The past century has been one of relentless innovation. But in the West the humble toilet is a curious exception. By the early 20th century, free-standing flush toilets with U-bend plumbing were being installed in homes on both sides of the Atlantic. Americans and Europeans seem to think that the model is still more or less good enough. More
“You want to know the secret to surviving air travel?” the man sitting next to Bruce Willis on the plane asks in “Die Hard”, a film from 1988. “After you get to where you’re going, take off your shoes and your socks, then you walk around on the rug barefoot and make fists with your toes.” More
ADAM SMITH would be baffled by microelectronics. When the great economist died in 1790 James Watt’s two-cylinder steam engine passed for the height of technological sophistication. If he recognised the prefix “nano”—a fair bet for a precocious classicist proficient in dead languages by 14—it would be as a derivation of the Greek word for “dwarf”, not as a reference to the billionths of a metre in which modern semiconductors are measured. The word “billion” had entered the English language by Smith’s time but the number it denotes would have seemed unfathomable. Some 200bn transistors etched onto a few halfpennies in Nvidia’s latest Blackwell artificial-intelligence (AI) chip? Black magic, even for an enlightened Scottish rationalist. More
To decarbonise the global economy and build the data centres needed for ever smarter artificial-intelligence models, the world will need lots of minerals. China wants first dibs. Last year its companies ploughed roughly $16bn into mines overseas, not including minority investments. More
Influencers are everywhere you look these days—including on America’s campaign trail. Some 200 social-media stars attended the Democratic National Convention in August, where they were entertained at lavish parties and on boat trips. A few even got to chat with Kamala Harris. Donald Trump has likewise given interviews to influencer bros such as Logan Paul and Theo Von in an effort to appeal to their followers. More
Call it a modern-day version of a spectacular Renaissance patronage. Since 2019 Microsoft has provided more than $13bn in cash and computing capacity to OpenAI, a once-penniless startup that is now at the forefront of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and, as of its most recent fundraising round, worth $157bn. In exchange, Microsoft has gained the exclusive right to run OpenAI’s models on Azure, its cloud-computing business. More
Investors are accustomed to volatility in the semiconductor industry. But recent ups and downs have been especially discombobulating. On October 15th ASML, a supplier of chipmaking gear, reported that orders during its most recent quarter were only half what analysts had expected, causing its shares to plunge. Two days later TSMC, the world’s biggest chip manufacturer, reported record quarterly profits and raised its sales forecast for the year. More
However much you might want to keep politics out of business, politics has other plans for you. Events have a habit of sucking organisations into controversy. In 2022 Disney was caught up in a very public row with the state of Florida over a bill about teaching sexuality and gender identity in public schools. Earlier this year Google fired some employees who had taken part in a sit-in to protest against the tech firm’s cloud-computing contract with Israel. University administrators have conspicuously struggled to manage the passions aroused by the war in Gaza. More
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