Although we use them without a second thought, precious few of us know how they came to sit on our high streets and in the walls of our banks.

TECH
Not everyone uses QWERTY keyboards! Here are six alternative layouts.
Oddities from the oldest form of human flight.
Shark Cam makes its debut in the Shark Week special "Return of Jaws" tonight at 9 p.m. EST on the Discovery Channel; we talked to Skomal about developing the robot and what it revealed that traditional tracking methods did not.
Although most of the early "X-Patents" are lost, we have a barebones record of what used to be there, giving us a peek into what America’s earliest inventors were up to.
Whether you were playing with your friends or gleefully terrorizing your siblings, few things brought as much joy growing up as NERF’s wide array of toys.
On the TV show Battlestar Galactica, the humans experience conflicting feelings when dealing with the humanoid Cylons. While some find it easy to torture the robots, even though they resemble humans, many cringe at the thought of terrorizing the Cylons. I
Noise-canceling headphones seem like an oxymoron: a piece of audio technology that creates silence, rather than noise. They’re useful on planes, in crowded offices, and for light sleepers trying to catch some shut-eye in a thin-walled apartment, but how c
The European science organization wants to remind the world that, 20 years ago, it gave us the World Wide Web for free
They’ve been called “flying Oval Offices,” presently contain some of the world’s most high-tech missile defense systems, and even starred in an action movie alongside Harrison Ford. Yet, contrary to popular belief, Presidential airplanes have been around
Our definition of portability has changed over the years, from 1975's IBM 5100 (what we used to call a "luggable" computer) all the way to today's ultrabooks, which are finally actually "notebook" sized -- and still have halfway decent battery life.
As tempting it may be to be the first in your circle to purchase and use a new product, there’s reason to abstain until the kinks of a first generation model have been worked out.
After establishing the theory of relativity as a founding principle of modern physics, Albert Einstein turned his thoughts to higher matters: home appliances.
Let’s take a look at the origins of some of the baby basics on every new parent’s baby shower registry.
In the SXSW panel “Beyond Hubble: Building NASA’s Next Great Telescope,” scientists and engineers discussed what the Webb telescope will look for and all the engineering challenges that go into actually building the instrument.
A new episode of Mad Men or a rare airing of Murder, She Wrote isn’t the only time to stare longingly at a beautiful, sleek typewriter. There are 28 (sometimes 29) days dedicated to the once ubiquitous, now ancient device: International Typewriter Appreci