Motorola, RIP. I'm not a professional historian. Heck, I haven't recently stayed at a Holiday Inn Express so I can't claim any expertise in the field. (That line refers to the cool advertisements where someone mentions staying .... oh, you probably have seen that.) However I can say with some credibility that "I was there."…
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From LED Lights to Electric Cars: The Experience Curve and How It Affects Us
In Austin, like many cities, the AM radio dial is eking out an existence based on sports talk, conservative talk radio, foreign language music (chicano and conjunto Tejano here), and the occasional oldies rock and roll. I'm a classic rock guy along with sports talk, NPR, and a little classical music when I need quiet…
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Reflections: From the Invention of the Transistor to Today’s Semiconductor Industry
On October 18, 1954, the first transistor radio appeared on the market. Transistors were a big breakthrough in electronics — a new way to amplify signals. They replaced vacuum tubes, which were fragile, slow to warm up, and unreliable. During World War II, there was a big funding push to try to update vacuum tubes,…
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