Technology

The internet loves a good neologism, especially if it can capture a purported vibe shift or explain a new trend. In 2013, the columnist Adrian Wooldridge coined a word that eventually did both. Writing for the Economist, he warned of the coming “techlash,” a revolt against Silicon Valley’s rich and powerful fueled by the public’s…

The Intel 4004, the first commercial microprocessor, was released in 1971. With 2,300 transistors packed into 12mm2, it heralded a revolution in computing. A little over 50 years later, Apple’s M2 Ultra contains 134 billion transistors. The scale of progress is difficult to comprehend, but the evolution of semiconductors, driven for decades by Moore’s Law,…

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. I’ve thought more about gallium and germanium over the last week than I ever have before (and probably more than anyone ever should). As you may already know, China banned the export…