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2,520 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 days ago - ★★★★ - 51 ratingsThe latest in-depth coverage covering the intersection of technology and culture will help you make sense of a world in constant transformation. Join us as we explore the ways technology is changing our lives.
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Episodes
Epic Games Lashes Out at Apple Over App Store Rejection
July 11, 2024 11:00 - 6 minutesFortnite creator Epic Games says Apple rejected its App Store rival for being too similar to its own—a move it deemed “arbitrary, obstructive,” and in violation of EU rules. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
How Labour Can Fix the UK’s Tech Industry
July 09, 2024 11:00 - 11 minutesThe new government could bring about a renaissance in UK tech and bolster the country’s precarious post-Brexit startup pipeline. That’s if politics don’t get in the way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
After a 10 Year Wait, Mt. Gox Bitcoin Is Finally Being Returned
July 08, 2024 11:00 - 11 minutesFormer customers of bankrupt crypto exchange Mt. Gox are preparing to be reunited with their lost bitcoin—and it's a $9bn windfall. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Hurricane Beryl Isn’t a Freak Storm—It’s the Exact Nightmare Meteorologists Predicted
July 04, 2024 11:00 - 8 minutesA hot ocean provides the energy hurricanes need to grow—and can limit the cooling that happens in their wake, making it likelier that the storms that follow will be powerful ones. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Leading Lab-Grown Meat Company Cuts Dozens of Jobs
July 03, 2024 11:00 - 7 minutesUpside Foods is slashing staff, citing legislative, regulatory, and funding headwinds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Meta's Pay for Privacy Model Is Illegal, Says EU
July 02, 2024 11:00 - 5 minutesIn the latest big tech reprimand, European Commission officials say the tech giant must offer another option for EU users to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
French AI Startups Felt Unstoppable. Then Came the Election
July 01, 2024 13:07 - 9 minutesWith polls suggesting voters are about to swing toward the far right or hard left, the AI industry is starting to freak out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
OpenAI Wants AI to Help Humans Train AI
June 28, 2024 11:00 - 7 minutesHaving humans rate a language model’s outputs produced clever chatbots. OpenAI says adding AI to the loop could help make them even smarter and more reliable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Air So Polluted It Can Kill Isn’t Being Taken Seriously Enough
June 27, 2024 11:00 - 7 minutesToxic air kills over half a million children every year, yet only once has air pollution been listed as a cause of death on a death certificate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Julian Assange Saga Is Finally Over
June 26, 2024 11:00 - 6 minutesWikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has agreed to plead guilty to one count of espionage in US court on Wednesday, ending a years-long legal battle between the US government and a controversial publisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Post-Pandemic Recovery Isn’t Guaranteed
June 25, 2024 11:00 - 3 minutesThe aftermath of a disaster like Covid can be divided into roughly three stages: the honeymoon, the slump, and the uptick. The aim is always to build back better—but in some cases that never happens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Perplexity Plagiarized Our Story About How Perplexity Is a Bullshit Machine
June 24, 2024 11:00 - 13 minutesEarlier this week, WIRED published a story about the AI-powered search startup Perplexity, which Forbes has accused of plagiarism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Potatoes Are the Perfect Vegetable—but You’re Eating Them Wrong
June 21, 2024 11:00 - 12 minutesThe humble potato is a miraculous vegetable, but Americans are eating less of them than ever before and have ditched fresh potatoes for frozen. Is it time to rebrand the spud? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
STEM Students Refuse to Work at Google and Amazon Over Project Nimbus
June 20, 2024 11:00 - 6 minutesStudents and young workers from more than 120 universities have pledged to refuse work at Google and Amazon until the Israeli contract is dropped. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Banks Are Finally Realizing What Climate Change Will Do to Housing
June 19, 2024 11:00 - 12 minutesExtreme weather threatens the investment value of many properties, but financing for climate mitigation efforts are only just getting going. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
AI Is Coming for Big Tech Jobs—but Not in the Way You Think
June 18, 2024 11:00 - 9 minutesCompanies aren’t replacing workers with AI yet. But they are sacrificing thousands of jobs in the race to further innovation in the technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
I Spent a Week Eating Discarded Restaurant Food. But Was It Really Going to Waste?
June 17, 2024 11:00 - 13 minutesFood app Too Good To Go promises to cut waste by directing hungry bargain hunters to leftover restaurant food. But the week we spent living off the app had me wondering if Too Good To Go is too good to be true. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
From the Archives: Scientists Have Finally Found the Origins of a Mysterious Asteroid
June 14, 2024 21:00 - 9 minutesAstronomers show how a 50-meter space rock orbiting near Earth isn’t a typical asteroid: It probably blasted off the moon millions of years ago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Apple Proved That AI Is a Feature, Not a Product
June 14, 2024 11:00 - 8 minutesOther tech companies want to sell you chatbots. Apple’s demos show the value of seeing the AI as an integrated, holistic experience rather than a stand-alone app or device. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
US National Security Experts Warn AI Giants Aren't Doing Enough to Protect Their Secrets
June 13, 2024 11:00 - 9 minutesSusan Rice, who helped the White House broker an AI safety agreement with OpenAI and other tech companies, says she's worried China will steal American AI secrets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
From the Archives: The ‘Green’ Future of Furniture Is a Sofa Stuffed With Seaweed
June 12, 2024 21:00 - 7 minutesFoam rubber—like the filling inside your couch—produces an enormous amount of CO2. A Norwegian company called Agoprene thinks seaweed could be the solution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
An AI Cartoon May Interview You For Your Next Job
June 12, 2024 11:00 - 8 minutesAs if trying to land a new gig isn't demoralizing enough, job seekers are meeting with characters powered by generative AI who are capable of meeting with infinite candidates to judge their skills. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Snowflake Attack May Be Turning Into One of the Largest Data Breaches Ever
June 11, 2024 11:00 - 11 minutesThe number of alleged hacks targeting the customers of cloud storage firm Snowflake appears to be snowballing into one of the biggest data breaches of all time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Case for MDMA's Approval Is Riddled With Problems
June 10, 2024 11:00 - 11 minutesThe FDA is considering approving MDMA alongside psychotherapy as a treatment for PTSD. But evidence of the drug’s effectiveness isn’t clear cut. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
From the Archives: Energy Drinks Are Out of Control
June 09, 2024 10:00 - 12 minutesHighly caffeinated drinks have become a cultural staple. But following a death allegedly related to Panera Bread’s Charged Lemonade, has our collective obsession with energy drinks become unsafe? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
From the Archives: Here Come the Glow-in-the-Dark Houseplants
June 08, 2024 10:00 - 9 minutesStartup Light Bio has created a bioluminescent petunia using mushroom genes and plans to start shipping the plants next spring. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
From the Archives: What Will Plants Be Like on Alien Worlds?
June 07, 2024 21:00 - 10 minutesScientists know enough about exoplanets to speculate about how simple plants might arise on them. But don't count on them being green. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Marc Andreessen Called Online Safety Teams an Enemy. He Still Wants Walled Gardens for His Kid
June 07, 2024 11:00 - 7 minutesInvestor Marc Andreessen called tech ethics and safety teams “the enemy” in his “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” last year. Today he clarified he’s in favor of online guardrails for his 9-year-old son. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
From the Archives: A Medieval French Skeleton Is Rewriting the History of Syphilis
June 06, 2024 21:00 - 13 minutesWe're bringing an extra episode from our show Science, Spoken. Christopher Columbus was blamed for bringing syphilis to Europe. New DNA evidence suggests it was already there. Maybe both stories are true. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
An American Company Enabled a North Korean Scam That Raised Money for WMDs
June 06, 2024 11:00 - 8 minutesWyoming’s secretary of state has proposed ways of “preventing fraud and abuse of corporate filings by commercial registered agents” in the aftermath of the scheme’s exposure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
AI Is Your Coworker Now. Can You Trust It?
June 05, 2024 11:00 - 9 minutesGenerative AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot are becoming part of everyday business life. But they come with privacy and security considerations you should know about. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Ticketmaster Data Breach May Be Just the Beginning
June 04, 2024 11:00 - 10 minutesData breaches at Ticketmaster and financial services company Santander have been linked to attacks against cloud provider Snowflake. Researchers fear more breaches will soon be uncovered. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Google's AI Overviews Will Always Be Broken. That's How AI Works
June 03, 2024 11:00 - 9 minutesGoogle rushed out fixes after its AI search feature made errors that went viral. Fundamental limitations of generative AI mean that it will still screw up sometimes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
What Ever Happened to the Tiny House Movement?
June 02, 2024 11:00 - 10 minutesWe're bringing an extra episode from our show Business, Spoken. Tiny houses started as a minimalist revolution. They ended up as an Instagram aesthetic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
DART Showed How to Smash an Asteroid. So Where Did the Space Shrapnel Go?
May 31, 2024 21:00 - 10 minutes2022’s NASA mission proved it was possible to knock an incoming near-Earth object off course. But that creates debris—which might also be a threat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
'Largest Botnet Ever’ Tied to Billions in Stolen Covid-19 Relief Funds
May 31, 2024 11:00 - 7 minutesThe US says a Chinese national operated the “911 S5” botnet, which included computers worldwide and was used to file hundreds of thousands of fraudulent Covid claims and distribute CSAM, among other crimes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Why Some Animals Thrive in Cities
May 30, 2024 15:35 - 10 minutesWhy does some wildlife thrive in the city? Figuring this out is the first step to boosting urban biodiversity. And that's good for everyone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
From Science, Spoken: Why Antidepressants Take So Long to Work
May 29, 2024 21:00 - 13 minutesWe're bringing an extra episode from our show Science, Spoken. A clinical trial reveals the first evidence of how the brain restructures physically in the first month on SSRIs—and the link between neuroplasticity and depression. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Anduril Is Building Out the Pentagon’s Dream of Deadly Drone Swarms
May 29, 2024 11:00 - 13 minutesThe US military aims to maintain its dominance by building autonomous attack drones that collaborate with humans and overwhelm defenses in swarms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
What’s Up With These Crazy Northern Lights?
May 27, 2024 11:00 - 9 minutesSolar winds at a million miles an hour and freaky magnetic turbulence are sparking some of the best light shows in centuries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Most US TikTok Creators Don’t Think a Ban Will Happen
May 24, 2024 11:00 - 8 minutesThe Chinese-owned app is in serious trouble in Washington, but a survey of US creators suggests TikTok’s influencer economy is carrying on with business as usual. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
What Scarlett Johansson v. OpenAI Could Look Like in Court
May 23, 2024 11:00 - 9 minutesIf Scarlett Johansson pursues legal action against OpenAI for giving ChatGPT a voice she calls “eerily similar to mine,” she might claim the company breached her right to publicity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Finding a Tech Job Is Still a Nightmare
May 22, 2024 21:00 - 9 minutesWe're bringing you a special episode from our Business, Spoken show. Check it out wherever you're listening. Tech companies have laid off more than 400,000 people in the past two years. Competition for the jobs that remain is getting more and more desperate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Crypto Astrologers See Price Moves in the Stars
May 22, 2024 11:00 - 11 minutesThey predict the ups and downs of Bitcoin based on planetary movements, and their super-secretive clientele listens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The End of ‘iPhone’
May 21, 2024 11:00 - 9 minutesKen Segall is the reason so many Apple products start with “i.” Now he says it’s time to drop the prefix entirely. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
A Huge Scam Targeting Kids With Roblox and Fortnite ‘Offers’ Has Been Hiding in Plain Sight
May 19, 2024 10:00 - 13 minutesWe wanted to bring you one of our favorite stories from 2023: The wide-ranging scams, often disguised as game promotions, can all be linked back to one network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Prepare to Get Manipulated by Emotionally Expressive Chatbots
May 17, 2024 11:00 - 6 minutesThe emotional mimicry of OpenAI’s new version of ChatGPT could lead AI assistants in some strange—even dangerous—directions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
These Electric School Buses Are on Their Way to Save the Grid
May 16, 2024 11:00 - 11 minutesLoaded with ever more renewables, the grid will need to store a whole lot of energy. Enter: a new kind of magic school bus—one that can both charge and give power back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tornado Cash Developer Found Guilty of Laundering $1.2 Billion of Crypto
May 15, 2024 11:00 - 7 minutesAlexey Pertsev, cofounder of the crypto-anonymizing tool, has been sentenced to over five years behind bars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Generative AI Doesn’t Make Hardware Less Hard
May 14, 2024 11:00 - 11 minutesWearable AI gadgets from Rabbit and Humane were panned by reviewers, including at WIRED. Their face-plants show that it’s still tough to compete with big tech in the age of ChatGPT. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices