The struggling American chipmaker is betting that a new plant and fresh product line will help turn around its fortunes. After four years of construction, Intel said on Thursday that its Fab 52 semiconductor plant in Chandler, Arizona is now turning out its first chips. The company also shared more details about the long-awaited CPUs that it will be producing in the facility using Intel's brand new 18A process technology. The announcement comes just six weeks after the Trump administration acquired a 9.9 percent stake in Intel in exchange for $8.9 billion in stock. The fab opening, while long in the works, is the first major opportunity for the struggling American chip maker to convince the broader tech industry that it can produce some of the world's most advanced chips at scale--and that the White House's investment might pay off.

When my 87-year-old mother, Patricia Collinson, was given an Alexa speaker by my sister, she was delighted to find she could ask it to say the Hail Mary. Every morning for a week the devout Catholic asked Alexa to recite the prayer. What she was less delighted to learn was that she had unwittingly ordered a premium subscription payable through Amazon to a private company called Catholic Prayers. Patricia, a retired district nurse in Hastings, does not own a computer, and does not know how to use one. She had signed up by voice command, without being presented with the kind of outline or terms and conditions that now comes as standard when you pay for things online.