SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS is a long time. It’s so long that most of us don’t remember a time before the transistor, and long enough for many engineers to have devoted entire careers to its use and development. In honor of this most important of technological achievements, this issue’s package of articles explores the transistor’s historical journey and potential future.

The skin off the legs of a mushroom could potentially offer a sustainable alternative to insulative substrates in computing chips. As production of electronic devices continues to increase, scientists are looking to insert a bit of nature and biodegradability into common components like the microchip, and believe it or not, peeling the skin off the mycelium of a mushroom can protect chips from heat up to 392°F (200°C.)

The chips found in the best CPUs and GPUs on the market currently are all made out of silicon, but scientists are aware of their limitations. In order to keep scaling up the performance without damaging power efficiency, a lot of research goes into finding a replacement for silicon.

Mice, windows, icons, and menus: these are the ingredients of computer interfaces designed to be simplicity itself to use. But the development was anything but simple. It took some 30 years of effort.

Statcounter says Number 10 is still Number 1 in the Windows world

The algorithm scans electronic records and may reduce sepsis deaths, but widespread adoption could be a challenge.

We've heard from multiple sources that sales for Zen 4 processors are weaker than expected, even factoring in current market conditions, so let's talk about that and...

Nvidia is pausing the launch of its upcoming 12GB RTX 4080 graphics card. After originally unveiling the 12GB RTX 4080 last month alongside a much more powerful 16GB model, Nvidia now admits it messed up with the naming. “The RTX 4080 12GB is a fantastic graphics card, but it’s not named right,” says Nvidia in a blog post. “Having two GPUs with the 4080 designation is confusing.”

Reportedly, NVIDIA was developing an even more powerful version of the GeForce RTX 4090. Billed as the Titan Ada or the RTX 4090 Ti, the graphics card is thought to be a whopping four slots thick and requires twin 16-pin power connectors. Supposedly, NVIDIA has ceased development though, with multiple reasons spelling the end of the Titan Ada for now.

An obscure software system synchronizes the network’s clocks. Who will keep it running?

In 1983, Acorn Computers needed a CPU. So 10 people built one.

Gigabyte’s Aorus RTX 4090 Master is the biggest GPU we’ve ever seen. We don’t yet know the full specs of this GeForce RTX 4090 model, but we do know we’re going to need a very large case to house this beast. This is a monster unit. It needs four slots all to itself on a motherboard. It comes with three 11 cm fans. It is 35.8 cm (14.1 inches) long and 16.2 cm (6.4 inches) wide, meaning we could literally stack several smaller RTX cards inside of it and still have some room to spare. Videocardz.com did the math and determined they could fit 10 Radeon RX 6400 cards inside.

Expect a glut of used cards to show up on eBay soon.

A new challenger approaches.

While the 13th-gen Raptor Lake CPU release may be right around the corner, Intel fans are already looking ahead at what the 14th generation will bring to the table. A South Korean tech enthusiast has uncovered information that may shed additional light on Intel's upcoming 14th-gen CPUs. According to Coelacanth's Dream, a graphics compiler found in Intel's GitHub repository looks to include elements supporting on-board ray tracing functionality.

TSMC will begin mass producing chips using its leading-edge N3 (3nm-class) manufacturing process this September, according to a Commercial Times report that cites equipment manufacturers. The contract chipmaker will deliver the first products made using its N3 node to its customers early next year.

In autumn 2021, a man made of blood and bone made friends with a child made of “a billion lines of code”. Google engineer Blake Lemoine had been tasked with testing the company’s artificially intelligent chatbot LaMDA for bias. A month in, he came to the conclusion that it was sentient. “I want everyone to understand that I am, in fact, a person,” LaMDA – short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications – told Lemoine in a conversation he then released to the public in early June. LaMDA told Lemoine that it had read Les Misérables. That it knew how it felt to be sad, content and angry. That it feared death.

Technology on the nanometre scale could provide solutions to move on from the solid-state era. Solid-state computing has had a long run since the 1950s, when transistors began replacing vacuum tubes as the key component of electronic circuits.

At first glance, you see an aquarium (hopefully) filled with fish. You look again, and realize it’s not an aquarium: it’s a PC. Actually, it’s both! The Y2 Fish Tank Chassis combines a beautiful 13-liter aquarium with an industrial-looking horizontal PC tower, and we love it.

We’ve seen the results of a whole bunch of benchmarks measuring M2 Mac speeds in the latest MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models. We can now add web browsing speed into the mix – for whatever that’s worth.