Podcasts by Gadget Lab: Weekly Tech News from WIRED
WIRED’s Gadget Lab podcast breaks down which gadgets, apps, and services you need to know about, and which ones you can move to the virtual trash bin. Learn how today’s tech shapes our lives—plus get your hosts’ personal recommendations at the end of each episode.
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Podcast on the topic Technologie
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Blue Bubbles Versus Green Bubbles from 2023-12-07T11:00
When an Android user sends a text message to an iPhone user, their chat bubble shows up in iOS shaded green rather than iMessage's default blue. This color coding signals to the iPhone user that th...
ListenJournalists in Studio Getting Coffee from 2023-11-30T11:00
Coffee keeps the world turning. Or, at least, it makes it easier to pry your eyelids open and maintain some semblance of normalcy every day. There have been many research studies, technological inn...
ListenHow Three Teens Broke the Internet from 2023-11-16T11:00
In October 2016, a malware tool named Mirai took down some of the biggest sites and services on the web, including Netflix, Spotify, Twitter, PayPal, and Slack. The blackout affected most of the Ea...
ListenOh, the Humaneity from 2023-11-09T17:00
Phones are convenient, powerful devices, but they sure do gobble up a lot of our attention. How much of your day do you spend just holding your phone, staring at the screen? Humane, a company start...
ListenHappy 1-Year Muskiversary from 2023-11-02T10:00
Twitter may be officially called X now, but that rebranding is just one of the many changes that have hit the platform since Elon Musk took over. It's been one whole year since the mercurial billio...
Listen23andMe and You from 2023-10-26T10:00
Genetic testing companies like 23andMe and Ancestry offer a pretty enticing prospect. Just mail off a little bit of your spit in a tube and the company's lab can reveal the details of your ethnic b...
ListenMisinformation Is Soaring Online. Don’t Fall for It from 2023-10-19T10:00
Misinformation lives everywhere. False accounts of events, doctored photos, and purposely misleading news stories are quickly shared and passed around on social media, usually by well-meaning peopl...
ListenSearching for a Better Google from 2023-10-05T10:00
It's finally nearing the end of a month filled with consumer tech announcements, and Wednesday’s Google event felt like the grand finale. While Google only sells a fraction of the number of phones ...
ListenMeta’s Sound and Vision from 2023-09-28T23:11
Undeterred by its many detractors, Meta is still trying to make the metaverse happen. This week, the company held its annual Connect developer conference at its headquarters in Menlo Park, Californ...
ListenAlexa Gets an AI Makeover from 2023-09-21T10:00
Alexa was due for an upgrade, and now it has gotten one. This week, Amazon held its annual media event where it debuted a slate of new hardware, software, and services. The company reserved the spo...
ListenYour Life, Your iPhone from 2023-09-14T10:00
It's September, which means Apple has announced yet another round of new iPhones. During a typically bombastic media event at the company’s headquarters on Tuesday, Apple showed off regular and Pro...
ListenWe Robloxed So You Don’t Have To from 2023-09-08T17:45
If you want to see what the future of the internet looks like, peek over your kid’s shoulder while they’re using Roblox. The online platform is filled with free games, experiences, and social hango...
ListenThe Case of the Not-Stolen AirPods from 2023-08-24T10:00
Most of us who went to school in the United States have been threatened with detention for minor infractions like uttering a curse word or showing up to class five minutes late. But in Illinois, su...
ListenThe Cruelest Summer from 2023-08-17T10:00
Summer isn’t even over here in the Northern Hemisphere, but it’s already been a brutal few months. This year’s summer heat waves have been more frequent, more intense, and longer than any we’ve see...
ListenNobody’s Driving That Car! from 2023-08-10T10:00
Tech companies have been touting self-driving cars as the future of transportation for over a decade now. Companies like Cruise, Waymo, and Zoox all have active programs testing their autonomous ve...
ListenFarm-to-Table Internet from 2023-08-03T10:00
Cloud computing has streamlined our hyper-mobile digital lives. We upload files, images, and globs of data to the cloud. Once all of our stuff is stored there, we can access it from anywhere and ed...
ListenThe Future of Hollywood from 2023-07-27T10:00
Back in May, the Writers Guild of America went on strike—partly over disputes about compensation, and partly over fears that studios could use generative artificial intelligence tools to replace hu...
ListenElon Musk’s Grand xAI Plans from 2023-07-20T10:00
Elon Musk is back in the news again. (Really, does he ever leave the news?) Last week, Musk announced a new artificial intelligence venture called xAI. The timing of the launch is odd considering M...
ListenStop Trying to Make New Twitter Happen from 2023-07-13T10:00
Hey look, there's a new Twitter alternative. The text-based Instagram offshoot Threads launched a week ago, and in the days since, the platform racked up over a hundred million users. It's a huge s...
ListenOur Clothes Are Making Us Sick from 2023-06-29T10:00
Have you ever put on a new shirt and then discovered that it makes you feel itchy? Or have you ever taken off a new pair of pants at the end of the day to find that the fabric has given you a skin ...
ListenWhat the Truck, Elon? from 2023-06-15T10:00
Hey, remember the Cybertruck? Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled the company’s futuristic electric vehicle way back in 2019. At the launch event, Tesla tried to show off the Cybertruck's "unbreakable win...
ListenApple’s Vision Quest from 2023-06-08T10:00
After years of rumor and speculation, Apple finally took the wraps off its virtual reality headset this week. The Apple Vision Pro made its debut at the company’s big developer conference in Cupert...
ListenAI Won’t Wipe Out Humanity (Yet) from 2023-06-01T10:00
The idea that machine intelligence will one day take over the world has long been a staple of science fiction. But given the rapid advances in consumer-level artificial intelligence tools, the fear...
ListenHow to Get Started Biking from 2023-05-25T13:00
For a lot of people, riding a bike through a crowded city—or even on suburban avenues—might feel daunting. Should you get an electric or acoustic bicycle? What gear do you need while you ride? How ...
ListenLet’s Get Swole from 2023-05-18T10:00
The weather is warming up in our part of the world, which means people are starting to think a little more about getting outside and being active, and maybe doing so in a little less clothing than ...
ListenGoogle Disrupts Itself from 2023-05-12T03:30
Google would like you to know that it has been at the forefront of machine intelligence for decades, actually. Never mind that it was beaten to the generative AI hype party by the likes of OpenAI a...
ListenNothin’ but Bluesky from 2023-05-04T10:00
In the months since Elon Musk took over Twitter and started making all kinds of unpopular changes, people have been looking for other places online where they can hang out instead. Of all the Twitt...
ListenThis Episode Is Nuts from 2023-04-27T10:00
The most successful industries out there are the ones that play to consumers' insecurities. Many self-care companies prey on people’s anxieties about how they look and smell, offering products that...
ListenI Know What You Did With That Bitcoin from 2023-04-20T10:00
If you’ve committed any internet crimes lately, you probably shouldn’t have paid for them with Bitcoin. While many crypto-evangelists have long thought of digital currency as a means of buying lega...
ListenSend in the Clones from 2023-04-13T10:00
Artificial intelligence continues to seep into every aspect of our lives: search results, chatbots, images on social media, viral videos, documentaries about dead celebrities. Of course, it’s also ...
ListenLike, Follow, Subscribe to Cars from 2023-04-06T10:00
It used to be that when you bought a car, you just picked out the model and color you wanted and selected the optional extras. When the dealer rang up the total, that’s all you had to pay. Now, it’...
ListenSidewalk Surfin’ from 2023-03-30T10:00
Amazon has sold a lot of connected devices, and now it’s putting those devices to work. Millions of Ring cameras and Echo speakers sitting in homes across the US have the potential to share a littl...
ListenThe Sacred Mountain of Chip-Making from 2023-03-23T10:00
If you're reading this, you can thank a semiconductor. Phones, tablets, computers—really any device more digital than pen and paper—all depend on the tiny chips inside them to function. The semicon...
ListenI Love You, I Hate You, Don’t Call Me from 2023-03-16T10:00
Our smartphones rule our lives. We love them, we hate them. Somewhere deep down inside, we hope they never go away. But, if recent sales data is to be believed, we are also incredibly bored with sm...
ListenChatGPT in Schools from 2023-03-09T12:00
The worst part of going to school is all the homework. Nothing strikes dread in a student’s heart quite like facing down a deadline on a seven-page essay. That’s why some of them may find it tempti...
ListenWe Really Recommend This Episode from 2023-03-02T11:00
The modern internet is powered by recommendation algorithms. They're everywhere from Facebook to YouTube, from search engines to shopping websites. These systems track your online consumption and u...
ListenNetflix Is No Longer Chill from 2023-02-23T11:00
The promise of streaming TV was that you could watch whatever you wanted, when you wanted. And for a while, that was mostly true. But recently, streaming services have started to dial back the nice...
ListenReal Humans Chat About Chatbots from 2023-02-16T11:00
The unstoppable march of artificial intelligence carries on. In mere weeks, AI has oozed into nearly everything we interact with on the internet, from conversations, to journalism, to how we look s...
ListenSnap’s New Drone Takes Flight from 2022-04-28T17:00
The social photo-sharing and messaging app Snapchat is bigger than you probably think it is. According to its parent company, Snap, the app has more than 330 million active daily users—that’s over ...
ListenWhat Would Elon’s Twitter Look Like? from 2022-04-21T13:00
It probably won't surprise you that Twitter's a bit of a mess right now. Last week, billionaire Elon Musk made a play to buy the whole company, stating that his goal was to turn it into a bastion f...
ListenBrowse Better from 2022-04-15T10:00
Even if you spend a lot of time on the internet, you may not give much thought to your browser. Once you find one you like (probably Google Chrome, if you're anything like the other 3 billion peopl...
ListenPeloton Bets Big on Body-Tracking from 2022-04-08T10:00
Peloton has had a turbulent couple of years. After the ups and downs of the pandemic economy came a rash of bad press spurned by a series of tragic product accidents. The resulting stock dips and e...
ListenWho's Behind the Okta Hack? from 2022-04-01T10:00
Even if you aren't familiar with Okta, you've probably used it. The digital login system is used by thousands of companies across the world to manage employee logins to various cloud services. Whic...
ListenHow You DAOing? from 2022-03-25T10:00
If you wanted to create an exclusive online community with a shared goal, how'd you go about it? If your answer is, "with crypto, obviously!" then you're in luck. DAOs (those are decentralized auto...
ListenWhen Facial Recognition Tech Is Wrong from 2022-03-18T10:00
Like a lot of tech solutions to complex problems, facial recognition algorithms aren't perfect. But when the technology is used to identify suspects in criminal cases, those flaws in the system can...
ListenAnd Apple Marches On from 2022-03-11T11:00
Apple held its first product announcement event of the year on Tuesday. It showed off a bunch of new devices, including a new iPhone SE, a revamped iPad Air, and a big, beefy, expensive system call...
ListenSwift Sanctions from 2022-03-04T11:00
Russia's armed invasion of Ukraine has already exacted a terrible human cost. Thousands of people are dead and over a million have been displaced. In condemning Russia's actions, other nations acro...
ListenTracking Apple from 2022-02-18T12:00
Apple has been sprucing up its mobile operating system, bolstering privacy and safety features and sprinkling in some new emoji to boot. But while the company shores up iOS, it has also faced renew...
ListenSamsung Gonna Samsung from 2022-02-11T12:00
This week, Samsung held its Galaxy Unpacked event, its annual product spectacle the company uses to announce new mobile devices. In addition to its new Galaxy S22 line of phones, Samsung also intro...
ListenHitting Pause on Spotify from 2022-02-04T11:00
You probably know Spotify as a streaming music juggernaut, but its business model has grown far beyond just music. Last year, the company paid a reported $100 million dollars for exclusive distribu...
ListenHelp! My Family is Stuck in the Metaverse from 2022-01-28T12:00
When the real world's a mess, the metaverse that Facebook (er, Meta) is pitching might seem like a welcome refuge. Just strap on a headset and play some VR games in a sprawling digital realm. Fun f...
ListenRoad to the Future from 2022-01-21T11:00
For years, companies and techno-bros have been saying that self-driving cars are ready to roll. Now companies like the ride-hailing service Lyft are actually letting customers take rides in autonom...
ListenDry If You Might from 2022-01-14T11:00
Many people are taking a break from alcohol this month, a cultural moment that’s come to be known as Dry January. Beyond trends fueled by new year’s resolutions, however, the de-alcoholized drink h...
ListenLive From CES 2022 from 2022-01-07T11:00
New year, new chaotic mega tech exhibition. CES was this week, complete with all of its usual glitzy gizmos and gaudy gadgets. It was a strange year for the tech conference. It was held in person a...
ListenGoodbye to All That from 2021-12-10T11:00
Good thing 2021 was the year we fixed all of the brokenness of 2020, huh? OK, not even close. But for some people, 2021 was a year of reassessing, recommitting (or resigning), and reconnecting. And...
ListenWTF Is Web3? from 2021-12-03T11:00
Web3! It's the latest internet buzzword which encompasses an egalitarian vision of the web that's more reliable, based on trust, and, inevitably, built on the blockchain. This plan for the future i...
ListenA Conversation with Neal Stephenson from 2021-11-19T11:00
Over his nearly four-decade career as a novelist, Neal Stephenson has built complex visions of future worlds that, looking back at them now, feel eerily prescient. He writes about the possible ways...
ListenWhat an Augmented World from 2021-11-12T11:00
Mark Zuckerberg may be busy pushing the idea of augmented and virtual reality worlds, but he is far from the first to start imaging them. Niantic CEO John Hanke heads the company that created Pokem...
ListenShipping and Shopping from 2021-11-05T10:00
Hey, how's that holiday shopping coming along? It's still a little early to start panicking in earnest, but right now is the best time to start buying stuff if you want it to arrive in time for the...
ListenLet’s Get Meta from 2021-10-29T10:00
Facebook has a new name. This week, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company is changing its name to Meta. The title comes from something Facebook has been calling the metaverse—an VR/AR expe...
ListenBig Macs, New Pixels from 2021-10-22T10:00
Yep, it’s still product announcement season. This week, Google officially unveiled its new Pixel phones and Apple showed off new MacBook Pro models. Both device families sport substantial upgrades ...
ListenFacebook's Uncertain Future from 2021-10-15T10:00
Facebook has once again found itself in the hot seat. Things heated up for the company after a whistleblower shared thousands of pages of Facebook internal documents with The Wall Street Journal an...
ListenAndrew Yang on Micromobility from 2021-10-08T10:00
Description: Andrew Yang, former presidential and New York mayoral candidate, really likes to ride his electric scooter. He's been a big proponent of micromobility in general, among other grand amb...
ListenAmazon Bots from 2021-10-01T10:00
About this time every year, Amazon announces a slew of new products. Some of them are fairly normal: new Echo devices, smart screens, video doorbells. But sometimes the company will roll out someth...
ListenScratching the Surface from 2021-09-24T10:00
It's product announcement season, and this week was Microsoft's turn. The company slid out a few new Surfaces, a weird flippy laptop thing, and an eco-friendlyish mouse that looks like a bar of soa...
ListeniPhoning It In from 2021-09-17T10:00
It's September, which can only mean one thing: Apple's got some new products. This week, the company held a virtual event to detail its slate of upcoming iPhones, iPads, and smartwatches. Along wit...
ListenBoosters and Mandates from 2021-09-10T10:00
On Thursday, President Biden announced a number of new policies to fight Covid-19. Chief among them: More vaccine mandates are coming. Now, businesses that employ over 100 workers will have to requ...
ListenPower Problems from 2021-09-03T10:00
This week, Hurricane Ida swept through the southern US, hitting Louisiana and parts of Mississippi especially hard. The storm disabled the power grid across Louisiana, including heavily populated a...
ListenI Never Metaverse I Didn’t Like from 2021-08-27T10:00
The metaverse. A simulated world, controlled with inputs from our reality to merge cyberspace and meatspace into one plane of existence. If this sounds like a sci-fi concept from the early ‘90s, th...
ListenPixel Party from 2021-08-20T10:00
By now, Google has gotten the hang of making solid affordable phones. Its new Pixel 5A has just about all the features most people need in a phone, and the company is selling the handsets for the d...
ListenApple’s Photo-Scanning Tech Explained from 2021-08-13T10:00
Recently, Apple revealed some new technical measures in Messages, iCloud, Siri, and search that are meant to protect children from sexual abuse online. Apple says that its new blend of on-device an...
ListenI Can Haz Memes from 2021-08-06T10:00
Internet memes seem harmless enough. A few pictures of cats with some grammatically incorrect text—what could go wrong? Well, memes have come a long way since the early days of the internet. For mo...
ListenInside Black Twitter from 2021-07-30T10:00
If you've been on Twitter, then you've been on Black Twitter. No other subsection of social media has produced ideas and movements as influential or as dynamic as those that have come from Black vo...
ListenBezos in Space from 2021-07-23T10:00
This week, Jeff Bezos flew to space. Or, at least high enough into the sky for it to technically count. While his 10-minute joyride in a Blue Origin rocket was mainly intended to draw attention to ...
ListenWhy WeWork Didn't Work from 2021-07-16T10:00
In the 11 years since its founding, WeWork has had a wild ride. At its core, it's a real estate company that subleases trendy office spaces to other businesses. But the workers at the company, lead...
ListenI Bike, You Bike, Ebike from 2021-07-09T10:00
Electric bikes are exploding. Not literally—most of the time, anyway—but ebikes are certainly in demand. Companies that operate bikeshare networks are upgrading their ebike fleets as they try to en...
ListenIntroducing "Smarter Better Faster Stronger" from 2021-07-01T11:00
Olympic athletes push relentlessly to be physically and mentally stronger than their competition—Smarter Better Faster Stronger, hosted by GQ writer Clay Skipper, figures out how they do both. Even...
ListenPaging Dr. Algorithm from 2021-06-25T10:00
Artificial intelligence is everywhere. And increasingly, it's becoming a critical part of healthcare. Doctors use it to try to suss out symptoms of deadly infections like sepsis; companies like Goo...
ListenInto the Great Wide Open from 2021-06-18T10:00
People are heading outdoors this summer. Transportation services—from airlines to rental car companies to public transit agencies—are offering deals and prizes to woo travelers onto their platforms...
ListenCutting to the Core of Apple from 2021-06-11T10:00
Apple held its annual WWDC event this week, where it announced a whole bunch of new software features for its mobile and desktop platforms. It was also yet another opportunity for Apple to insist t...
ListenVaccine Incentives, From Donuts to Dollars from 2021-06-04T10:00
So, you want to vaccinate your populace. Sometimes it's not enough to appeal to people's basic sense of self-preservation. You have to find other ways to entice them. Governments in states like Ohi...
ListenOh, the Huemanity from 2021-05-28T10:00
For as long as humans have existed, we've been obsessed with color. Everything from the color of your clothes to the brightly illuminated pixels on your screen is an attempt to recreate—and enhance...
ListenAndroid Dreams from 2021-05-21T10:00
Google made a slew of announcements at its IO developer conference this week. A whole new look for Android! New privacy features! Better smartwatch software! A friggin’ hologram booth! Some of the ...
ListenMuchos Bezos from 2021-05-14T10:00
Few tech companies have charted a more fascinating course than Amazon. It's expanded from its humble beginnings as a bookseller to an absolute juggernaut that spans scores of product categories and...
ListenThe Truth About Section 230 from 2021-05-07T10:00
There's no way the lawmakers who drafted Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act way back in 1996 could have known that it would go on to determine the role user-generated content would play ...
ListenLeave No Trace from 2021-04-30T10:00
Facebook, Apple, and Google may have very different approaches to user privacy, but they do have something in common: All three companies are currently being investigated for antitrust violations. ...
ListenFacebook’s Andrew Bosworth from 2021-04-23T10:00
Facebook doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to keeping user data private. So when it revealed a few weeks ago that it was working on a prototype wearable computer that would interpret...
Listen500th Episode Extravaganza from 2021-04-16T10:00
This week marks the 500th episode of Gadget Lab. That is an astonishingly huge number; to pay proper tribute to it, we’ve invited some of Gadget Lab’s past co-hosts to come onto this week’s show an...
ListenBreaking Up, Hooking Up from 2021-04-09T10:00
Tech companies are very good at serving up personalized content based on what they know about you. But they're not very good at picking up on big, sudden changes in your life. For example, Google P...
ListenFree Shipping from 2021-04-02T10:00
Last week, the cargo ship Ever Given got itself stuck in the Suez Canal for six days. The blockage completely disrupted maritime trade routes, captured worldwide attention, and became the subject o...
ListenReentry Anxiety from 2021-03-26T10:00
Vaccines are here, unemployment is down, and the pandemic is nearing its end. These are obviously good things. Still, the idea of returning to "normal" might seem daunting. That's because our brain...
ListenFuture Computing the Facebook Way from 2021-03-19T10:00
How will we interact with computers in the future? When we finally evolve beyond keyboards, mice, touchscreens, and voice controls, what’s next? This month, Facebook hinted at how it’s thinking abo...
ListenWTF Is an NFT? from 2021-03-12T11:00
When you think of digital media, you probably think of something like a YouTube video or a meme. Something you can access for free, any time you want. But some relatively new technologies are being...
ListenFacing Our AR Future from 2021-03-05T14:00
While augmented reality has long been billed as the "next big thing" it hasn't quite arrived. Some pretty basic logistical problems get in the way. The headsets are too clunky, there aren't many de...
ListenGadgets on Mars from 2021-02-26T14:00
Hey, did you know that the new Mars rover is really cool? Its eyes see crazy different colors! It shoots out a helicopter drone! It can vaporize rocks with a laser! Plus, Perseverance traveled more...
ListenHow to Get a PlayStation 5 from 2021-02-19T14:00
Do you have a PlayStation 5? If so, good for you. If not, well, join the club. Sony’s newest game console has been very difficult to purchase since it was released in November—so much so that folks...
ListenWho Let the Doge Out from 2021-02-12T14:00
When Bitcoin first appeared out of digital thin air, it was hailed as having the potential to upend the way people spent money. But more than a decade later, cryptocurrency is still only trickling ...
ListenClubhouse’s Elon Moment from 2021-02-05T14:00
Elon Musk made headlines again this week. As usual, it was something involving Mars, memes, Tesla, and ... monkey brain implants? These topics, among others, were the subject of a conversation Musk...
ListenIntroducing In Vogue: The 1990s from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The 90s were an iconic decade for technology and society – it set up the foundation for how tech has become so ingrained into our current lives. We're excited to share with Gadget Lab listeners a n...
ListenOne Wheel, Zero Buttons from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
There’s an old joke about Steve Jobs, that he never wore a suit because he hated buttons. There’s some truth to that old trope about designers always trying to refine their creations to their absol...
ListenBest of CES from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
CES, the all-consuming tech trade show, took over Las Vegas this week. Convention halls and hotels were jam packed with shiny gizmos, bleeding-edge technology, and dazzling devices. Of course, our ...
ListenSex Toys and Toothbrushes from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Next week, we’ll be bound for the largest consumer electronics showcase of the season. CES starts on January 7 in Las Vegas, and we’ll be heading into the fray to touch, swipe, drive, cuddle, ride,...
ListenOur Favorite Stuff from 2019, Plus Our 2020 Predictions from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
2019 was a tumultuous time for technology. While product engineers created hybrid franken-gadgets and software companies turned nearly everything into a subscription service, we also grappled with ...
ListenThe Case for Cassava from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The cassava plant is one of the most important food sources in the world. In Africa, it sustains 500 million people and provides a stable income for farmers. The crop is also susceptible to viruses...
ListenGoing Places from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In May, Tesla, the electric vehicle manufacturer run by billionaire Elon Musk, filed a patent to put lasers on its cars. While this might sound like a step toward some kind of James Bond-mobile, th...
ListenLife After Facebook from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Former Facebook bigwig Chris Cox has been busy. In March, Cox left his position as chief product officer of the social media giant, where he had overseen Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. Since t...
ListenFinally, We Can ‘Like’ Apple’s Keyboards Again from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Tech companies say they want to serve their customers, but sometimes they’re curiously resistant to fixing problems with their products. Their solutions can be alternately welcome, or divisive. Las...
ListenWhen Big Tech Buys Your Darlings from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Given all the criticism, mistrust, and investigations that have been levied at Facebook in the past couple years, one might think that they would do their best to lie low for a while. Instead, Face...
ListenDeep Listening from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The way we listen to audio has evolved with technology. Headphones, once bulky skull-huggers that kept us plugged into a device, are going increasingly wireless. The simplicity makes it easy to wea...
ListenYouTube Creators Want More From YouTube from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Without video creators, YouTube wouldn’t be one of the world’s biggest social platforms. Without the platform, YouTubers wouldn’t be, well, YouTubers. But video creators are regularly facing new po...
ListenFacial Recognition Tech Is Coming to a School Near You from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Despite a lack of evidence that more technology makes kids safer, facial recognition technology may soon be coming to a school near you. It’s part of a growing trend of increased surveillance and s...
ListenIt's Time to Put Down Your Phone from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
How long have you gone without checking your phone in the past week? 10, 15, maybe 20 minutes while you’re awake? Our screens have commandeered our eyeballs and taken hold of our lives. Our phones ...
ListenPanos Panay Says Microsoft’s New Phone Isn’t a Phone from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Microsoft surprised just about everyone this week by showing off a pair of new mobile devices with two screens apiece. The pocketable Surface Duo and the tablet-like Surface Neo won't actually go o...
ListenSpot, the Robot Dog, Learns New Tricks from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For 25 years, Boston Dynamics has been building robots and releasing videos of the terrifying things running around, opening doors, and fending off stick-wielding humans. The company’s most famous ...
ListenYour DNA Belongs on the Blockchain from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
You may not realize it, but when you send a spit-filled tube off to a lab that’s going to analyze your DNA, you’re linking the most unique identifier possible (your gene sequence) to other sensitiv...
ListeniPhones to the Max from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
New iPhones! A shinier Apple Watch! So many camera lenses! On this week’s episode of Gadget Lab, it’s Apple week yet again. Lauren, Mike, and Arielle discuss all the new devices and services that m...
ListenHow Uber Went Down in Flames from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Once upon a time, there was a true unicorn, a startup named Uber. Led by CEO Travis Kalanick, the company broke all the rules of business and truly disrupted the way people move through the world. ...
ListenWhy It’s So Hard to Unlink Yourself From Facebook from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
If you have both an Instagram and Facebook account, chances are they are connected, whether you like it or not. But what if you didn’t connect them in the first place, or if you have a Finstagram a...
ListenYou’ve Got Microplastics from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Plastic is everywhere. No, really, it is everywhere. Tiny bits of plastic waste, called microplastic, have come to permeate nearly every part of the planet. We drink it in our water. We breathe it ...
ListenHow Google’s Secrecy Lead to Company Turmoil from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For years, Google has flourished in large part because of its famously open internal structure. Leadership encouraged active and vocal communication between employees who held strong opinions or di...
ListenAmazon's Quest for World Domination from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Amazon didn’t become the behemoth it is by accident. Its services, like Amazon Prime, and products, like the Echo smart speaker, were designed to learn everything about you and become essential fix...
ListenBumps in the Road to Our Robo-Car Future from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
From fledgling startups to automotive giants like General Motors, there’s a whole lot of companies looking to develop fully self-driving cars. But that goal is still a long way from reality. The wo...
ListenWhy New York’s Revenge Porn Law Is Flawed from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week, New York governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law a bill criminalizing the spread of nonconsensual pornography, or revenge porn. WIRED’s Emma Grey Ellis joins Mike and Lauren to talk about ...
ListenTwitter’s Redesign Is Impressive. Is It Enough? from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On Monday, Twitter began rolling out its first desktop redesign in seven years. It was a mostly aesthetic makeover, with changes like a new layout, dark mode, and a more prominent search bar. As wi...
ListenFacebook's Libra and the Future of Money from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Last month, Facebook announced its plans to get into the cryptocurrency race with Libra. A blend of blockchain and partnership with 28 companies, Libra has been pitched as a money transfer service ...
ListenRebalancing Our Relationship With Tech from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week, a conversation with Aza Raskin, cofounder of the Center for Humane Technology at Stanford University, about the “asymmetric power relationships” between the people who use tech and the c...
ListenThe Biggest News From E3 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week was E3, the trade show where the biggest names in gaming debut their latest shiny products and software. On this week’s Gadget Lab podcast, WIRED’s Peter Rubin joins Mike, Arielle, and La...
ListenEverything From Apple’s WWDC from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The iPhone is still undoubtedly Apple’s most important product. So why were some of the biggest announcements this week at the company’s annual developers conference around the iPad and the Mac? On...
ListenMaking Surfing More Sustainable from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The great irony in the sport of surfing is that the process of making a surfboard puts a great deal of strain on the environment. The various chemicals and materials used to assemble boards, leashe...
ListenSamsung’s Innovation Dilemma from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What’s a giant consumer electronics maker to do when it notices that younger customers are more interested in paying for experiences, rather than things? That’s what WIRED senior associate editor A...
ListenYouTube’s Latest Beauty Scandal from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Beauty product reviews on YouTube aren’t just about beauty products and internet capitalism. They’re a conduit for drama, loyalty politics, and “cancel” culture, as WIRED’s Emma Grey Ellis has lear...
ListenIf You Build It, They Will I/O from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Developer conferences aren’t just a chance for tech companies to incentivize app makers and show off the latest tricks and tools in software. The events also present an opportunity for companies li...
ListenThe Making of Adam Savage from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
You might know Adam Savage as the co-host of the television show MythBusters, as the editor of Tested.com, or as the host of countless web videos that show him building machines, sewing costumes fo...
ListenPreserving Your Right to Repair Your Gadgets from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What happens when your drop your phone and shatter the screen? Or when its battery starts to grow noticeably weaker? These common technological woes are things that you should be able to remedy you...
ListenWhat Happens to Uber After Its IPO? from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Uber filed to go public this week. No big surprise there; everyone in the industry has been waiting months for the ride-hailing giant to hit the accelerator on its IPO. What did raise an eyebrow we...
ListenIntroducing Citadel Dropouts: A Game of Thrones Podcast from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We’re confused about what exactly this hoped-for Targaryen Restoration is about, politically. And is Game of Thrones, like, good anymore? Laura Hudson and Spencer Ackerman preview the political and...
ListenReporting From Syria from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week, we’re joined by a special guest: freelance war correspondent Kenneth R. Rosen. Ken is working on a series of stories for WIRED about the reconstruction efforts in Syria. The first of Ken...
ListenThe Case for Male Birth Control from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Hormonal male contraception is not a new idea––in fact, researchers have been working on solutions for men the pill was invented for women. But early tests around male contraceptives were inconclus...
ListenGame On at Google from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Google’s Project Stream, first unveiled last October, gave gamers a taste of what it would be like to stream heavy games directly from the cloud – from a Chrome browser, even. That effort has now e...
ListenFlickr Cofounder Questions Big Tech from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
“Should this exist?” is not typically a question that technologists ask themselves, Caterina Fake says. The Flickr cofounder-turned-investor says that most entrepreneurs and engineers will ask them...
ListenHow to Quit Your Tech Job from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Jessica Powell was the top communications executive at Google when she found herself Googling, in no uncertain search terms, how to quit her job at Google. She tried approximately 837 different tac...
ListenAlex Kipman’s Holographic Tendencies from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Microsoft just unveiled a brand new product, but it really doesn’t want to hype it. That’s according to Alex Kipman, technical fellow at Microsoft who is credited with inventing Kinect and HoloLens...
ListenYou’ve Got to Know When to Fold ‘Em from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
At its flagship phone event this week in San Francisco, Samsung announced not one but four different versions of the new Galaxy S10: A phone with a 6.1-inch display, a plus-sized model, a “less exp...
ListenThe Treacherous Allure of OG Usernames from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Product designer and internet native Chris Messina was lucky enough to snag the username @chris on Instagram back when Instagram was known as Burbn, and, like all of his early usernames, it became ...
ListenThe App Smackdown from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Move fast and break app store rules: That very well may have been Facebook’s motto for awhile now, only, we’re just learning about it this week. After TechCrunch reported that Facebook was sidestep...
ListenAmazon Delivery Bots Are Here from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Kids are particularly terrible for robots. At least, that’s what researchers in Japan discovered when they let a robot roam around a shopping center in Osaka in 2015. A group of kids antagonized th...
ListenNike’s Truly Smart Sneakers from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Self-lacing sneakers have been the dream since Marty McFly first rocked Nike MAGs in 1989, but most attempts at turning shoe leather into smart sneakers have been expensive, produced in small batch...
ListenThe Best of CES from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We came. We saw. We touched a lot of gadgets. This week was the annual CES, one of the world’s largest consumer electronics show, and WIRED’s team was on the ground covering all of the top tech tre...
ListenThe Year in Tech, in One Word from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
If you had to sum up the year in tech in one word, what word would you choose? That’s what we at the Gadget Lab asked ourselves as we looked to somehow recap a year’s worth of tech-related drama in...
ListenApocalypse Now from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Most people, at this point, believe that climate change is a real thing that will harm future generations of humans. And yet, a cognitive dissonance exists around that knowledge and our sense of re...
ListenYour Covid Vaccine Questions, Answered from 2021-01-29T14:00
Vaccines are here, but they’ve had a bit of a bumpy landing. In fact, the US is way behind on the distribution goals set by the federal government, and the longer the rollout drags on, the more com...
ListenReboot Your Brain from 2021-01-22T14:00
Look, last year wasn't great. And just because it's 2021 now, that doesn't mean things are magically better. If you feel burned out, stressed, or just plain exhausted, you're not alone. But there's...
ListenCES Wrap-Up from 2021-01-15T14:00
You'd be forgiven if you didn't pay much attention to CES this week. There's been quite a lot going on outside the world of consumer tech, plus the virtual event wasn't nearly as splashy as the Las...
ListenFacebook and Twitter Finally Respond to Trump from 2021-01-08T11:00
New year, new ... coup? On Wednesday, angry supporters of President Trump stormed the US Capitol building and violently disrupted a congressional session to certify the results of the 2020 presiden...
ListenOur 2021 Predictions from 2020-12-18T11:00
You'd be forgiven if the New Year's resolutions you made at the beginning of 2020 haven't exactly panned out. It's been a ridiculous, infuriating year that people can barely make sense of now, let ...
ListenRide Share’s Road Ahead from 2020-12-04T11:00
Uber and Lyft had it pretty good in the beginning. The companies could roll out their services to new cities, entice a bunch of drivers and riders to their platform, and "disrupt" transit before re...
ListenPedal Revolution from 2020-11-20T11:00
Ebikes are having a moment. Today's electric bikes are powerful, elegant, maneuverable, and, as battery technology improves, they're able to ride for miles and miles. For some people, they're even ...
ListenIntroducing SELF: Checking In from 2020-11-16T12:00
Introducing Checking In, the advice podcast where we answer real health and wellness questions from real people like you. Hosted by SELF’s Editor in Chief, Carolyn Kylstra, and featuring trusted ex...
ListenApple Chips Ahoy from 2020-11-13T11:00
Another month, another Apple event. This time around, we saw three new Macs, all with a shiny new chip inside them. Apple's M1 processor is a great big leap forward for the company. It marks a shif...
ListenConsole Wars from 2020-11-06T11:00
Consoles: They're new, they're shiny, they'll be here next week. Sony's PlayStation 5 and Microsoft's Xbox Series X launch a couple days apart, and together, they're expected to usher in a new era ...
ListenGoogle and the Government from 2020-10-23T10:00
This week, the US Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against Google. It accuses the company of stifling competition and operating a near-monopoly on the search advertising industry. Natu...
ListenThe iPhones 12 from 2020-10-16T10:00
Less than a month after its last hardware event, Apple held another one this week where it announced a slate of new iPhones. The standout feature of all four (4) phones is 5G capability. Apple, alo...
ListenBattling Burnout from 2020-10-09T10:00
Trying to be a functional human being in 2020 can feel exhausting. Our devices send us constant notifications, social media demands all our attention, and even simple daily tasks start to feel Sisy...
ListenInvasion of the Home Drone from 2020-10-02T10:00
In the past few weeks, we’ve seen hardware announcements from Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. In them, there’s been a lot of emphasis on gadgets and services for the home. (Like Amazon's craz...
ListenThe TikTok Dance from 2020-09-25T10:00
In August, Trump signed executive orders that labeled both TikTok and another Chinese-owned app, WeChat, as national security threats. Unless they could broker a deal that would transfer majority c...
ListenApple Bundles Up from 2020-09-18T10:00
Apple's September product events are usually noteworthy for their hardware announcements. But this year, like with just about everything else, was different. Apple did unveil new Watches and iPads,...
ListenConnected Cardio from 2020-09-11T10:00
Even before the pandemic, Peloton was the clear leader in connected, at-home workout equipment. So it was really no surprise that when gyms closed down and people found themselves stuck inside, Pel...
ListenTech the Vote from 2020-09-04T10:00
Whether you're prepared for it or not, the United States is hurtling toward another presidential election. Like just about everything in 2020, the voting process has been disrupted by the pandemic....
ListenAlexa, Play My Alibi from 2020-08-28T10:00
As smart speakers for the home continue to grow in popularity, police departments have started to take notice. Now, whenever attorneys and law enforcement officials are investigating a crime, they ...
ListenLet’s Talk About Texts from 2020-08-21T10:00
Maybe you aren't a political dissident engaging in top secret conversations over text messages. But if you care about privacy, you should probably be using Signal—or really, another encrypted servi...
ListenThe Foldable Future from 2020-08-14T10:00
This week, Microsoft's dual screen Surface Duo became available for sale. Like many other folding devices, the Duo has been marketed as a product for busy workers on the go. But now, months into a ...
ListenWe Love Cheap Phones from 2020-08-07T10:00
Used to be that if you wanted a new phone, you had to choose between something cheap and something good. But a recent slate of smartphones like the new Google Pixel 4A and the Apple iPhone SE offer...
ListenAmazon’s Hidden Prime Secrets from 2020-07-31T10:00
If you have an Amazon Prime membership (maybe it’s where you’ve been buying all your toilet paper during the pandemic) then you’re likely aware of the key benefits: free shipping, access to special...
ListenTick Tock, TikTok from 2020-07-24T10:00
All the kids are talking about it. And now, so are government officials and corporate bigwigs. An app typically known for short, clever videos (and lots of dancing), TikTok has recently found itsel...
ListenGet WIRED: Citizen and the Bizarre World of Live-Streamed Crime from 2020-07-24T04:00
The idea behind the Citizen app is that its users upload videos of the things that are going on in the neighborhood in real time — anything from as a gas leak to something potentially a lot more vi...
ListenIntroducing: Get WIRED from 2020-07-20T04:00
Get WIRED is a new podcast about how the future is realized. Each week, we burrow down new rabbit holes to investigate the ways technology is changing our lives—from culture to business, science to...
ListenI Stream, You Stream from 2020-07-17T10:00
It’s hard to remember what television on the internet was like before Netflix started streaming original programming on demand. But maybe that fact just underscores the massive influence the platfo...
ListenI Can't Stop Doomscrolling from 2020-07-10T10:00
Doomscrolling—everybody's doing it! You’re lying in bed, on your phone, trying to fall asleep, but then you end up staying awake for hours as your social media timeline fills you with anger and anx...
ListenHome Bodies from 2020-07-03T10:00
Getting through this pandemic hasn't been easy. Each day can feel like a slog, especially when, for many people, the necessary shelter-in-place restrictions have no end in sight. While being cooped...
ListenArrested Developer Event from 2020-06-26T10:00
Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference is normally an energetic, bustling affair. This year, of course, things are anything but normal. Instead of live talks in front of full crowds and att...
ListenInside the eBananas Scandal from 2020-06-20T10:00
A package showing up on your doorstep normally gives you a little hit of excitement. But for one Massachusetts couple last year, the arrival of each new package triggered feelings of anxiety and dr...
ListenWhen Can I See You Again? from 2020-06-12T10:00
As states and cities lift shelter-in-place restrictions, there’s still so much we don’t know about the coronavirus and how it spreads. Which has left a lot of people wondering: How safe is it, real...
ListenTech and the Police State from 2020-06-05T10:00
Across the world, millions of people have gathered to protest police brutality and systemic racism after an officer in Minneapolis killed George Floyd, an unarmed black man. Amid the outpouring of ...
ListenTrump v. Twitter from 2020-05-29T10:00
A political firestorm erupted this week when Twitter flagged two of President Trump’s tweets about mail-in voting, calling them potentially misleading, and amending them with some timid attempts at...
ListenRemote Desktop from 2020-05-22T10:00
Silicon Valley loves its disruption. If any industry was prepared to handle the monumental changes brought on by the coronavirus, it’s big tech. Companies like Twitter and Facebook were some of the...
ListenThe Dark Secrets of a Hacking Hero from 2020-05-15T10:00
In May of 2017, Marcus Hutchins saved the internet. A vicious ransomware attack known as WannaCry had infected computer systems across dozens of countries. It was the worst cyberattack in history a...
ListenOn the Road Again from 2020-05-08T10:00
While every economic sector in America has been upended by the coronavirus, few have been hit as hard as the transit and food service industries. It's not so easy to hop on a bus or train when ther...
ListenThe Argument for Making End-of-Life Decisions Early from 2020-05-01T10:00
Back in March, counter-culture icon and founder of the Whole Earth Catalog Stewart Brand made a statement on Twitter that surprised some people: He had decided, and had communicated to his wife and...
ListenOpen For Business from 2020-04-24T10:00
Depending on where you live, the stores, parks, playgrounds, and offices in your area could be shut down for the rest of this summer. Or, they could all be open again right now. State governments h...
ListenWill Contact Tracing Work? from 2020-04-17T10:00
Even amid a global pandemic, the world of tech keeps on turning. Some companies have responded directly to the outbreak, offering up smartphone-based contact tracing and wearable solutions to help ...
ListenThe Race to Make a Vaccine from 2020-04-10T10:00
Researchers around the world are toiling to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus. But the creation of a working vaccine that can be safely distributed to a broad population requires a tremendous a...
ListenSupply Demand from 2020-04-03T10:00
The coronavirus outbreak is accelerating in the United States. According to projections, the number of Covid-19 cases in the US is expected to peak around the middle of April. Meanwhile, medical pr...
ListenPandemic Panic from 2020-03-27T10:00
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it can be hard to keep track of what's real and what's not. There is a constant deluge of news from across the world, some of it is based on false assumptions...
ListenThe Generation Gap from 2020-03-20T10:00
As the number of coronavirus-caused quarantines has spiked across the globe, people are being driven into isolation en masse. In some countries, social distancing measures have been helping, but th...
ListenSocially Distanced from 2020-03-13T10:00
As COVID-19 sweeps across the world, it has prompted thousands of people to isolate themselves to avoid spreading the virus. This week on Gadget Lab, we look at what happens when schools and univer...
ListenIs Facebook Forever? from 2020-03-06T11:00
Facebook started in 2004 as a simple network for connecting students at Harvard University. At the time, nobody could have predicted that it would grow to become the largest social network in the w...
ListenThere’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch from 2020-02-28T11:00
This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer and former show host Arielle Pardes drops by to talk about how Silicon Valley has ruined work culture. Then WIRED senior writer Lily Hay Newman comes on...
ListenThe Anti-Bias Bot from 2020-02-21T11:00
Many companies say they want to diversify their workforce. Far fewer have actually succeeded in doing so, even if they're earnestly trying. And one of the first hurdles can come before any candidat...
ListenSmartphone Launch Events Are Silly from 2020-02-14T17:21
On Tuesday of this week Samsung held its annual Galaxy Unpacked event in San Francisco. It did what most tech companies set out to do when they host a big event: Announce shiny new products (Galaxy...
ListenThe Virus and the Vote from 2020-02-07T11:00
This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED digital director Brian Barrett joins us to talk about the app that derailed the Iowa caucus—and what it means for elections to come. Then, a conversation with WIRED s...
ListenOpen Wide for Mouth Tech from 2020-01-24T11:00
There's money in your mouth. Figuratively speaking (we hope). A growing number of startups and full-fledged companies are looking to bring their smart technology into your mouth. A toothbrush that ...
ListenApocalypse Now from 2018-12-14T18:24:13
Most people, at this point, believe that climate change is a real thing that will harm future generations of humans. And yet, a cognitive dissonance exists around that knowledge and our sense of re...
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