convergence

2 Articles

Are We Finally At The Point Where Phones Can Replace Computers?

March 11, 2026 by 106 Comments

There was an ideal of convergence, a long time ago, when one device would be all you need, digitally speaking. [ETA Prime] on YouTube seems to think we’ve reached that point, and his recent video about the Samsung S26 Ultra makes a good case for it. Part of that is software: Samsung’s DeX is a huge enabler for this use case. Part of that his hardware: the S26 Ultra, as the upcoming latest-and-greatest flagship phone, has absurd stats and a price tag to match.

First, it’s got 12 GB of that unobtanium once called “RAM”. It’s got an 8-core ARM processor in its Snapdragon Elite SOC, with the two performance cores clocked at 4.74 GHz — which isn’t a world record, but it’s pretty snappy. The other six cores aren’t just doddling along at 3.62 GHz. Except for the very youngest of our readers, you probably remember a time when the world’s greatest supercomputers had as much computing power as this phone.

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My Most Obsolete Skill: Delta-Gun Convergence

April 4, 2016 by 92 Comments

In a lifetime of working with electronics we see a lot of technologies arrive, become mighty, then disappear as though they had never been. The germanium transistor for instance, thermionic valves (“tubes”), helical-scan video tape, or the CRT display. Along the way we pick up a trove of general knowledge and special skills associated with working on the devices, which become redundant once the world has moved on, and are suitable only reminiscing about times gone by.

When I think about my now-redundant special skills, there is one that comes to the fore through both the complexity and skill required, and its complete irrelevance today. I’m talking about convergence of the delta-gun shadow mask colour CRTs that were the height of television technology until the 1970s, and which were still readily available for tinkering purposes by a teenager in the 1980s.
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