All Consuming

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Exploring our culture of consumption through products that have changed the world

Charlotte Stavrou and Amit Katwala explore our culture of consumption through products that have changed the world -  asking how did we get here and what happens next?

Charlotte Stavrou and Amit Katwala explore our culture of consumption through products that have changed the world. They unravel the mysteries of marketing and the formidable forces that drive purchasing habits. From toilet paper to funerals, perfume to package holidays they'll be combing the past to see how landmark innovations have shifted the course of history. And asking what happens next?

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All Consuming: Microchips

Microchips

BBC Radio 4 - All Consuming, Microchips

Amit Katwala and Charlotte Stavrou delve into the significance of microchips.

Amit Katwala and Charlotte Stavrou find out how microchips have shaped our lives as they continue their exploration of services and products that have changed the world.

It’s not an understatement to say that microchips are now everywhere - from phone chargers to our beloved pets, there’s probably a microchip embedded within. But who invented them and how do they dictate computing power? 

Amit Katwala and Charlotte Stavrou dig their hands into a bowl of microchips for this episode of All Consuming.

They meet Ken Shirriff, a former engineer at Google, who explains the crucial role of transistors in microchips, which are tiny switches etched into the silicon wafer.

When the first microchip was invented in the 1950s there were just three transistors, but some microchips can now contain billions.  Over the decades, this has hugely increased computing power and changed our daily lives. 

But microchip fabrication plants - called ‘fabs’ to those in the industry - require large volumes of water. Amit and Charlotte speak to Anurag Bajpayee, the co-founder of a company that recycles water at microchip manufacturing plants and Dr Yu Shu, a researcher at Oxford University, who is working on a novel method of creating microchips which are less harmful to the environment.

We end our tour of the world of microchips with a visit to the University of Sussex quantum lab where they’ve recently had a breakthrough in quantum microchips, which could change the world in a way that we can’t yet compute. 

Producer: Emily Uchida Finch
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4

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