Author: Taylor Lowery

A tale that doesn’t seem to add up on the surface is circulating in the financial community. Strong revenue growth is reported by Alphabet. Tesla outperforms on a number of metrics. And both stocks suffer severe losses in a matter of hours. In a single session, Alphabet lost almost $293 billion in market value, making it its worst day since going public in 2004. Tesla experienced a 15% decline. Both of the records. Not the kind that anyone desired, though. What precisely is the market responding to, then? Not, it turns out, the revenue figures. The top line is no…

For years, entering an Apple Store with less than $900 was a silent source of disappointment. After admiring the MacBook Air and looking at its price tag, you would return it to its museum-like display. Everyone agreed that Apple produced gorgeous machines, but were they reasonably priced? They weren’t specifically in charge of that. The MacBook Neo followed. When Apple introduced it in March 2026 for $599, the market for laptops changed in a way that seemed minor at first but is now difficult to ignore. The A18 chip, which powers the iPhone 16, and 8GB of RAM power the…

There is a version of this story that sounds like it belongs in a 1970s science fiction book, complete with secret atmospheric experiments, shadowy elites, and a plot to actually dim the sun. However, this is currently taking place, financed by actual funds, and proceeding more quickly than most people are aware. In 2023, George Soros took the podium at a security conference in Munich and proposed an idea that shocked even those who were familiar with the fringes of climate science. In order to create clouds that would reflect sunlight away from the melting ice below, he suggested stationing…

Someone who has spent decades constructing the unseen infrastructure of contemporary life exudes a certain kind of confidence. That kind of confidence is carried by Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon. In mid-June, while seated at the company’s San Diego headquarters, which resembles a peaceful university rather than a chip-making conglomerate, he made a prediction that proved more accurate than most tech forecasts: AI agents will become the new app. That is not a line to be thrown away. The majority of high-end Android phones worldwide are powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips. Billions of devices are connected to 4G and 5G networks…

After a major disaster, there is a certain kind of silence. Not the kind of quiet that makes you feel good. The phones say “No Service.” Calls for help stop going through. It’s at that point where most people feel helpless. But across the country, people of a different type are already turning a dial, adjusting an antenna, and making contact in their yards, basements, and small home radio shacks. These people are amateur radio operators, or “hams,” and it’s interesting that their time comes when everything else stops working. It’s simple to think of ham radio as an old…

On a Saturday afternoon, going into Target feels like something that was planned ahead of time. The shelves are full. The deals in the app don’t seem to make sense. The thing you thought you might need is right where you thought it would be. Of course, none of this happens by accident, and more and more, not much of it happens at all without AI working in the background. Target has been putting together its AI infrastructure for years, long before AI became a phrase that every business leader used. That early investment is beginning to show in ways…

There is something going on on the display walls of every electronics store these days. The impossible-deep blacks on the OLED monitors draw every eye in the room to them. They look stunning, like they belong in a movie. But if you sit with a Mini-LED panel in a bright office for twenty minutes, something changes. The screen holds up; it stays bright and easy to read. There’s a quiet confidence in them that doesn’t ask for praise but gets it anyway. OLED has been the talk of the town when it comes to high-end monitors for years. And it…

There’s something very interesting about the number 85. That’s about what percentage of people in Africa live close to a mobile broadband network, which means they can get online because the signal is there and the infrastructure is there. In many places, it has been there for years. Most of those people have never even opened a browser on their phone, though. They are covered, but there is no real connection between them. The price of a smartphone is the main reason given by almost all of them. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in March 2026, the biggest…

Inside a cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bas van Abel is shown in a picture. He’s not there to get something from you. He’s there to find out how much it costs in real people to make the thing you’re holding in your pocket right now. That question, “Can a smartphone be made without leaving a trail of exploitation behind it?” is one that most people in the tech industry would rather not ask out loud. Van Abel started the Dutch company Fairphone over ten years ago. The company announced the Fairphone 6 in June 2025.…

Something about a survey from 2017 has stuck with me. A group of researchers asked 1,500 top business leaders in the US about artificial intelligence. Only 17% said they knew what it was. These weren’t new employees or people who didn’t follow the news in their field. These were the people in charge of groups. Most of them didn’t even know what AI was, let alone how it could affect their work. That number seems almost impossible right now. After a few years, people stopped asking “what is this?” and started asking “how do we keep up?” In the time…