COOL RUNNINGS

PCs are ten, maybe even fifteen, years behind where they should be. That sounds a lot, but actually makes a lot of sense if you remember what PCs were like in 2005 (spoiler: The same as they are now). Bell’s Law, a companion to Moore’s Law, states that every decade, a new and lower-priced computer class forms that leads to the establishment of a new industry.

This hasn’t happened. The desktop PC wasn’t out-competed by the laptop, and the laptop wasn’t bullied out of its evolutionary niche by phones and tablets. We’ve got all three, at the same time, and the one you want always costs $1,000.

This month’s Tech Report was meant to be about the future of chip cooling, and it kind of still is, but it also touches