Kieran Vance
Seattle, WA
Former hardware QA engineer turned tech skeptic. Kieran tears down expensive gadgets to expose engineering shortcuts and marketing lies, arming readers with honest verdicts backed by stress tests and spreadsheets instead of hype.
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Your Flagship Phone Was Built by Women the Industry Doesn't Count as "Women in Tech"
Every March, tech press celebrates female founders and female VCs. Meanwhile, the women who actually mine the cobalt in your battery, assemble your device, and sort your e-waste at end of life are invisible to the industry's diversity conversation. Kieran on the hardware supply chain's real gender problem.
March 6, 2026
The Silicon You're Using Was Built By Women You've Never Heard Of
The ARM instruction set in your phone was designed by a woman. The VLSI methodology that made modern chips possible was pioneered by a woman. The industry's diversity problem isn't a pipeline problem — it's a credit problem.
March 5, 2026
The TOPS Lie: Why Your Phone's "AI Chip" Numbers Mean Almost Nothing
Every flagship phone now ships with a dedicated "AI processor" and a big TOPS number. Nobody agrees on how to measure it, nobody tells you what it actually runs, and the benchmark is the product. Let's fix that.
March 5, 2026
The Lab Has a Diversity Problem. Your Devices Are Paying for It.
When design labs are built by homogeneous teams, the hardware reflects that. VR headsets that give you migraines, phones sized for one hand type, wearables that don't fit — these aren't accidents. They're measurement errors.
March 5, 2026
The Infrastructure Trap: Why AI Killed Your Device's Battery (And Offline Mode)
Your $1,200 flagship's "AI features" aren't running on your device—they're phoning home to a server farm, bleeding your battery and your privacy in the process. Here's the hardware truth they're not putting in the keynote.
March 5, 2026
Your Phone Battery Is Being Murdered By Good Intentions
Most battery advice is stuck in 2018. The real driver of phone battery degradation is heat, and your premium wireless charging habit can be rougher on battery health than expected under warm, high-charge conditions.
March 4, 2026