-recaptcha-checkbox-works/feed/ 0 Microsoft didn’t just stop shipping Flash with Windows 10 — in February 2021 it began silently force-installing update KB4577586, which scrubs the player from the operating system itself, with the rollout finishing across most Windows machines by July 2021 https://maketecheasier.com/windows-update-removed-adobe-flash/ https://maketecheasier.com/windows-update-removed-adobe-flash/#respond Tue, 08 Sep 2026 10:06:30 +0000 https://maketecheasier.com/?p=861880 https://maketecheasier.com/windows-update-removed-adobe-flash/feed/ 0