For decades, the "Middle East crisis" was a headline about crude oil, tankers, and the price at the pump. But as of March 2026, the stakes have shifted from the engine to the motherboard. While the world watches drone strikes over Isfahan and naval skirmishes in the Persian Gulf, a more quiet, more lethal war is being fought over the very building blocks of the 21st century: semiconductors. The "Digital Iron Curtain" is falling, and it isn't just dividing East and West—it’s threatening to starve the global AI revolution of its most basic needs. The Helium Hostage: Why the Strait of Hormuz is the New Silicon Valley We’ve long been told that the South China Sea is the "front line" of the chip war because of Taiwan’s dominance in fabrication. But the ongoing U.S.-Israel war with Iran has revealed a terrifying bottleneck: The Middle East is the lungs of the semiconductor industry. To make the world’s most advanced 3nm chips, you don’t just need engineers;...
A typical collection found on Medium Twitter founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams have launched their latest project. It is now open to sign-up with your Twitter account but not ready for use. You can log-in and read about it but might have a wait a little to actually use the service. The founders have a history on the internet for launching projects that changed the face of the web - Blogger and Twitter . Blogger being a full-fledged blogging service which was bought by Google and Twitter - a micro-blogging service. Coming with such a background makes the web wonder if their next project will have this kind of success again. This project comes from the Obvious Corporation. Medium: How does it work We are able to post how this service would work based on sneak peeks by the founders and their blog which explains further. Medium is a blogging service whose front-face looks a lot like a pin-board - like Pinterest. Users can join together to collaborate on a project. Actually adding con...