Fifty years ago yesterday, a paper by Intel Corporation co-founder Gordon Moore was published in Electronics magazine. Moore observed that the amount of transistors in an integrated circuit would double each year — a trend that has endured since the article was written.
You can see Moore’s Law in action across the tech landscape; laptops getting smaller, the ever-increasing capabilities of smartphones, the enormous advances being made in medical equipment. Moore predicted this course, but he also helped influence it, as his paper has been used in the transistor industry to help model future developments and establish long-term goals.
To celebrate the milestone, Intel has released a specially commissioned interview with Moore via its YouTube channel. In the video, the company’s chairman emeritus discusses his reaction to the continuing legacy of his paper, alongside footage and imagery from throughout his storied career.
“It’s really had a lot more legs than the original paper had any right to deserve,” Moore says in the video.
There are rumblings, however, that Moore’s Law might be coming to the end of its relevancy. Projections have been prepared showing that growth in the number of transistors per circuit will soon begin to slow to below the rate that Moore’s Law identifies. In fact, as part of the anniversary press tour, Moore himself stated that he expects the Law to die off before the end of the decade in an interview with IEEE.
Still, the legacy of Moore’s Law — and of Gordon Moore himself — will endure far into the future. Through his paper and his work with Intel, Moore has done far more than most to contribute to the continuing evolution of computing. While Moore’s Law might not apply to the industry in twenty years’ time, the advances made during its tenure will be built upon for years to come.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.