Uncanny Valley | WIRED

For years, Mark Zuckerberg’s style could be summed up in a look: the hoodie. But now, he’s entered a new style era. One that involves gold chains and oversized tees of his own creation (with a little help from a high-end designer). In this episode of Uncanny Valley, we look into Zuckerberg’s style evolution, how it aligns with the future of Meta, and why you should care. 

Write to us at [email protected].

You can follow Michael Calore on Mastodon at @snackfight, Lauren Goode on Threads and @laurengoode, and Zoë Schiffer on Threads @reporterzoe.

Welcome to Uncanny Valley—an insider look at the people, power, and influence of Silicon Valley. Join hosts Lauren Goode, Michael Calore, and Zoë Schiffer as they break down new stories or phenomena bubbling up in Silicon Valley. Whether it’s a pivotal decision made inside a tech company, a quirky, new habit of a CEO, or the overwhelming expansion of generative AI, we’ll explain why these matter and how they affect you.

Everybody wants to talk to their pet. Or to try to get them to listen, anyway. So it’s no wonder that some startups think the way to break through the communication barrier between you and your pooch is with a nice big helping of technology. Welcome to a world with AI-enabled dog and cat collars that try to interpret a pet’s needs and then share those wishes with their human. The only problem with these devices is that the pet won’t actually be a part of the conversation, as the collar is just guessing at what the pet is thinking—but still doing all the talking anyway. It’s less like the audio collar worn by the dog from the movie Up, and more like shouting at a chatbot strapped to your dog’s neck. Meanwhile, your dog or cat might just be trying to figure out where that new voice is coming from.

Later in the show, we talk about all the weird new ways AI gadgets are bouncing around in our lives, and whether any of them are helping us have better conversations.

Also, this week marks the final episode of the Gadget Lab podcast—at least in its current form. We’ll be back soon with a fresh reboot of the show. Lauren and Michael will return as hosts, but we’ll have a third cohost at the table, a new podcast title, and a new angle on our coverage. 

Show Notes:
Stay tuned to this feed for the updated version of this show, out October 31! Read Boone’s stories about the talking pet collars and the AI-powered Friend necklace. Read Lauren’s story about the challenges of AI hardware. Keep an eye on all the ways AI is weaving into our lives. For all your gadget needs, follow WIRED’s onslaught of gear coverage.

Recommendations:
Boone recommends the rain. Lauren recommends taking walks. Mike recommends KEXP’s YouTube channel, where the Seattle radio station posts videos of musical acts playing in its studio.

Boone Ashworth can be found on social media but honestly, since he’s going to remain as a full-time reporter at WIRED, just email him story tips: [email protected]. 

Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @[email protected]. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show was produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music was by Solar Keys.

Ring cameras have come a long way. Since the security camera brand launched 11 years ago, its video doorbells and cams have become vigilant, constant surveyors of patios, porches, and vestibules everywhere. Amazon now owns the company, and has ushered it through controversies over privacy concerns, incidents of vigilantism, and the company’s cozy relationship with law enforcement. The drama has not slowed growth; over 10 million Rings have been installed, and the cameras currently blanket our urban and suburban landscape, filming the movements of you, your family, and any strangers who wander near your door.

That makes for a lot of video to sift through if you're trying to find something important, like whether or not a delivery was made, or what time your kids left for soccer practice. That abundance of footage is why Ring cameras, along with many other consumer products right now, are getting some AI-powered capabilities. Ring’s software update helps users search for specific moments their cameras may have captured.

This week, WIRED senior writer Paresh Dave joins the show again to talk about the evolution of Ring—how the security cameras have become nearly ubiquitous security tech, and what the future holds now that they’re being infused with AI.

Show Notes:

Read Paresh’s story about Ring’s AI updates. Read WIRED’s guides to the best indoor and outdoor security cameras. Read more about all the data Ring collects from its users and why we recently stopped recommending Ring cameras for a couple of years.

Recommendations:

Paresh recommends getting a Sling TV subscription from Dish to watch live sports. Mike recommends searching for decoy security cameras you can install if your landlord requires you to put up a security camera. Lauren recommends the streaming shows Nobody Wants This and Killing Eve. Both are on Netflix.

Paresh Dave can be found on social media @peard33. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @[email protected]. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Ozempic has been hailed as a miracle drug. It is the most well known of the GLP-1 medications, a class of drugs that can help regulate appetite, digestion, and blood sugar—and help those suffering from obesity or diabetes lose weight. Naturally, these drugs are very much in demand. But now there is a shortage of Ozempic and other GLP-1s, which has led to a swell of clones that purport to offer the same benefits and the same key ingredient, semaglutide, at lower prices. These clone drugs are easy to procure from telehealth providers, even if a buyer needs to lie about themselves a little bit to buy them.

In this brave new weight-loss world, we're still coming to grips with how these drugs fit into our society. Part of that journey is the continued study about how GLP-1 drugs work—much of how they affect us is still unknown—and the continued debate about how much we should regulate and control their use.

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with WIRED writers Kate Knibbs and Emily Mullin about how GLP-1 medications like Ozempic work and what happens when they don’t. We also talk about the current drug shortage and how that may get resolved.

This episode originally aired July 11, 2024. Read the transcript.

Show Notes:

Read Kate’s story about buying cloned Ozempic online. Read Emily’s story about how Ozempic doesn’t work for everyone. Read all the stories in WIRED’s The Age of Ozempic series.

Recommendations:

Emily recommends staying cool this summer however you can. Kate recommends the HBO series John Adams, starring Paul Giamatti. Mike recommends buying a used 35-mm film camera and shooting some rolls to flex your creativity.

Kate Knibbs can be found on social media @Knibbs. Emily Mullin is @emilylmullin. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

AI data centers are so hot right now. Each time generative AI services churn through their large language models to make a chatbot answer one of your questions, it takes a great deal of processing power to sift through all that data. Doing so can use massive amounts of energy, which means the proliferation of AI is raising questions about how sustainable this tech actually is and how it affects the ecosystems around it. Some companies think they have a solution: running those data centers underwater, where they can use the surrounding seawater to cool and better control the temperature of the hard working GPUs inside. But it turns out just plopping something into the ocean isn't always a foolproof plan for reducing its environmental impact.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED writers Paresh Dave and Reece Rogers join the show to talk about their reporting on undersea data centers and how the race to power AI systems is taking its toll on the environment.


Show Notes:
Read Paresh and Reece’s story about the plan to put an underwater data center in the San Francisco Bay. Read Reece’s stories about how this is AI’s hyper-consumption era and how to wade through all the AI hype. Read Lauren’s story about the social network inhabited only by bots. Read Karen Hao’s story in The Atlantic about how companies like Microsoft are taking water from the desert to use for cooling down AI data centers. Here’s the Black Cat substack article about the character Harper from Industry. Follow all of WIRED’s AI and climate coverage.


Recommendations:
Paresh recommends checking out cookbooks from your local library. Reece recommends the soundtrack of the first Twilight movie for all your Fall feels. Lauren recommends the HBO show Industry. Mike recommends Anna Weiner’s profile of bicycle designer Grant Peterson in The New Yorker.

Reece Rogers can be found on social media @thiccreese. Paresh Dave is @peard33. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @[email protected]. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

One surefire way to go viral on Threads—the Meta-owned Instagram-spinoff social network with more than 200 million users—is to ask a ridiculous question that enrages your followers so much, they just have to chime in to answer you, mock you, or berate you. When it first launched last summer, Threads was seen as a blatant Twitter clone. At the time, that was an appealing attribute, as users fleeing the platform now known as X were looking for a new place to gather. Threads turned out to be a safe haven from the trolling and engagement bait on X, Reddit, and Facebook, but only for a while. Threads, like any for-profit social media site, was not able to keep those jokers and bad actors at bay. In its effort to boost engagement on the platform, Threads began prioritizing posts with the most replies and comments—which also happen to be the posts that stirred up the most drama and pissed everyone off.
This week on Gadget Lab, we chat with Business Insider senior correspondent Katie Notopoulos about her personal experiment with rage bait immersion on Threads. We also ask whether social media sites are making the right decision by catering to their most furious users.

Show Notes:
Read Katie’s story about ragebait on Threads. Read Lauren’s story about the new app SocialAI, where the only human is you, and everyone else is a bot.

Recommendations:
Katie recommends the reality show The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives on Hulu. Mike recommends the HBO show Industry. Lauren recommends the Apple TV+ show Slow Horses.

Katie Notopolous can be found on Threads @katienotopoulos. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @[email protected]. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

On Monday of this week, Apple held one of its splashy media events. This one was used to show off its next round of iPhones, AirPods, and Apple Watches. These are three of its biggest products, and all of the design tweaks feel very familiar to the current Apple universe. But Apple has also trotted out some new tricks, like sleep apnea detection in the Apple Watch and a new feature that instantly turns a pair of AirPods Pro into hearing aids. And of course, the company is also very keen to get consumers hyped up about the iPhone’s new Apple Intelligence features—even if those flashy AI tricks won’t start becoming available until next month.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED product reviews editors Adrienne So and Julian Chokkattu join us after Apple's "Glowtime" event to go over all the big news from Cupertino.

Show Notes:
Our roundup of everything Apple announced this week. Read Julian’s WIRED stories about how the iPhone 16 is incorporating AI and which iPhone 16 model is right for you. Dive into Lauren’s story about whether Apple’s AI promises will actually equate to more iPhone sales. Read Chistopher Null’s story about how AirPods Pro could disrupt the hearing aid industry. Follow all WIRED’s Apple coverage.

Recommendations:
Adrienne recommends the book Status and Culture by W. David Marx. Julian recommends the Dev Patel action movie Monkey Man. Lauren recommends that you recommend a good chair to help her back pain. Mike recommends Manning Fireworks, the new album by musician MJ Lenderman.
Adrienne So can be found on Threads @adso_sheehan. Julian Chokkattu is @julianchokkattu. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @[email protected]. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Encrypted messaging is a godsend for mobile communications, whether you’re just sending standard texts to your friends that you want kept private, or engaging in interactions that are better kept secret for safety reasons. Apps like Signal and Telegram offer users the ability to trade messages that can be read by only the sender and the receiver. Of course, people can also use that privacy as a way to conduct unsavory dealings without having to worry about their communications getting exposed.

Encrypted messaging has been in the news for the past couple weeks, largely because of the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, who is being accused by the French government of failing to comply with law enforcements’ demands to help catch some people who are using the app for criminal activity. Durov’s arrest also casts a light on the rising profile of Signal, a fully encrypted messaging app that’s always taken a stance against the collection of its users’ data.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED security writer Andy Greenberg joins us to talk about how encrypted messaging works, what can go wrong, and how while Telegram and Signal may seem similar, the ways they operate are different—and might affect what makes them liable for what users share on its platforms.

Show Notes:

Read Andy’s interview with Signal president Meredith Whittaker. Read Lily Hay Newman and Morgan Meeker’s reporting on the arrest of Telegram’s founder and its broader criminal investigations. Follow all of WIRED’s coverage of Signal and Telegram.

Recommendations:

Andy recommends the memoir My Glorious Defeats: Hacktivist, Narcissist, Anonymous by Barrett Brown. Mike recommends taking a ride in a Waymo, just to get an idea of the future of driverless cars that is coming. Lauren recommends The Ringer’s story about the new baseball team, the Oakland Ballers.

Andy Greenberg can be found on social media @agreenberg.bsky.social. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @[email protected]. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

People everywhere are hot for heat pumps. These electric appliances—which perform the same heating and cooling tasks as traditional HVAC systems, just much more efficiently—have been outselling gas furnaces over the past couple of years. Their proliferation seems to be pointing more towards an energy-conscious electric future in people’s homes. And, four months ago, nine states in the US signed a memorandum of understanding that says that heat pumps should make up at least 65 percent of residential heating, air conditioning, and water-heating shipments by 2030.

But, what exactly is a heat pump? How does it work? How much does it cost to replace your furnace with one, and how much money does making the switch actually save you in the long run? Let’s also consider the same question we’re asking about AI: how much will this change or displace existing jobs for the people who have been trained to install and service traditional HVAC systems?

Former WIRED staff writer Matt Simon is our in-house heat pump expert. He joins us this week to tell us everything we need to know about these appliances he calls “climate superheroes.”

This episode originally aired on May 23, 2024. Read the transcript.

Show Notes:

Read all of our heat pump coverage. Don’t miss Matt’s story about the heat pump technician shortage. Matt also took a look at the in-window heat pumps now hitting the market that look and operate like in-window AC units. WIRED’s Rhett Alain digs into the physics of heat pumps.

Recommendations:

Matt recommends the book Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization by Edward Slingerland. Mike recommends the book Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk by Kathleen Hanna. Lauren recommends taking a staycation.

Matt Simon can be found on social media @mrmattsimon. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Electric Vehicles are having a real moment. People by and large prefer EVs because they're greener, quieter, and often more fun to drive than gas cars. But one sticking point in the EV revolution is charging. There are more charging stations now than there have ever been, but it’s still not enough. And how those stations are distributed can make driving long distances in an EV feel like a bit of a gamble.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED staff writer Aarian Marshall joins the show to talk about the state of EV charging, the feelings of “charging anxiety,” and whether people really need to worry all that much about those EV battery fires in the news.

Show Notes:

Read Aarian’s story on the current state of EV charging prices. Aarian writes for WIRED about all things electric vehicle and transportation related.

Recommendations:

Aarian recommends three different episodes of PJ Vogt’s Search Engine podcast featuring Ezra Klein as a guest. Mike recommends Agnes Varda’s film The Gleaners and I from the year 2000. Lauren is out this week.

Aarian Marshall can be found on social media @AarianMarshall. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

At a splashy media event this week at its headquarters in Mountain View, California, Google announced four new Pixel phones. But the really important stuff unveiled at the Made By Google event wasn’t the hardware itself, but rather all of the generative AI tools packed into the devices. 

Most notable are some AI-powered camera features that allow Pixel owners to easily add themselves to a group shot after they’ve taken the photo, or to alter any scene entirely by changing night to day and adding objects that were never really there. It’s an exploration of our limits—how convincingly technology can bring alternate realities to life, and how much of the computer-generated scenery we can tolerate.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior reviews editor Julian Chokkattu joins the show to talk about Google’s fancy new photo tricks. We also talk about Gemini Live, the latest iteration of the company’s AI-powered voice chatbot. Finally, we ask the unaskable: Is Google Assistant finally dead, or just banished to Google’s attic?

Show Notes:

Read more about all the new updates from the Made By Google event, including Google’s Pixel camera updates. Learn how the company is using AI to reshape reality. There are some potentially life-saving new features on the Pixel Watch 3. Also read Reece Rogers’ WIRED story about ChatGPT’s advanced voice mode and Jia Tolentino’s New Yorker story about tweens and Sephora.

Recommendations:

Julian recommends folding flip phones. Lauren recommends Colorscience Sunforgettable Total Protection Face Shield Flex SPF 50 sunscreen lotion. Mike recommends the audiobook version of All Fours by Miranda July. (You can listen to it in Spotify Premium.)

Julian Chokkattu can be found on social media @JulianChokkattu. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

There has been a no wilder time than the present to build a company around artificial intelligence. The server bills are astronomical, for one. Also the market for talent is red hot, and you’ll end up paying through the nose for good people. Even if you do get funding, staff up, get the product off the ground, and start making headway in a crowded field, there’s the specter of Big Tech looming overhead. The hypercarnivorous raptors of Silicon Valley—Google, Apple, Amazon, and Meta—will fix their steely eyes on the plump prey of your best employees and your intellectual property.

But they can’t just buy you. Not anymore; outright acquisitions could draw the attention of regulators in the US and Europe, where governments are ramping up their antitrust efforts. Now instead of gobbling you up, a big tech company will license your tech and bring your top talent into their offices to collaborate with their employees. This maneuver—not an acquisition, more like an acquihire with some partnerships included—is something we’ve seen a few times in recent months. And we can expect more.

This week, we welcome WIRED senior writer Paresh Dave back onto the show to discuss the current trend of partnerships between small AI companies and the tech giants. We also talk about how regulators are really cracking down on Google in particular.

Show Notes:
Read about the US court ruling that found Google engaged in monopolistic practices to increase its search engine’s dominance. Read more about Character AI, Meta, and customizable chatbots. Read all of WIRED’s antitrust coverage.

Recommendations:
Paresh recommends playing games on Netflix, like Triviaverse. Mike recommends the new documentary Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa, which is also on Netflix. Lauren recommends “Inside the Secret Negotiations to Free Evan Gershkovich” from The Wall Street Journal.

Paresh Dave can be found on social media @peard33. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

If the idea of going on a date makes you anxious, and all you’d really rather do with your evening is stay home and play video games, well, have we got the app for you. Date Like Goblins, a new dating platform that debuted on Kickstarter this week and will launch later this year, invites you to go on dates that take place entirely inside your favorite video games. You play a few rounds of Fortnite or Final Fantasy with your date, while voice-chatting and getting to know each other. It’s cute!

Date Like Goblins is one of many niche, interest-specific dating platforms. There are apps for farmers, Christians, jamband fans, rope bunnies—whatever you’re into. These smaller, more tailored communities can be seen as an antidote to fatigue that’s caused by the over-monetized and alienating experience of the big dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge. 

This week, we’re joined by WIRED staff writer Amanda Hoover to talk about Date Like Goblins and the other apps that have learned the cheat code for online romance.

Show Notes:

Read Amanda’s story about Date Like Goblins. Read Lauren Goode on “Date Me” docs. Read Jason Parham on Boomers on the apps. Read all of our dating coverage.

Recommendations:

Amanda recommends making butter coconut bars for your next summer potluck. Lauren recommends the recent episode of The Daily from The New York Times with Taffy Brodesser-Akner telling the story about her new book. Michael recommends Trickster: The Many Lives of Carlos Castaneda, a podcast about the wild, shadowy history of the famous author and counterculture figurehead.

Amanda Hoover can be found on social media @byamandahoover. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

If you haven’t heard of it before, you’re about to become intimately familiar with the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. This system of currents—which brings water up the Atlantic from the southern tip of South America, through the tropics, and all the way to the coast of Iceland before looping back down south—plays a key role in keeping our planet’s climate stable. It keeps northern European winters relatively mild, it provides nutrients to ocean life, and it brings much-needed rain to agricultural systems in equatorial zones.

Researchers who study the AMOC say this system is showing signs of instability, and it could shut down entirely—and soon. If the current slows down or stops, it would potentially kick off an ecological disaster of epic proportions. Deep cold spells, crushed food systems, entire regions in drought. 

This week, we bring WIRED features editor Sandra Upson onto the show to talk about the AMOC, the research that’s being done on it, and what life would be like on Earth if the current reaches its tipping point. Buckle up. 

Show Notes:

Read “How Soon Will the Atlantic Ocean Break? Two Sibling Scientists Tried to Answer That—and Shook the World,” Sandra Upson’s WIRED feature on the researchers who are studying the AMOC and who have estimated the current could collapse in the next 30 years or so. Read our previous coverage of the AMOC research that kicked off the present debate about when it could reach the tipping point.

Recommendations:

Sandra recommends watching trashy reality shows in a language you’re trying to learn as an informal and entertaining study aid. Mike recommends embracing Brat Summer—IYKYK. Lauren recommends the book The Wave by Susan Casey, which is about the science and joy and terror of big waves.

Sandra Upson can be found on social media @sandraupson. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Voice assistants have become a constant presence in our lives. Maybe you talk to Alexa or Gemini or Siri to ask a question or to perform a task. Maybe you have to do a little back and forth with a voice bot whenever you call your pharmacy, or when you book a service appointment at your car dealership. You may even get frustrated and start pleading with the robot on the other end of the line to connect you with a real human.

That’s the catch, though: These voice bots are starting to sound a lot more like actual humans, with emotions in their voice, little ticks and giggles in between phrases, and the occasional flirty aside. Today’s voice-powered chatbots are blurring the lines between what’s real and what’s not, which prompts a complicated ethical question: Can you trust a bot that insists it’s actually human?

This week, Lauren Goode tells us about her recent news story on a bot that was easily tricked into lying and saying it was a human. And WIRED senior writer Paresh Dave tells us how AI watchdogs and government regulators are trying to prevent natural-sounding chatbots from misrepresenting themselves.

Show Notes:

Read more about the Bland AI chatbot, which lied and said it was human. Read Will Kight’s story about researchers’ warnings of the manipulative power of emotionally expressive chatbots.

Recommendations:

Lauren recommends The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. (Again.) Paresh recommends subscribing to your great local journalism newsletter or Substack to stay informed on important local issues. 

Mike recommends Winter Journal, a memoir by Paul Auster.

Paresh Dave can be found on social media @peard33. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Ozempic has been hailed as a miracle drug. It is the most well known of the GLP-1 medications, a class of drugs that can help regulate appetite, digestion, and blood sugar—and help those suffering from obesity or diabetes lose weight. Naturally, these drugs are very much in demand. But now there is a shortage of Ozempic and other GLP-1s, which has led to a swell of clones that purport to offer the same benefits and the same key ingredient, semaglutide, at lower prices. These clone drugs are easy to procure from telehealth providers, even if a buyer needs to lie about themselves a little bit to buy them.

In this brave new weight-loss world, we're still coming to grips with how these drugs fit into our society. Part of that journey is the continued study about how GLP-1 drugs work—much of how they affect us is still unknown—and the continued debate about how much we should regulate and control their use.

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with WIRED writers Kate Knibbs and Emily Mullin about how GLP-1 medications like Ozempic work and what happens when they don’t. We also talk about the current drug shortage and how that may get resolved.

Show Notes:

Read Kate’s story about buying cloned Ozempic online. Read Emily’s story about how Ozempic doesn’t work for everyone. Read all the stories in WIRED’s The Age of Ozempic series.

Recommendations:

Emily recommends staying cool this summer however you can. Kate recommends the HBO series John Adams, starring Paul Giamatti. Mike recommends buying a used 35-mm film camera and shooting some rolls to flex your creativity.

Kate Knibbs can be found on social media @Knibbs. Emily Mullin is @emilylmullin. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Back in March, the US Environmental Protection Agency finalized a long in the works rule requiring automakers here to dramatically increase the number of battery-powered vehicles they’re putting on the roads. The government has mandated that by 2032, more than half of new cars sold must be electric. There are some caveats, namely that plug-in hybrid cars will fulfill the federal requirements for what a “battery-powered” vehicle is. 

This has led to a flood of hybrid cars hitting the market. This week, we talk about what this means for people who are considering buying a new car now, or in the next few years. We explain the differences between plug-in hybrids, full hybrids, and electrics, and we tell you what your options are if you live in an apartment without a convenient place to plug in your car while it’s parked. 

We are joined this week by WIRED staff writer Aarian Marshall, who breaks down the facts, shatters the myths, and turns us all into hybrid car experts.

This episode originally aired on April 2, 2024. Read the transcript.

Show Notes:

Read Aarian’s story about the new US emissions rules. Also read her story about automakers struggling to hit their US sales targets for electric cars.

Recommendations:

Aarian recommends going to one of those baseball games where you also bring your dog. (They let you run the bases!) Mike recommends The New York Trilogy by novelist Paul Auster, who died this week at 77. Lauren recommends The Lights, the newest book of poetry and prose by Ben Lerner.

Aarian Marshall can be found on social media @aarianmarshall. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Even if you’ve never taken a puff from a vape in your life, you know about Juul. At the company’s peak in 2018, its e-cigarette was one of the most recognizable consumer devices on the planet, and Juul Labs was worth $38 billion. Just a few short years later, after being squeezed by government regulators and prohibition-minded anti-tobacco advocates, Juul’s valuation plummeted and its market share vaporized.

The story of Juul—and its thousands of imitators—is outlined in Backfired: The Vaping Wars, a new nine-part podcast from Prologue Projects. The show traces the history of e-cigarettes, nicotine vaporizers, and synthetic nicotine by following the paths of Juul and its thousands of competitors as the vape companies gain public acceptance, fight for market share, and butt heads with government agencies. It’s a fascinating ride filled with new reporting, so even if you’ve read and listened to everything about Juul and vaping, you’ll hear some shocking new information in this series.

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with Backfired’s hosts, Arielle Pardes and Leon Neyfakh. 

Show Notes:

Backfired is an Audible original, so go to audible.com/backfired to listen. Also check out Louise Matsakis’ story about the next generation of cheap, illegal vapes coming from China.

Recommendations:

Arielle recommends Timeshifter’s Jet Lag App. Leon recommends the Yoto Player for getting kids into podcasts. Lauren recommends The Bee Sting, by Paul Murray. Mike recommends Subpar Pool, a game by Holedown creator Martin Jonasson.

Arielle Pardes can be found on social media @pardesoteric. Leon Neyfakh is @leoncrawl. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Web crawling—the act of indexing information across the internet—has been around for decades. It has primarily been used by search engines like Google and nonprofits like Internet Archive and Common Crawl to catalog the contents of the open internet and make it searchable. Until recently, the practice of web crawling has rarely been seen as controversial, as websites depended on the process as a way for people to find their content. But now crawling tech has been subsumed by the great AI-ening of everything, and is being used by companies like Google and Perplexity AI to absorb whole articles that are fed into their summarizing machines.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Kate Knibbs joins the show to talk about web crawling and the controversy over Common Crawl. Then we talk with Forbes’ chief content officer and editor Randall Lane about how Perplexity.AI repurposed a Forbes article and presented it as its own story, without first asking permission or properly citing the source.

Show Notes:

Read Kate’s story about how publishers are going after Common Crawl over AI training data. Read Randall’s story about how Preplexity.AI copied the work of two Forbes reporters.

Recommendations:

Randall recommends his new horse racing league, the National Thoroughbred League. Kate recommends the book Victim by Andrew Boryga. Lauren recommends the show Hacks on Max.

Randall Lane can be found on social media @RandallLane. Kate Knibbs is @Knibbs. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

This week, Apple executives used the keynote address of the company’s annual developers conference to debut all of the artificial intelligence capabilities that are coming to iPhones, iPads, and Macs. The team showed off how generative tools will help users write emails, clean up iPhone photos, illustrate presentations, and make custom emoji characters. 

Adding AI to everything is par for the course in 2024, as all of the big tech companies have been loading up their software with similar generative features. But Apple is late to this particular party. The company has been perceived as being “behind” in generative AI, since OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and a whole bunch of startups have already made massive inroads. But is Apple really behind? And what makes Apple’s AI—cheekily named Apple Intelligence—different?

This week, we welcome WIRED senior writer Will Knight back onto the show to talk about Apple Intelligence, the new Siri, and how Apple is trying to differentiate itself in the AI race.

Show Notes:

Read Will’s new story about Apple Intelligence’s launch, and his news analysis piece on how Apple will need to make sure its AI doesn’t disappoint, annoy, or offend iPhone users. Read Boone Ashworth’s roundup of everything Apple announced at WWDC. Lauren tells us why Apple’s AI play is also its best shot at getting you to upgrade your iPhone. Julian Chokkattu has a comprehensive overview of all the AI features coming to iOS. Read all of our WWDC coverage.

Recommendations:

Will recommends the AutoGen multi-agent conversational framework. Mike recommends Klean Kanteen’s Rise Food Box. Lauren recommends the Lunya washable silk sleep mask. 

Will Knight can be found on X @willknight. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Google has spent the past year lustily rolling out AI features across its platforms. But with each launch, it is becoming more clear that some of these so-called enhancements should have simmered a little longer. The latest update to stoke equal parts excitement and ridicule is AI Overviews, the new auto-generated summary boxes that appear at the top of some Google search results.

In theory, AI Overviews are meant to answer questions and neatly summarize key information about people's search queries, offering links to the sources the summaries were pulled from and making search more immediately useful. In reality, these AI Overviews have been kinda messy. The information the summary confidently displays can be simply, and sometimes comically, wrong. Even when the AI Overview is correct, it typically only offers a slim account of the topic without the added context—or attribution—contained in the web pages it’s pulling from. The resulting criticisms have forced Google to reportedly dial back the number of search queries that trigger AI Overviews, and they are now being seen less frequently than they were at launch.

This week, we talk with WIRED writers Kate Knibbs and Reece Rogers about the rollout, how Google has been managing it, and what it's like to watch our journalism get gobbled up by these hungry, hungry infobots.

Show Notes:

Read Kate’s story about Google trimming the frequency of its AI Overviews. Read Reece’s story about how Google’s AI Overviews copied his original work. Read Lauren’s story about the end of Google Search as we know it.

Recommendations:

Kate recommends Token Supremacy by Zachary Small. Reece recommends the game Balatro. Lauren recommends the poetry book Technelegy by Sasha Stiles. Mike recommends the book Neu Klang: The Definitive History of Krautrock by Christoph Dallach.

Kate Knibbs can be found on social media @Knibbs (X) or @extremeknibbs (Threads/IG). Reece Rogers is @reece___rogers. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Domain names have value, even when the websites that were once hosted there are shut down or abandoned. Prospectors will often swoop in and snatch up an unused domain, then erect a new website filled with clickbait articles. If the domain name used to rank highly in search results, the new clickbait articles will also rank highly, guaranteeing the prospector a steady stream of visitors searching the web for common phrases. 

These zombie sites are all over the web; you’ve probably landed on them many times yourself. But this shady market is poised to grow exponentially thanks to the proliferation of generative AI tools. Text generators like ChatGPT make it easier for prospectors to crank out clickbait articles at greater speed, feeding an already raging river of pablum.

This week, Kate Knibbs tells us about her WIRED story on one of these entrepreneurs in the world of AI-generated clickbait hosted on squatted domains.

This episode originally aired February 15, 2024. Read the full transcript.

Show Notes:

Read Kate’s story about Nebojša Vujinović Vujo and his clickbait empire. Also read Kate’s original investigation into what happened to The Hairpin, a popular blog for womens’ writing that went defunct and was then reborn as a content mill.

Recommendations:

Kate recommends the novella Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler. Brian recommends the novel The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. Lauren recommends giving up fancy, creamy coffee drinks for Lent. Mike recommends the social media platform BlueSky, which is now open to everyone.

Kate Knibbs can be found on social media @Knibbs. Brian Barrett is @brbarrett. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

People everywhere are hot for heat pumps. These electric appliances—which perform the same heating and cooling tasks as traditional HVAC systems, just much more efficiently—have been outselling gas furnaces over the past couple of years. Their proliferation seems to be pointing more towards an energy-conscious electric future in people’s homes. And, four months ago, nine states in the US signed a memorandum of understanding that says that heat pumps should make up at least 65 percent of residential heating, air conditioning, and water-heating shipments by 2030.

But, what exactly is a heat pump? How does it work? How much does it cost to replace your furnace with one, and how much money does making the switch actually save you in the long run? Let’s also consider the same question we’re asking about AI: how much will this change or displace existing jobs for the people who have been trained to install and service traditional HVAC systems?

WIRED staff writer Matt Simon is our in-house heat pump expert. He joins us this week to tell us everything we need to know about these appliances he calls “climate superheroes.”

Show Notes:

Read all of our heat pump coverage. Don’t miss Matt’s story about the heat pump technician shortage. Matt also took a look at the in-window heat pumps now hitting the market that look and operate like in-window AC units. WIRED’s Rhett Alain digs into the physics of heat pumps.

Recommendations:

Matt recommends the book Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization by Edward Slingerland. Mike recommends the book Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk by Kathleen Hanna. Lauren recommends taking a staycation.

Matt Simon can be found on social media @mrmattsimon. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Google held its annual I/O developer event this week. The company gathered software developers, business partners, and folks from the technology press at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California, just down the road from Google corporate headquarters for a two-hour presentation. There were Android announcements, there were chatbot announcements. Somebody even blasted rainbow-colored robes into the crowd using a T-shirt cannon. But most of the talk at I/O centered around artificial intelligence. Nearly everything Google showed off at the event was enhanced in some way by the company’s Gemini AI model. And some of the most shocking announcements came in the realm of AI-powered search, an area where Google is poised to upend everyone’s expectations about how to find things on the internet—for better or for worse.

This week, WIRED senior writer Paresh Dave joins us to unpack everything Google announced at I/O, and to help us understand how search engines will evolve for the AI era. 

Show Notes:

Read our roundup of everything Google announced at I/O 2024. Lauren wrote about the end of search as we know it. Will Knight got a demo of Project Astra, Google’s visual chatbot.

Recommendations:

Paresh recommends The Pitch podcast. Lauren recommends Kristin Lueke’s newsletter “The Animal Eats.” Mike recommends the Pedro Almodóvar film, Julieta, which is based on short stories by Alice Munro, who died this week.

Paresh Dave can be found on social media @peard33. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

For all the influence Twitter has had on our culture, no community there has made quite as much impact as Black Twitter. The virtual community grew from a loose online hangout to an influential cultural force that directed conversations about race and culture not only on social media, but in our society at large. A new documentary miniseries from Hulu called Black Twitter: A People's History charts that monumental trajectory.

 
This week on Gadget Lab, we chat about the rise and solidification of Black Twitter with showrunner Joie Jacoby, director and executive producer Prentice Penny, and WIRED senior writer Jason Parham, who wrote the WIRED cover story the docuseries is based on.

Black Twitter: A People's History premieres on May 9th on Hulu. Read Jason’s three-part series of stories about Black Twitter.

 
Recommendations:
Joie recommends the Met Opera show Fire Shut Up in My Bones. Prentice recommends the YouTube channel Pitch Meetings. Jason recommends X-Men 97 on Disney+. Lauren recommends watching Black Twitter: A People’s History and reading Jason Parham’s story that inspired the show. Mike recommends trying the new instant coffees that are popping up. (Instant coffee is good now, he swears.)
Jason Parham can be found on social media @nonlinearnotes. Joie Jacoby is @joiejacoby. Prentice Penny is @The_A_Prentice Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Back in March, the US Environmental Protection Agency finalized a long in the works rule requiring automakers here to dramatically increase the number of battery-powered vehicles they’re putting on the roads. The government has mandated that by 2032, more than half of new cars sold must be electric. There are some caveats, namely that plug-in hybrid cars will fulfill the federal requirements for what a “battery-powered” vehicle is. 

This has led to a flood of hybrid cars hitting the market. This week, we talk about what this means for people who are considering buying a new car now, or in the next few years. We explain the differences between plug-in hybrids, full hybrids, and electrics, and we tell you what your options are if you live in an apartment without a convenient place to plug in your car while it’s parked. 

We are joined this week by WIRED staff writer Aarian Marshall, who breaks down the facts, shatters the myths, and turns us all into hybrid car experts.

Show Notes:

Read Aarian’s story about the new US emissions rules. Also read her story about automakers struggling to hit their US sales targets for electric cars.

Recommendations:

Aarian recommends going to one of those baseball games where you also bring your dog. (They let you run the bases!) Mike recommends The New York Trilogy by novelist Paul Auster, who died this week at 77. Lauren recommends The Lights, the newest book of poetry and prose by Ben Lerner.

Aarian Marshall can be found on social media @aarianmarshall. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Do you know what TCP/IP means? (Hint: you’re using it right now.) What about CDMA? Or GPT? While the concepts and the execution of these technologies are clear to most of us who have been on the internet nearly our whole lives, the acronyms we use to define them are often inscrutable. On this week’s episode, we welcome WIRED’s AI reporter Will Knight onto the show. Along with our hosts Michael Calore and Lauren Goode, the trio takes turns quizzing each other on what exactly these acronyms stand for. Michael is asked to unpack various terms from the early internet era, Lauren is tested on acronyms from the mobile era, and Will tells us what all the AI-related abbreviations mean. Everyone does a pretty good job even if nobody earns a perfect score. Play along at home; maybe you can best our hosts with your arcane knowledge of internet minutiae.

Show Notes

Read Steven Levy’s story about the Google research paper that kickstarted the transformer-based AI boom.

Recommendations:

Will recommends the book The Rise and Fall of the EAST by Yasheng Huang. (Watch their conversation at MIT’s Starr Forum.) Lauren recommends the Forest app for the Pomodoro work method. Mike recommends The Jargon File.

Will Knight can be found on social media @WillKnight. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Silicon Valley tech types love their edgy new social media startups. The latest is Airchat, an audio-first social app that lets its users express their every thought by posting short snippets of audio. All of these snippets are served in a never-ending feed, a la Twitter. There are replies, there are DMs, but there’s no typing; it’s all spoken audio. The platform is exclusively invitation-only for now, so the current user base is made up mostly of Valley insiders, optimistic venture capitalists, and crypto evangelists, which definitely informs the types of conversations you’ll find on the app. If you're thinking this sounds a lot like Clubhouse, the audio-based social space that flared up during the Covid-19 pandemic, well, you're not too far off.

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk to WIRED’s Director of Special Projects Alan Henry about making mouth sounds on Airchat and whether the buzzy new social startup will appeal to anyone outside the Silicon Valley technosphere.

Show Notes:

Read Lauren’s story about Airchat.

Recommendations:

Alan recommends the Kurzgesagt YouTube channel. Lauren recommends Julian Chokkattu’s review of the Humane Ai Pin and Scoop, a movie about journalism that’s streaming on Netflix. Mike recommends our new sibling podcast, WIRED Politics Lab.

Alan can be found on social media @halophoenix. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Election deniers are mobilizing their supporters and rolling out new tech to disrupt the November election. These groups are already organizing on hyperlocal levels, and learning to monitor polling places, target election officials, and challenge voter rolls. And though their work was once fringe, its become mainstreamed in the Republican Party. Today on WIRED Politics Lab, we focus on what these groups are doing, and what this means for voters and the election workers already facing threats and harassment.

Listen to and follow WIRED Politics Lab here.
Be sure to subscribe to the WIRED Politics Lab newsletter here.

Hey, did you see the ad for that Bluetooth-enabled Shiatsu foot massager? How about the one for the organic mushroom supplement powder? They're probably not even the most interesting things you can buy on TikTok or Instagram. Just as the apps have thrived on a steady stream of feel-good content, they have also inundated their users with cheap, bright, and shiny stuff they can swipe through and buy with just a few taps. It's a trend that's spread out to every social site, and has taken a unique shape on TikTok through the platform’s new experimental TikTok Shop. Now, it's hard to get through a couple videos without being accosted by virility pills, fast fashion, and hangover cures.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED staff writer Amanda Hoover joins us to talk about the weird world of TikTok Shop, how its fee structure is evolving, and why it feels like every single social media service is pivoting to zany products.

Show Notes:

Read Amanda’s story about TikTok Shop raising its seller fees. Listen to our recent episode (#636) about the possibility of a TikTok ban.

Recommendations:

Amanda recommends the HungovrAF cap. Mike recommends the documentary Anselm, directed by Wim Winders. Lauren recommends Leuchtturm 1917 notebooks.

Amanda Hoover can be found on social media @byamandahoover. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Apple has gotten used to being a favorite target of rivals and government agencies. The company has been repeatedly scrutinized by regulators, and other tech companies have accused the company of anticompetitive practices. Apple’s most recent legal challenge is a doozy: an antitrust lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice and more than a dozen state attorneys general. The suit takes aim at the security and privacy features offered only on the iPhone, and accuses Apple of using that exclusivity to lock consumers into its ecosystem. At the center of the suit is the lack of true cross-platform encryption on Apple’s messaging platform—the green bubble-blue bubble divide—which the government alleges harms consumers by leaving them more vulnerable to attacks.

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with WIRED senior security editor Andrew Couts about the encryption and privacy issues behind the DOJ's suit against Apple, and how the dreaded green bubbles on iMessage factor in.

Show Notes:

Read Andrew and Andy Greenberg’s WIRED story about how the DOJ is targeting Apple's iMessage encryption. Read Lauren’s story about how the antitrust case is all about the green bubbles, really.

Recommendations:

Andrew recommends profumo del chianti sea salt. Lauren recommends the book Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. Mike recommends going to the Big Ears music festival next year.

Andrew Couts can be found on social media @AndrewCouts. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

3 Body Problem is Netflix’s new big, meaty prestige sci-fi series. Based on the book of the same name by author Liu Cixin, the show about an impending alien invasion is also one about how humans react to technological advancements and social movements that spiral out of control. Aliens aside, it tackles many of the same issues modern society is facing right now—political instability, fanaticism, and maybe an over-dependence on virtual reality. The new show is helmed by the former showrunners ofGame of Thrones and surprise surprise, this high-concept drama is in fact very good.

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk all about 3 Body Problem—how the tech and cultural events in the show mirror the real world and how it stacks up against the likes of Game of Thrones and other prestige TV.

Show Notes

Read Amit Katwala’s interview with the main showrunners of3 Body Problem. Here’s Lauren’s story about crying in VR. Speaking of VR, read WIRED’s review of the Apple Vision Pro.

Recommendations

Kate recommends the showSilo on Apple TV+. Lauren recommends the movieOne Day on Netflix. Mike recommends theTransmissions podcast by Aquarium Drunkard.

Kate Knibbs can be found on social media @Knibbs. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

You may only know TikTok as the massively popular social video app for phone-obsessed teens, but lately the app has been caught in the political fray. On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives approved a bipartisan bill that, should it become law, would require TikTok’s parent company, the Chinese firm ByteDance, to sell the app or else see it banned on devices in the US. Lawmakers in the US have expressed concerns that data from American TikTok users is being shared with a Chinese company, and that therefore TikTok poses a threat to national security. 

This week on Gadget Lab, we’re joined by WIRED’s senior politics writer Makena Kelly to talk about those security concerns, what this bill means for the rest of the tech industry, and what could happen if TikTok is actually banned.

Show Notes:

Read Makena on the bill that would ban TikTok, and read Vittoria Elliott’s update on Wednesday’s vote. We also have instructions to get your videos off TikTok. Read all of WIRED’s TikTok coverage.

Recommendations:

Makena recommends going to the office. (Really.) Mike recommends Ener-C powdered vitamin drink mix. Lauren reiterates Kate Knibbs’ earlier recommendation of American Fiction, the film that just won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. 

Makena Kelly can be found on social media @kellymakena. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

The last few months have been rough for Google. Company executives have been in the hot seat because of some embarrassing missteps, the most awkward of which was the bungled launch of Google’s latest image generator. The company launched it as part of its suite of GenAI tools named Gemini, but then quickly pulled it back after the generator produced some seriously weird results.

This week, we welcome WIRED senior writer Paresh Dave back to the show to talk about Gemini’s strange outputs. We also talk about some of the staffing pains Google has been going through recently, including layoffs and accusations of discrimination.

 
Show Notes:
Read more about the “woke AI” controversy. Read Bloomberg’s story about Google’s layoffs to its trust and safety team. Read Paresh’s story about the Googler with a disability who alleges workplace discrimination at the company. Listen to our broader discussion about tech layoffs on episode 633.

Recommendations:
Paresh recommends the food blog The Fancy Navajo. Lauren recommends Lauren Mechling’s story in The Guardian about journalism; the Le Carré Cast podcast, particularly the episode about the secret life of the famous spy author; and Mike recommends the film collection “And the Razzie Goes to …” on the Criterion Channel.
Paresh can be found on social media @peard33.bsky.social. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Unless you were really into desktop PC gaming a decade ago, you probably didn't give Nvidia much thought until recently. The company makes graphics cards, among other tech, and has earned great success thanks to the strength of the gaming industry. But it's been nothing compared to the explosive growth Nvidia has enjoyed over the past year. That's because Nvidia's tech is well-suited to power the machines that run large language models, the basis for the generative AI systems that have swept across the tech industry. Now Nvidia is an absolute behemoth, with a skyrocketing stock value and a tight grip on the most impactful—and controversial—tech of this era.
This week on Gadget Lab, we welcome WIRED’s Will Knight, who writes about AI, as our guest. Together, we boot up our Nvidia® GeForce RTX™ 4080 SUPER graphics cards to render an ultra high-def conversation about the company powering the AI boom.

Show Notes:
Read Lauren’s interview with Nvidia cofounder and CEO, Jensen Huang. Read Will’s story about the need for more chips in AI computing circles, and his story about the US government’s export restrictions on chip technology. Read all of our Nvidia coverage.

Recommendations:
Will recommends WhisperKit from Argmax for machine transcription. Mike recommends getting your garden going now; it’s almost spring. Lauren recommends Say Nothing, a book by Patrick Radden Keefe.
Will Knight can be found on social media @willknight Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

tech companies seemed immune to large-scale layoffs, and as their profits skyrocketed, those cushy jobs became highly sought-after. But economic headwinds, and the looming influence of AI, are leading to some tumultuous changes in the tech industry.

In just the first seven weeks of this year, Amazon, Google, Discord, Duolingo, Cisco, Instacart, and dozens of others all made deep staffing cuts. It all adds up to tens of thousands of jobs lost across the industry, and the cuts aren't slowing down. It doesn't help that interviewing for tech jobs is getting harder too, with employers asking for more and more work or rigorous testing before making a hire. 

This week, WIRED senior writer Paresh Dave joins us to talk about whether the layoffs will cool off, and why right now is a daunting time to be looking for a tech job.

Show Notes:

Read Paresh’s story about how Google has been cutting down on its acquisitions lately. Read Amanda Hoover on recent tech industry layoffs, and her story about the TikTok layoff videos folks have been posting. Read Lauren’s story about how tech job interviews are getting even more demanding. And of course, follow all of WIRED’s coverage of how AI and how it affects people’s livelihoods.

Recommendations:

Paresh recommends making an effort to connect and collaborate with your disabled colleagues. Lauren recommends the documentary The Eternal Memory. Mike recommends listening to Ty Segall’s new album Three Bells and watching his live show.

Paresh Dave can be found on social media @peard33. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Domain names have value, even when the websites that were once hosted there are shut down or abandoned. Prospectors will often swoop in and snatch up an unused domain, then erect a new website filled with clickbait articles. If the domain name used to rank highly in search results, the new clickbait articles will also rank highly, guaranteeing the prospector a steady stream of visitors searching the web for common phrases. 

These zombie sites are all over the web; you’ve probably landed on them many times yourself. But this shady market is poised to grow exponentially thanks to the proliferation of generative AI tools. Text generators like ChatGPT make it easier for prospectors to crank out clickbait articles at greater speed, feeding an already raging river of pablum.

This week, Kate Knibbs tells us about her WIRED story on one of these entrepreneurs in the world of AI-generated clickbait hosted on squatted domains.

Show Notes:

Read Kate’s story about Nebojša Vujinović Vujo and his clickbait empire. Also read Kate’s original investigation into what happened to The Hairpin, a popular blog for womens’ writing that went defunct and was then reborn as a content mill.

Recommendations:

Kate recommends the novella Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler. Brian recommends the novel The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. Lauren recommends giving up fancy, creamy coffee drinks for Lent. Mike recommends the social media platform BlueSky, which is now open to everyone.

Kate Knibbs can be found on social media @Knibbs. Brian Barrett is @brbarrett. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

At its core, Slack is a chat app. Every day, millions of people use it to communicate, share files, and gossip with coworkers or friend groups in one organized place. That style of free-flowing interaction—which Slack didn’t invent, but made mainstream—has changed the way we talk to each other online for better and for worse. It’s brought us closer together and enabled global collaboration, but it’s also allowed conversations to follow us anywhere … like when you get a notification at 10 pm that your boss has sent you a DM.

This week, MIT Technology Review editor in chief Mat Honan joins the show to chronicle the history of Slack as the software suit turns 10 years old. We dig into how it helped our work lives bleed into our personal time, and how the company is faring under the auspices of Salesforce and against its competitors.

Show Notes:

Read Mat’s 2014 story about Slack founder Stewart Butterfield and his boring startup. Here’s Lauren’s story about the Slack soft return and other office hacks you might want to use. Listen to the episode of WIRED’s Have A Nice Future podcast with former Slack CEO Lidiane Jones.

Recommendations:

Mat recommends Airtags and the ChatGPT sticker bot. Mike recommends the Raw Impressions podcast with Lou and Adelle Barlow. Lauren recommends using the soft return in Slack. 

Mat Honan can be found on social media @mat. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Apple's first ever mixed reality headset, the Vision Pro, arrives tomorrow. Apple has a knack for revitalizing and legitimizing a product category—something that the face computer market really needs right now. But there are some hangups that could limit its initial success: the Vision Pro's exorbitant $3,499 price tag, the tethered battery pack, and the mere handful of apps available on the device at launch. These issues point to this headset being more of a development kit than a fully realized product for now. It's a beautiful machine, but its true potential may not be realized for some time.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED reviews editor Julian Chokkattu joins us to chat about the Apple Vision Pro and whether it's going to be the device that finally kicks off the face computer revolution. We also talk about the ways Apple is trying to make the headset disappear as part of the experience, both in the virtual space and in the physical realm.

Show Notes:

Read Julian’s hands-on experience with the Apple Vision Pro. Read Lauren’s story about the Apple Vision Pro’s battery pack. Read Boone Ashworth on the current situation with apps and developers. 

Recommendations:

Julian recommends Thumbtack, a platform to connect homeowners with service vendors. Lauren recommends butter lettuce. Mike recommends the Scottish police show Shetland.

Julian Chokkattu can be found on social media @JulianChokkattu. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 legal and illicit goods on the web with total anonymity, the fact is that nearly all cryptocurrency transactions leave a digital trail behind them that can point to your true identity. No matter how hard you try to hide, a dedicated sleuth with the right resources can find you.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior cybersecurity writer and author of the book Tracers in the Dark digs into all the ways investigators, government agents, and hackers can track down criminals online by “following the money” exchanged in cryptocurrency transactions.

This show originally aired on February 9, 2023.

Show Notes

Andy’s book is Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency. You can read two excerpts from the book on WIRED.com: the six-part AlphaBay saga and the feature about the takedown of a website for sharing child sex abuse materials.

Recommendations

Andy recommends the deliberately frustrating game Getting Over It. Lauren recommends Andy’s WIRED story about the animal activists whose spy cams revealed the grim realities of pork slaughterhouses. Mike recommends the book Art Is Life by the art critic Jerry Saltz.

Andy can be found on social media @a_greenberg. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

It's an election year in the US, which means you can expect a fresh tsunami of campaign ads in your feeds, in your inbox, and jammed in front of YouTube videos. This is also the first election of the AI era, where anyone can generate just about anything—an image, a Twitter bot, a speech—by typing a few lines of text into a prompt. Whether it's bad actors generating misleading deepfakes or candidates using text generators to write cringey campaign emails, AI is now firmly part of the election process.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior politics writer Makenna Kelly joins us en route from the Iowa caucus to talk about how scammers and political campaigns alike are using AI to influence voters at the polls.

Show Notes:

Read more from Makena about the Iowa caucus and the end of Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign. Scroll through her TikToks about the caucus. Follow all of WIRED’s coverage of the 2024 election and artificial intelligence.

Recommendations:

Makena recommends Uniqlo under layers. Mike recommends the cringey Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone show The Curse. Lauren recommends the show Catastrophe.

Makena Kelly can be found on social media @kellymakena. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

It's CES week. Yes, it's time to dive back into that glitzy, chaotic showcase where thousands of startups, companies, and general technology weirdos gather to show off all the new tech and futuristic devices that will give us a glimpse of the year in tech to come. AI is in everything, we're getting ChatGPT in our flying cars, and TVs are getting so big and bright you need sunglasses to watch them.
This week on Gadget Lab, we come to you straight from lovely Las Vegas, Nevada, where CES is in full swing. We huddled together in a Vegas hotel room to talk all about the big trends, crazy tech, and just plain weird stuff we saw this week.

Show Notes:
Follow CES on our liveblog and check out many, many bizarre and wonderful things we saw at CES this year. Read Jeremy’s look at the Supernal flying car. Read Julian’s story about the Rabbit R1 AI personal assistant device. Check out wehead.com, if you dare. Follow all of WIRED’s CES coverage now and forever.
Adrienne So can be found on social media @adriennemso. Julian Chokkattu is @JulianChokkattu. Jeremy is @jeremywired. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

In 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that protected abortion rights in the United States. Since then, many states have rolled back abortion services or made them outright illegal. That includes some states restricting access to abortion pills like mifepristone. Now, at the start of an election year in the US and a year that will bring more legal challenges to abortion rights, a new study shows that women are stockpiling abortion pills in record numbers—even if they aren’t currently pregnant.

This week, we welcome WIRED senior writer Kate Knibbs onto the show to talk about abortion medication, the trend of “advance provision” requests for mifepristone, and the coming legal fight over continued access to telehealth and in-person abortion services.

Show Notes:

Read Kate’s story about how women in the US are stockpiling abortion pills. Read our primer on menstrual regulation medications. Learn more about the upcoming US Supreme Court case that could change some Americans’ access to the pills.

Recommendations:

Kate recommends the film American Fiction. Mike recommends the movie Godland. Lauren recommends embracing the theory of Dunbar’s number and focusing on your closest relationships.

Kate Knibbs can be found on social media @Knibbs. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Artificial intelligence was inarguably the biggest newsmaker in the tech industry this year. Whether it was ChaptGPT writing term papers, AI-generated Drake hits, or the board shakeup at OpenAI, the topic permeated the public consciousness and left people feeling varying levels of excitement and absolute terror about how this technology will shape our future. Generative AI seems poised to alter the direction of humanity, but it's up to the people to figure out exactly how it’s going to do that.

This week on Gadget Lab, we’re sharing a very special session from the recent LiveWIRED event celebrating WIRED’s 30th anniversary. Onstage, WIRED editor-at-large Steven Levy interviews renowned AI scientist Fei-Fei Li and LinkedIn cofounder and former OpenAI board member Reid Hoffman about all the chaos at OpenAI and what generative AI will look like in the future.

Show Notes:

Read Steven’s story about what OpenAI really wants. Read more from WIRED about OpenAI and artificial intelligence. Check out the many other sessions from the LiveWIRED event.

Steven Levy can be found on social media @StevenLevy. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

It’s been a year, that’s for sure. Every week on Gadget Lab, we end the show by bringing you our recommendations for all of our favorite tech, books, TV shows, and life hacks. Now, at the end of the year, we’re going all-in on that idea with an entire episode dedicated to those recommendations. We talk about all the things that helped us get through 2023 and have us looking forward to 2024.

This week on Gadget Lab, we make the mistake of letting our producer Boone Ashworth grab a mic again. He joins Lauren and Michael to talk about the best gadgets, lifestyle changes, shows, and culinary curiosities of 2023.

Show Notes:

Our talk with Casey Johnston from May of 2023 can be found in episode number 598. Read more about ActivityPub and the coming federated social media landscape. Here’s our review of the new Valve Steam Deck OLED. See our list of our favorite electric kettles.

Recommendations:

Boone recommends running a half marathon or two, the new OLED Steam Deck, and Ableton Live software for making music (or at least pretending you understand how to). Lauren recommends lifting weights for fitness, an Oxo electric kettle, and the 2021 movie The Worst Person in the World. Mike recommends getting to know ActivityPub, watching the show Scavenger’s Reign on Max, and eating lots of chili crisp.

Boone Ashworth can be found on social media @booneashworth. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth. Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Does your favorite movie star or pop singer really love the Kremlin? Though the ads in your Facebook feed may lead you to believe such a thing, it’s just not true. In recent months, a major disinformation campaign has run rampant on Meta and X (aka Facebook and Twitter). The campaign uses fake ads that show existing photos of extremely famous celebrities—Beyoncé, Oprah, Justin Bieber, Shakira, Cristiano Ronaldo—which have been doctored to include fake quotes that back Russia and criticize Ukraine. The campaign, which is still in progress, was perpetrated by a pre-Kremlin group known as Doppelganger. Information shared exclusively with WIRED has also linked this disinformation campaign to Russia’s GRU military spy agency. 

On this week’s show, we talk with WIRED contributor David Gilbert, who reports on digital disinformation. David says Doppelganger has been acting in plain sight for over a year, buying targeted ads and using networks of bots and fake Facebook pages to get its pro-Russia propaganda in front of millions of people. 

Show Notes:

Read David’s story about Doppelganger’s campaign. Read all of David’s recent coverage. Also read our coverage of other online propaganda campaigns.

Recommendations:

David recommends the movie Saltburn. Mike recommends buying Italian blood orange soda instead of sparkling cider for your next holiday part. Lauren recommends supporting a union!

David Gilbert can be found wrangling all kinds of disinformation on social media @daithaigilbert. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 the incoming text is arriving from outside the Apple ecosystem. But the divide goes beyond simple aesthetics. Photos and videos shared between the two mobile platforms don’t come through at full resolution. Neither do rich interactions like read receipts, typing indicators, and tapbacks. Group chats between the platforms are a total mess, filled with dropped messages and hurt feelings. A new app aims to bridge that blue-green bubble gap and make texting more seamless—and more secure with full encryption. It even turns Android texts blue! It’s what we’ve always wanted … right?

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk about Beeper Mini, the app trying to make our text conversations easier. WIRED features editor Jason Kehe joins us to campaign against the trend of interoperability on our phones. As Jason sees it, these friction-free communication mechanisms are causing us to slip into bad habits, become more isolated, and feel less inclined to put down our phones and have a real experience.

Show Notes:

Read Lauren’s story about the new Beeper app and the teenage coder who helped make it work. Read more of Jason’s various other controversial opinions.

Recommendations:

Jason recommends piracy, and also a few works about pirates like the show Our Flag Means Death and the book Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly. Lauren recommends the new BlackBerry movie. Mike recommends pizzelle Italian cookies. Buy ‘em or make ‘em.

Jason Kehe can be found on social media @jkehe. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 innovations, and passionate arguments dedicated to brewing a better cup of coffee. A recent wave of impressively designed coffee gadgets aims to dial it in even further. But too often, those flashy and high-tech solutions don’t make a mug of coffee that’s any more satisfying than the familiar methods that have been around for years—or centuries, even.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED contributor, cookbook author, and smart-kitchen expert Joe Ray joins us to chat about coffee: the optimal way to brew it, the best tech to use, and whether it's OK to shame people who use disposable K-cups. (Yes, it is.)

Show Notes:

Read Joe’s buying guide to find the best AeroPress coffee brewer, and check out his roundup of best cookbooks of 2023 (so far). Read all of Joe’s food and kitchen coverage for WIRED.

Recommendations:

Joe recommends Craft Coffee: A Manual: Brewing a Better Cup at Home by Jessica Easto and Company: The Radically Casual Art of Cooking for Others by Amy Thielen. Lauren recommends giving honey as a gift and keeping a box cutter around the house. Mike recommends Mission Vegan: Wildly Delicious Food for Everyone by Danny Bowien and JJ Goode.

Joe Ray can be found on social media @joe_diner. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Artificial intelligence has made headlines all year long, but the turn of events this week was extraordinary. OpenAI was thrown into chaos with the firing and eventual rehiring of CEO Sam Altman. There was a shakeup in the company’s board of directors and fierce debates about how much influence ethics should have on the company’s direction. That uncertainty of how to philosophically approach artificial intelligence will keep casting a shadow over the tech industry even after the dust settles around the OpenAI drama. Researchers, proponents of ethical AI, and corporate customers of these new generative AI tools will continue to ask how these technologies are going to shape our future, and what influence they will have over our lives.

This week, we're bringing you an episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast in which New Yorker writer Joshua Rothman talks to Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called godfather of AI, about how rapidly AI has advanced and how it may alter the future of humanity.

Show Notes:

This episode originally aired on November 21, 2023. You can find a full transcript here. Listen to the New Yorker Radio Hour wherever you get your podcasts. Read Joshua Rothman’s profile of Geoffrey Hinton in The New Yorker.

Tom Simonite can be found on social media @tsimonite. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. Gadget Lab is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 East Coast of the United States, and the size and scope of the outage alarmed the cybersecurity researchers and law enforcement agencies tasked with thwarting such attacks. The code that caused this meltdown was created by three individuals, all in their teens or early 20s. The trio had built a tool that took control of internet-connected smart home devices and used them—like a massive zombie army—to knock the internet’s most vital servers offline. Now, years later, Mirai’s three creators have told their story.

This week, we talk to WIRED senior writer Andy Greenberg about Mirai’s creation, how the code did its damage, and how the three hackers were eventually caught. 

Show Notes:

Read Andy’s epic feature story titled “The Mirai Confessions: Three Young Hackers Who Built a Web-Killing Monster Finally Tell Their Story.” The story also graces the cover of the next issue of WIRED magazine.

Recommendations:

Andy recommends the book Your Face Belongs to Us by Kashmir Hill. Mike recommends getting a wreath for Christmas instead of chopping down a tree. Lauren recommends Okinawan sweet potato haupia pie bars.

Andy Greenberg can be found on X as @a_greenberg and @agreenberg elsewhere. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 started by a pair of ex-Apple employees, wants to squash the tyranny of the touchscreen. The company has developed a tiny device that magnetically pins to your clothing, where it can replicate a phone’s core functions like answering calls, sending messages, and translating speech. It uses voice controls, touch controls, and a camera to sense the wearer’s intentions, and it crafts answers using machine intelligence and displays them on your outstretched hand using a tiny projector. It's a weird and audacious device that Humane hopes will free its customers from having to carry their phones everywhere.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Paresh Dave joins us to talk about his hands-off experience with the Humane Ai pin and the future phone alternatives.

Show Notes:

Read Paresh’s story about his experience with the Humane Ai pin.

Recommendations:

Paresh recommends Kim’s Convenience on Netflix. Lauren recommends the biography of Robert Oppenheimer, American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Mike recommends the new reissue of the Buddha Machine music box from FM3.

Paresh Dave can be found on social media @peard33. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 billionaire purchased Twitter, and in that time the social platform has undergone big shifts in its user base, business model, and culture. It's become chaotic and unpredictable—some would say it’s more dangerous than ever—yet even among all this upheaval, Twitter keeps on tweetin’.

This week on Gadget Lab, we're commemorating the one-year anniversary of a Muskified Twitter. WIRED senior writer Kate Knibbs and Vox senior correspondent and host of the Land of the Giants podcast Peter Kafka join the show to talk about all the weirdness Twitter has gone through over the past year, and whether the platform is still as relevant as it once was.

Show Notes:

Listen to season seven of the Land of the Giants podcast, “The Twitter Fantasy.” Read Kate’s “Unverify Me, Daddy” story. Follow all WIRED’s coverage of the X (née Twitter) saga.

Recommendations:

Kate Recommends the book Do You Remember Being Born? by Sean Michaels. Peter recommends the book Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam, and also the show What We Do in the Shadows. Mike recommends the 1990 film Pump Up the Volume with Christain Slater and Samantha Mathis. Lauren recommends the second episode of the Land of the Giants: The Twitter Fantasy podcast she cohosts.

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 background and trace the many branches of your family tree. The popularity of such tests means these genomics and biotechnology companies hold a whole lot of very personal data about their customers, and hackers tend to see their databases as targets ripe for the picking. Earlier this month, the private data of millions of 23andMe customers was stolen and put up for sale on hacker forums. Most troublingly, the data gathered targeted specific ethnic groups, including Ashkenazi Jews and people of Chinese descent.

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with WIRED senior writer Lily Hay Newman about the 23andMe hack, what it means for the people who were directly affected, and whether it's a good idea to give companies access to your genetic material and history in the first place.

Show Notes:

Read more from Lily about the 23andMe hack and some updates on how it has gotten even worse. Follow all of WIRED’s cybersecurity coverage.

Recommendations:

Lily recommends Taylors of Harrogate Yorkshire Tea, specifically the flavor Malty Biscuit Brew. Lauren recommends Pasta e Ceci. Mike recommends the episode of the New York Times podcast Popcast titled, “Do We Need Album Reviews Anymore?”

Lily Hay Newman can be found on social media @lilyhnewman. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 people who don’t know they’re sharing incorrect information. It's a big problem in the best of times, but the stakes become much higher during a heated crisis like the current Israel-Hamas war. As the violence in and around Gaza has continued to escalate, people are turning to places like X (aka Twitter) for the latest news on the conflict. But they've been met with a flood of bad info—old videos, fake photos, and inaccurate reports—that researchers say is unprecedented.

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with WIRED reporter David Gilbert about how misinformation and disinformation spreads across social media, and how recent changes made by X before the Israel-Hamas war have made the problem even worse. We also talk about how the proliferation of generative artificial intelligence tools is making fake photos and videos look more believable. 

Show Notes:

Read David and Vittoria Elliot’s WIRED story about how disinformation is getting worse on X. Read David on the role misinformation played in coverage of the recent Gaza hospital explosion. Also read David’s story about how posts by X owner Elon Musk are seemingly making the platform’s misinformation problems worse.

Recommendations:

David recommends the book A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney. Mike recommends Bono’s memoir Surrender. Lauren would like you to send her workout playlists. (She prefers Spotify.)

David Gilbert can be found on social media @daithaigilbert. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Artificial intelligence abounds, and it’s only making its way deeper and deeper into every scrap of technology we use. Generative AI in particular is an invention that seems destined to follow us far into the future, so it’s best to try to make sense of where it’s headed.

This week on Gadget Lab, we're sharing an episode of Wondery's Business Wars podcast where we talk about the rise of AI over the past few years, where the future of artificial intelligence is going, and whether the many movies about AI actually predicted what’s to come.

Show Notes:

Listen to the Business Wars podcast at Wondery, or wherever you get your podcasts. Check out their whole series, the Rise of AI. Follow all of our own AI coverage on WIRED.

Recommendations:

Lauren recommends the Classy podcast. Mike recommends the new movie Past Lives.

Business Wars can be found on social media @businesswars. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 and smartwatches pumped out by Apple and Samsung, the company’s work in mobile software, large language models, productivity services, and computational photography make it just as much of a heavyweight when it comes to consumer tech. But Google’s reach also extends far beyond your pocket and your wrist. Let us not forget about the company’s dominance in search. In fact, it’s currently in the throes of a protracted antitrust trial brought by the US government. The feds have accused Google of stifling competition and using its reign over the search ecosystem to stuff the experience with ads and misleading sponsored results.

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with WIRED senior writer Paresh Dave about Google's ongoing antitrust trial and all the new gadgets and AI-powered services the company announced this week.

Show Notes:

Read Paresh’s other stories about Google’s antitrust trial. Read all about Google’s new Pixel 8 phones and Pixel Watch. Get all the details on the Pixel’s computational photography tricks. Read about the new Bard-powered Assistant in the Google phones. Read Lauren’s story about where memory ends and generative AI begins.

Recommendations:

Paresh recommends weathering the heat wave with some soft serve, such as Meadowlark Dairy. Mike recommends the Technothrillers collection on the Criterion Channel. Lauren recommends reading poetry, like that of Ada Limon, Louise Gluck, and Seamus Heaney.

Paresh Dave can be found on social media @peard33. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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, California. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to the stage to announce a new mixed reality headset, the Meta Quest 3, as well as new smart glasses made by Ray-Ban that let the wearer livestream videos and interact with an AI-powered voice chatbot. Meta also showed off an array of celebrity-infused AI chatbots that can mimic big-name folks like Snoop Dogg and Kendall Jenner. You'd be forgiven for thinking all this feels a little bit like an episode of Black Mirror.

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with WIRED senior AI writer Khari Johnson about the mixed reality hardware Meta announced this week, its voice-controlled smart glasses, its weird new AI chatbots, and where the company sits in the great AI arms race.

Show Notes:

Read Khari’s story about Meta’s many AI chatbots. Read Lauren’s story about the upcoming Meta Quest 3 headset and chatbot-enabled Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.

Recommendations:

Khari recommends the new movie The Creator. Lauren recommends the ‘90s movie Sliding Doors. Mike also recommends a ‘90s movie, Dazed and Confused.

Khari Johnson can be found on social media @kharijohnson. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 spot at center stage for Alexa, the voice assistant powering all of Amazon’s smart home ambitions. Researchers at the company have given Alexa a technological upgrade that enables it to be more competitive in the ChatGPT era. Alexa can now speak more naturally, hold a conversation without as many awkward interactions, and even make its responses sound more emotionally nuanced.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Will Knight joins us to talk about how Alexa is becoming more agile as a conversationalist. Will spoke to Amazon executives about their machine intelligence work, their training models, and how the company is riding the wave of excitement around generative artificial intelligence.

Show Notes:

Read Will’s report on Alexa’s latest upgrade. Read our roundup of everything Amazon announced at Wednesday’s media event.

Recommendations:

Will recommends Auto-GPT, a tool that turns ChatGPT an autonomous agent that manages all the boring parts of your life. Mike recommends the book No Meat Required: The Cultural History and Culinary Future of Plant-Based Eating by Alicia Kennedy. Lauren recommends the episode of WIRED’s Have a Nice Future Podcast where journalist Paul Tough talks about college in the US and the future of higher education.

Will Knight can be found on Twitter @willknight. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 versions of the iPhone 15, as well as a couple of new Apple Watch models and a smattering of software enhancements that aim to make moving around with your devices easier. The big news—though something Apple quickly glossed over in its presentation—is that the company has finally eschewed its proprietary Lightning connector in favor of the ubiquitous (and European-Union-mandated) USB-C standard. It's a big change, but one that Apple doesn't exactly seem happy to have been forced into making.

This week on Gadget Lab, we dive into all the details about everything Apple announced this week, from the hardware to the software to the services.

Show Notes:

Dig into everything Apple announced at its September event. Read Adrienne’s story about the new Apple Watch models. Read Julian’s stories about the new iPhones 15 and why it matters that Apple has made the switch to USB-C. Also, check out Lauren’s story about Apple’s new expensive but massive iCloud+ plans. 

Recommendations:

Adrienne recommends Ripton hiker jeans. (Read her story about these technical jorts.) Julian recommends the AnkerWork M650 wireless microphone system. Lauren recommends the latest episode of SmartLess with guest Kara Swisher. Mike recommends shatta, a fermented chile pepper sauce you can find at your local Middle Eastern grocer.

Adrienne is on social media as @adriennemso. Julian is @JulianChokkattu. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 hangouts that are designed and built by its users. Curiously, those users are often children; Roblox has 65 million daily active users, and around half of them are under 17.

But as Roblox grows, its users are growing up, and the company is making moves to appeal to the changing interests of its aging audience. This week, the company announced it’s bringing animated video chat to its virtual world. The new feature aims to combine the interactions of apps like Zoom and FaceTime with the creative energy of a video game environment. The addition of video chat could also convince older users to buy a premium Roblox subscription or invest in Robux, the platform’s digital currency.

This week on Gadget Lab, we dive into the virtual world of Roblox and how the company's offerings are expanding to attract older users, evolve its culture, and create its own version of the metaverse.

Show Notes:

Read Lauren’s story about Roblox introducing animated video chats to its platform. WIRED’s Will Knight has more about how Roblox is using generative AI. Follow all of WIRED’s coverage of Roblox and other video games.

Recommendations:

Lauren recommends getting rid of all your extra cables and watching the show Jury Duty on Amazon Prime. Mike recommends Andrew Hickey’s podcast A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs, and ordering bitters and soda at a bar when you don’t want an alcoholic drink.

Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 smartphones—so bored in fact that we’re buying far fewer of them than we used to.

This week, we talk about what the future looks like for smartphones. They’ll likely get more foldable, their voice features could grow chattier, and they might even come with a chip to recognize AI-generated nonsense and block it like spam. WIRED senior editor and noted techno-grouser Jason Kehe joins our conversation about the future of the phone and the future of our souls.

Note: This episode originally aired March 16, 2023. Read the full transcript.

Show Notes

Read Lauren’s interviews with five prominent technologists as they predict the phone’s future. The story is part of our WIRED 30 package celebrating our 30th anniversary as a publication.

Recommendations

Jason recommends Anaximander and the Birth of Science by Carlo Rovelli. Lauren recommends swimming and not podcasting. Mike recommends Why Buddhism Is True by Robert Wright.

Jason Kehe can be found on Twitter @jkehe. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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, such behavior was landing students in more serious trouble. Since a recent state law prohibited school administrators in Illinois from fining students for infractions, those same administrators turned to the police to handle disciplinary actions. A recent investigation by ProPublica found that local police in Illinois were issuing ticketed citations to thousands of middle school and high school students each year. Kids caught fighting, vaping, skipping class, or even “causing a disturbance”—a sketchily defined catch-all—were facing tickets with fines of up to $500, putting financial strain on the their families, causing them to miss school to attend hearings, and adding to the normal stresses of school life. One case, involving a student who was accused of stealing a pair of AirPods, recently went to a jury trial as the student tried to clear her name.

This week on Gadget Lab, ProPublica reporters Jodi S. Cohen and Jennifer Smith Richards join the show to talk about their in-depth reporting of the case of the missing AirPods and how police overreach has affected students in Illinois.

Show Notes:

Read Jodi and Jennifer’s ProPublica story about the missing AirPods and follow all of their reporting about how police cite students in Illinois.

Recommendations:

Jennifer recommends putting up a hammock in your backyard. Jodi recommends the Scrub Daddy sponge. Mike recommends the Longreads Top 5 newsletter. Lauren recommends donating to ProPublica.

Jodi S. Cohen can be found on Twitter @jodiscohen. Jennifer Smith Richards is @jsmithrichards Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 seen before. We’ve suffered through extreme weather events caused by those heat waves. We’ve seen wildfires that have been made more intense by climate change. We’ve had failures in infrastructure, industry, and the food supply. And of course, these problems are only getting worse. We’re looking at a future where extreme heat is just the new normal.

This week, we bring WIRED senior science writer Matt Simon onto the show to talk about where all the heat is coming from and what it’s doing to the environment. We also talk about how quickly the problem of excessive heat is accelerating, and what—if anything—humans can do to slow it down, or at least lessen the damage it causes.

Show Notes:

Read Matt’s stories about heat waves, the wildfires in Lahaina, Maui, and how the heat is affecting the ocean’s food chains. You can find all of Matt’s WIRED stories in one place. Also, listen to Matt’s appearances on two previous episodes referenced in this week’s talk, when we spoke about microplastics and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. 

Recommendations:

Matt recommends the 24 Hours book series that looks at different ancient societies. Lauren recommends the short film “How to Catch a TikTok Thief” from The New Yorker. Mike recommends Connections, the new daily game from The New York Times.

Matt Simon can be found on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, @mrMattSimon. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 vehicles in US cities like San Francisco, Phoenix, and Austin. Their cars have run endless loops around town to train their algorithms, zipping along city streets—and occasionally blocking them. While the tech has clearly gotten better and Waymo and Cruise now have permission to operate fully autonomously in California, the computer-powered taxis have also driven up some controversy with local governments, safety officials, city residents, and drivers.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED transportation writer Aarian Marshall joins us to talk about how a vote this week in California will affect robotaxi adoption in cities across the country, and what happens when our roadways are inundated with robots.

Show Notes:

Read Aarian’s story about how ride-hailing service drivers are responding to self-driving taxis. Read all of WIRED’s coverage of autonomous vehicles.

Recommendations:

Aarian recommends calling company customer support and trying to talk to a human sometimes. Mike recommends listening to comedy albums on streaming services. Lauren recommends her other podcast Have a Nice Future, particularly the episode with the artist Grimes.

Aarian Marshall can be found on Twitter @AarianMarshall. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 edit things collaboratively with our friends and coworkers. It’s convenient and appealing—but only if you don’t mind that all your personal data is stored on servers run by giant companies like Google and Amazon. The local-first computing movement is advocating for a different kind of communal framework, one that’s more private, more secure, and powered by peer-to-peer software that runs just on the machines where the files are being shared. No giant server farms in faraway lands, no faceless corporations using your data to generate ad revenue. Just the good old internet, by the people and for the people.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED staff writer Greg Barber joins us to talk all about the local-first computing movement and how its adherents hope to upend our reliance on cloud services using peer-to-peer communication.

Show Notes:

Read Greg’s story about local-first computing.

Recommendations:

Greg recommends the Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors installation at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Lauren recommends the Barbie movie if you somehow haven’t seen it already. Mike recommends the latest episode of The War on Cars podcast with Bob Sorokanich.

Greg Barber can be found on Twitter @gregoryjbarber. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 human writers and creators. This month, when the actor’s union SAG-AFTRA announced its own strike, things really started to heat up as some of the biggest and most recognizable movie stars joined the picket lines. Production in Hollywood has now mostly ground to a halt, negotiations with studios have stalled, and this stalemate looks as though it will persist for some time.

What do these strikes mean for the movies, shows, podcasts, and video games we consume? Will the celebrity podcasts and chat shows also go dark? Are our streaming options now going to be limited to reruns and reality shows? Senior writer Kate Knibbs joins us from WIRED’s Culture desk to discuss the shifts that technology, economics, and income disparity have wrought in Hollywood.

Show Notes:

Read our coverage of the WGA strike, the actors’ strike. Learn how AI is being used in Hollywood and in video games. We also have a report from a Hollywood-less Comic-Con. Read WIRED’s entire series on the future of entertainment.

Recommendations:

Kate recommends two music artists, Nation of Language and Yaya Bey. Lauren recommends the episode of WTF with Marc Maron featuring Cillian Murphy. Mike recommends the film How to Blow Up a Pipeline.

Kate Knibbs can be found on Twitter @Knibbs. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 Musk still runs Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, Boring Company, and Twitter. Twitter in particular is causing him headaches, with both its sagging business and increased competition from rivals like Meta’s Threads. All of these developments are happening in the shadow of what feels like a lazy subplot on a bad sitcom—a proposed mixed martial arts cage match between Musk and his rival, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

This week, we talk with WIRED editor at large Steven Levy about the launch of xAI and its stated goal of “understanding the true nature of the universe.” We also discuss the places generative artificial intelligence has yet to venture, and the ways in which xAI could make an impact in the field of deep learning. And of course, we talk about that cage match. Yech.

Show Notes:

Read Steven’s Plaintext newsletter, in which he urges Mark Zuckerberg not to take the bait. Will Knight outlines xAI’s biggest challenges. Amanda Hoover writes about Threads’ threat to Twitter’s domain. Paresh Dave gives an update on AI regulation in Europe and the US. Read all of our generative AI coverage.

Recommendations:

Steven recommends Oppenheimer. So does Lauren. (We discuss it without spoiling it.) Mike recommends pretzel buns, because it’s not summer without them.

Steven Levy can be found on Twitter @StevenLevy. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 showing for parent company Meta that has Mark Zuckerberg and other execs celebrating. Meanwhile, current Twitter owner Elon Musk is fuming as Threads threatens to unravel his platform’s microblogging dominance. But despite its initial success, it's not yet clear whether Threads will emerge as the top social space. These early days of Threads may feel slightly less toxic than Twitter, but it's already being overtaken by cringey influencers and pseudo-sassy brand accounts. It's also just one more thing to sign up for, and could stretch just how much tolerance people have for all these new microblogging platforms.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior Kate Knibbs joins us to unspool the question of whether Meta's new social service is too much, too little, or just right.

Show Notes:

Read Kate’s story about how it’s time to stop making Twitter competitors. Read all about how Threads may be the thing that kills Twitter, and how to run Threads on your desktop. Or, you know, don’t sign up for Threads at all until it becomes clear how much of your data it is harvesting.

Recommendations:

Kate recommends the book Natural Causes by Dan Hurley. Mike recommends Life Examined from KCRW. Lauren recommends season two of The Bear on Hulu.

Kate Knibbs can be found on Twitter @Knibbs. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

We're off this week, so instead of our usual show, we're sharing an episode of WIRED's other podcast, Have a Nice Future. It's hosted by Gadget Lab cohost Lauren Goode and WIRED editor in chief Gideon Litchfield. The show features interviews with guests who have big, audacious ideas about the future. Lauren and Gideon dig into whether this is a future we want to live in, and what we can do about it now.

On this episode, Gideon and Lauren are joined by someone whose full-time job was to predict the future. Noah Raford spent nearly 15 years working as the UAE’s chief futurist, where he advised the government on how to prepare for all sorts of futuristic challenges, from pandemics to global warming. His advice? Get comfortable with discomfort.

This episode originally aired April 26, 2023. Listen to every episode of Have a Nice Future wherever you get your podcasts.

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 rash? This is a problem that’s increasingly common as more and more chemicals are being added to our clothing when they’re dyed different colors or treated with additives that make them stain-, wrinkle-, or odor-resistant. Some of these chemicals are irritants that can cause breathing problems or skin issues. Some others are toxic enough to trigger life-altering autoimmune diseases. Since the fashion industry operates within loose regulations, the problem of toxic apparel isn’t going away anytime soon.

This week on Gadget Lab, we're joined by journalist and author Alden Wicker. Her new book is called To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion is Making Us Sick—And How We Can Fight Back. We discuss the wide range of chemicals, dyes, and treatments that get put into our clothes, and we offer tips on how to avoid the worst offenders while shopping for a new wardrobe.

Show Notes:

Alden’s book is To Dye For. It’s out this week from G.P. Putnam’s Sons; buy it wherever books are sold. Also read Alden’s reporting on the fashion industry for WIRED.

Recommendations:

Alden recommends Vermont. Lauren recommends tzatziki sauce. Mike recommends The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin.

Alden Wicker can be found on Twitter @AldenWicker. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Nearly every one of us in the US and Canada has bought something from either Walmart or Amazon. Not only are these two retailers ubiquitous, but they have forever altered the way we buy things through their experiments with things like free shipping, competitive pricing, speedy delivery, membership services, and innovative brick-and-mortar experiences.

Amazon and Walmart are obviously different in many ways, but the two companies are also surprisingly similar. This becomes particularly evident when you chart the history of their rivalry, as they race to compete for online shopping gains, or when they battle it out to acquire the same companies. Journalist and author Jason Del Ray writes about the dueling giants in his new book, Winner Sells All: Amazon, Walmart, and the Battle for Our Wallets, which traces the moves both companies have made in their decades-long slugfest.

This week, we talk to Jason Del Rey about Amazon and Walmart’s technological advances, their strategic acquisitions, and how the pandemic forced them both to change course.

Show Notes:

Jason’s book, Winner Sells All, is out now from HarperCollins. Read all of our Amazon and Walmart coverage.

Recommendations:

Jason recommends season two of The Bear on Hulu. Mike recommends “Life After Roe,” WIRED’s series of stories about the current state of abortion rights. Lauren recommends buying gifts for people year-round, storing them in your home, then delivering them at the one time of year when you see them. 

Jason Del Rey can be found on Twitter @DelRey. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 windows" by hurling a metal ball at them. It promptly shattered the glass. Twice. It was an inelegant debut, but Tesla still seemed eager to develop the EV.

Turns out, the Cybertruck had a few other design flaws as well. Leaked Tesla documents from January of 2022 have revealed an array of problems with the handling, braking, suspension, and chassis of the Cybertruck’s prototype. Most of the Cybertruck’s physical problems appear fixable, but auto industry experts are shocked that Tesla was still encountering so many issues at such a late point in the vehicle’s development.

This week on Gadget Lab, we're joined by WIRED staff writer Aarian Marshall and WIRED's innovations editor Jeremy White for a conversation about where the Cybertruck’s development went wrong and how the EV’s difficult birth affects Tesla’s larger EV vision.

Show Notes:

Read Jeremy and Aarian’s story about the leaked Tesla documents that revealed the Cybertruck’s design flaws. Check out all WIRED’s coverage of Tesla and electric vehicles.

Recommendations:

Aarian recommends Shokz Open Run headphones for running. Jeremy recommends that you get some proper tea, either loose leaf or PG Tips in paper bags. (And please only add the milk after you’ve poured in the hot water.) Mike recommends the podcast This Little Light, hosted by Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Lauren recommends Jennifer Egan’s book The Candy House and the documentary series Smartless On the Road on Max.

Aarian Marshall can be found on Twitter @AarianMarshall. Jeremy White is @jeremywired. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 Cupertino, California. The new headset lets the viewer enjoy a fully immersive experience, or dial in a little bit of their visual surroundings to mix the real world and virtual elements together. It’s an impressive feat of engineering. When it goes on sale next year for $3,500, Apple hopes it will serve as its next big platform for app developers—and the usefulness of the apps that wind up on the Vision Pro are what its success or failure really hinges on.

Our own Lauren Goode got to try the headset, and she tells us all about it. We also welcome WIRED product writer and reviewer Brenda Stolyar onto the show to go over all of the other updates Apple announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference, including new Macs, and new software features coming to iPhones, Macs, Apple Watches, and iPads.

Show Notes:

Read Lauren’s hands-on (face-on?) report of the Apple Vision Pro. Read Brenda’s roundup of the new features coming to macOS. Boone Ashworth asks if people really want to wear VR headsets. We also have a roundup of all the big WWDC announcements. Khari Johnson looks at why Apple didn’t talk about GenAI this week, even though it’s currently the hottest discussion topic in Silicon Valley.

Recommendations:

Brenda recommends watching all of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon Prime Video.

Lauren recommends the outdoor consumer tech website, DC Rainmaker. Mike recommends the book The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross.

Brenda can be found on Twitter @bstoly. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode and @laurengoode.bsky.social. Michael Calore is @snackfight and @snackfight.bsky.social. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab on Twitter. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth, @boone.bsky.social). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 has felt closer to reality these past few months than it ever has before. The generative AI craze has stirred up excitement and apprehension in equal measure, leaving many people uneasy about where the future of this obviously powerful yet still nascent tech is going. This week, for example, the nonprofit group Center for AI Safety released a short statement warning that society should be taking AI as seriously as an existential threat as we do nuclear war and pandemics.

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with WIRED senior writer Will Knight about how dangerous AI really is, and what guardrails we can put up to prevent the robot apocalypse.

Show Notes:

Read Will’s story about the experts worried that AI is posing an existential threat to humanity. Read all WIRED’s coverage about AI.

Recommendations:

Will recommends the novel Antimatter Blues by Edward Ashton. Mike recommends storing your food with Bee’s Wrap. Lauren recommends HBO’s Succession Podcast, hosted by Kara Swisher.

Will Knight can be found on Twitter @willknight. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 do you avoid getting hit by the great big gas guzzlers that take up most of the road? These are valid questions, and we've got answers. May is national bike month here in the US, and Gadget Lab is ready to get you rolling.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior associate reviews editor Adrienne So joins us as we cycle through all things bikes: How to start riding more, what to look for in an ebike, and what's the best frame color for your grocery-getter.

Show Notes: 

Read more about Adrienne’s guide to the best ebikes. Here’s our roundup of our favorite bike accessories.

Recommendations: 

Adrienne recommends the book A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit. Mike recommends the Lil Guy hip bag from Road Runner Bags. Lauren recommends Adrienne So’s WIRED story “A Letter to My Fellow Asian Mothers From the Multiverse.”

Adrienne So can be found on Twitter @adriennemso. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

This show originally aired May 19, 2022. Here's a full transcript.

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 usual. So we’re dedicating this week’s Gadget Lab episode to fitness. Our guest is the author Casey Johnston, who writes about weightlifting, nutrition, and fitness trends in her newsletter, She’s a Beast, and her book, Liftoff: Couch to Barbell.

We talk to Casey about her own fitness journey, and how to navigate all the high-tech and low-tech solutions for achieving better health, from fitness trackers and online videos to finding a workout regimen that meets your goals.

Show Notes:

Subscribe to Casey’s newsletter. Check out her ebook about weightlifting. 

Recommendations:

Casey recommends the game Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Mike recommends saving your pickle brine and using it in other recipes instead of just dumping it out. Lauren recommends the podcast Wiser Than Me, hosted by Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Casey Johnston can be found on Twitter @caseyjohnston. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 and Microsoft Bing, because Google has big plans. At its I/O developer conference this week, in addition to announcing some new hardware (including a folding phone), Google turned on the firehose of AI. During a two-hour presentation, the company showed how it’s busily building generative technologies into nearly everything it does. Chatbots, text generators, and content creation tools will soon be embedded in Google’s devices, search pages, Android apps, and Google's Workspace suite of productivity apps like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets.

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk about the big news from Google’s I/O event and why the company is so dead set on sticking AI in absolutely everything.

Show Notes:

Read all of WIRED’s coverage from Google I/O, including everything the company announced, how Google is adding AI to search and Android, and the details of the new Pixel Fold (and why Google might not really care if you buy it.)

Recommendations:

Julian recommends going on vacation and also the new Legend of Zelda game. Lauren recommends Janet Malcom’s book Still Pictures. Mike recommends the JBL Reflect Aero earbuds.

Julian Chokkattu can be found on Twitter @JulianChokkattu. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 Twitter-like social platforms to emerge as safe havens for the hordes—Mastodon, T2, Post, Notes—the one with the most buzz is Bluesky. It’s popular because ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is one of the people behind it, but also because it’s still in beta and sign-ups are invitation-only. Scarcity breeds demand. The cool people and internet insiders are already on Bluesky, and they are reporting that the new social network looks an awful lot like Twitter. Also, it’s actually … fun.

This week, we look at Bluesky’s rise and discuss its growing pains. We also ask if any of these fledgeling social networks can ever hope to captivate us the way Twitter has.

Show Notes:

Here’s Kate on why Bluesky is fun. The platform also has a nudes problem. Vittoria Elliott catalogs the current surge in hate speech and propaganda on Twitter. Relatedly, read about how Reddit has dealt with moderation of hate speech and misinformation.

Recommendations:

Kate recommends Middlemarch, the novel by George Eliot. Lauren recommends Baby J, John Mulaney’s latest Netflix special. Mike recommends the album Under the Pink by Tori Amos.

Kate Knibbs can be found on Twitter @Knibbs and does not have any Bluesky invites. Neither does Lauren Goode, who is @LaurenGoode on Twitter. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 purport to make the wearer more appealing to romantic prospects and the rest of society by making them more attractive and less smelly. For much of the modern era, these products have been aimed at women, reinforcing dominant beauty standards and making bucket loads of money as sales have soared. Recently, that strategy has grown to reach a previously untapped market: men and people with penises. A slew of companies now offer all sorts of sprays, balms, and supplements for men’s nether regions. While convincing men to invest in full body hygiene, they are also changing modern ideas about masculinity.

This week on Gadget Lab, we invite WIRED’s head of research Zak Jason to describe his descent into the weird world of testicle sprays, bag balms, and men’s wellness products.

Show Notes:

Read Zak’s story about his balls-out exploration of the nascent men’s beauty products industry. Read Ashley Lauretta’s investigation into why we stay up late even though we know it’s bad for us. Find our conversation about voicemails and audio messages in episode 590.

Recommendations:

Zak recommends leaving your friends voicemails in the middle of the day. Mike recommends the podcast Bad Dates with Jameela Jamil. Lauren recommends going to bed earlier.

Zak Jason can be found on Twitter @zakjason. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 legal and illicit goods on the web with total anonymity, the fact is that nearly all cryptocurrency transactions leave a digital trail behind them that can point to your true identity. No matter how hard you try to hide, a dedicated sleuth with the right resources can find you.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior cybersecurity writer and author of the book Tracers in the Dark digs into all the ways investigators, government agents, and hackers can track down criminals online by “following the money” exchanged in cryptocurrency transactions.

Show Notes:

Andy’s book is Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency. You can read two excerpts from the book on WIRED.com: the six-part AlphaBay saga and the feature about the takedown of a website for sharing child sex abuse materials.

Recommendations:

Andy recommends the deliberately frustrating game Getting Over It. Lauren recommends Andy’s WIRED story about the animal activists whose spy cams revealed the grim realities of pork slaughterhouses. Mike recommends the book Art Is Life by the art critic Jerry Saltz.

Andy can be found on Twitter @a_greenberg. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

This show originally aired on February 9, 2023. Here's the full transcript.

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 seeping into our ears through our podcast clients.

A new class of emerging AI-powered services can take audio clips from voice recordings and build models off them. Anything you type into a computer can be spit out as an impression of that person’s voice. Proponents of AI voice cloning see these tools as a way to make life a little easier for content creators. The robo-voices can be used to fix mistakes, read ads, or perform other mundane duties. Critics warn that the same tools can be weaponized to steal identities, scam people, and make it sound like someone has said horrible things they never did.

This week, we ask our producer Boone Ashworth, who is also a staff writer for WIRED, to sit down in front of the microphone and bring his AI voice clone experiments with him.

Show Notes:

Read Boone’s story about AI voice clones. Read all of our recent coverage of artificial intelligence.

Recommendations:

Boone recommends the Arte Concert Passengers playlist on YouTube. Mike recommends The New York Times Presents: The Legacy of J Dilla, a documentary on FX and Hulu. Lauren recommends starting Succession—From the beginning! Very important!—if you haven’t. It’s on HBO.

Boone Ashworth can be found on Twitter @BooneAshworth. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth. Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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’s becoming more common to pay a base price for a car and then subscribe to those extras. Big stuff like driver assistance features or fast-charging capability and even smaller stuff like heated seats and dash cams can be unlocked in a new car by paying the automaker a yearly or monthly fee. This trend has been quickly adopted by the auto industry for new cars, and it’s now making its way into used cars too. 

This week, we welcome WIRED staff writer Aarian Marshall back to the show. We talk about the overall trend of pay-to-unlock features in cars, and how automakers are adapting it for the second-hand vehicle market.

Show Notes:

Read Aarian’s story about subscription-based services in used cars. Also read her other auto industry stories, including reports about how cars can monitor your behavior behind the wheel, and how online sales have changed the process of buying a car. Read all of WIRED’s automotive coverage.

Recommendations:

Aarian recommends recipes from Bon Appétit, especially if you’re hosting Passover seder. Lauren recommends the documentary about photographer Nan Goldin, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. Mike recommends the new WIRED podcast, Have a Nice Future, which Lauren cohosts.

Aarian Marshall can be found on Twitter @AarianMarshall. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 little bit of their internet bandwidth with other Amazon devices that need it. This network, made up almost entirely of consumer gadgets installed in people’s homes, is called Amazon Sidewalk. The company has been bolstering Sidewalk for years, adding device after device to this sleeper army of bandwidth-sharing speakers and cameras. Sidewalk has gotten big enough to reach 90 percent of the US population, and it’s poised to grow even bigger now that the company has opened up Sidewalk to developers. As more companies build more products that can join the Sidewalk network, the full scale of Amazon's plan will come into focus.

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk about Amazon Sidewalk and how the company quietly built up a network that reaches nearly everyone in the US.

Show Notes:

Read Mike’s story about the Amazon Sidewalk developer kit. Also read Amazon’s privacy and security white paper for Sidewalk. Oh and here’s how to turn off Amazon Sidewalk.

Recommendations:

Mike recommends the social site Mastodon. Lauren recommends making almond milk with a nut bag, and not adding too much salt.

Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 semiconductor industry is massive, and at the center of it all is one massive firm that makes the bulk of the chips we all rely on: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. The company, known widely as just TSMC, is not only the most important enterprise in the chip industry, but it’s also a powerful and stabilizing force in the geopolitical standoff between Taiwan and China that, if ignited, would affect the whole world. TSMC’s untouchable status has earned it an amusing nickname: The Sacred Mountain of Protection.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED contributor Virginia Heffernan talks about her trip to the TSMC facility in Taiwan. She tells us how chips are made and explains how the semiconductor industry—TSMC in particular—drives innovation while remaining largely invisible.

Show Notes:

Read Virginia’s story about her trip to the TSMC factory in Taiwan.

Recommendations:

Virginia recommends the show Seven Seconds on Netflix. Mike recommends the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s podcast How to Fix the Internet, specifically the episode “So You Think You’re a Critical Thinker.” Lauren recommends the Apple TV show Bad Sisters.

Virginia Heffernan can be found on Twitter @page88. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 smartphones—so bored in fact that we’re buying far fewer of them than we used to.

This week, we talk about what the future looks like for smartphones. They’ll likely get more foldable, their voice features could grow chattier, and they might even come with a chip to recognize AI-generated nonsense and block it like spam. WIRED senior editor and noted techno-grouser Jason Kehe joins our conversation about the future of the phone and the future of our souls.

Show Notes:

Read Lauren’s interviews with five prominent technologists as they predict the phone’s future. The story is part of our WIRED 30 package celebrating our 30th anniversary as a publication.

Recommendations:

Jason recommends Anaximander and the Birth of Science by Carlo Rovelli. Lauren recommends swimming and not podcasting. Mike recommends Why Buddhism Is True by Robert Wright.

Jason Kehe can be found on Twitter @jkehe. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 tempting to turn those hours of work into a task that can be breezed through in a matter of seconds by an AI-powered app. Generative tools like ChatGPT have wormed their way into the school system, causing panic among teachers and administrators. While some schools have banned the tech outright, others are embracing it as a tool to teach students how to tell the difference between reality and science fiction.

This week, we're bringing you a special show about the perils and opportunities of AI in the classroom. This episode is a collaboration between WIRED and the NPR show 1A. It's the second episode in a series called “Know-It-All,” which focuses on all the ways AI is affecting our world.

Show Notes

Listen to every episode of Know It All: 1A and WIRED’s Guide to AI. Read more from WIRED about how chatbots are coming for the classroom.

Pia Ceres can be found on Twitter @lapiaenrose. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 use that data to suggest the next piece of content for you to absorb. Their goal is to keep users on a platform by presenting them with things they'll spend more time engaging with. Trouble is, those link chains can lead to some weird places, occasionally taking users down dark internet rabbit holes or showing harmful content. Lawmakers and researchers have criticized recommendation systems before, but these methods are under renewed scrutiny now that Google and Twitter are going before the US Supreme Court to defend their algorithmic practices.

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with Jonathan Stray, a senior scientist at the Berkeley Center for Human-Compatible AI who studies recommendation systems online. We discuss how recommendation algorithms work, how they’re studied, and how they can be both abused and restrained.

Show Notes:

Read all about Section 230. Read Jonathan Stray and Gillian Hadfield’s story on WIRED about their engagement research. Read more about the two cases before the US Supreme Court.

Recommendations:

Jonathan recommends the book The Way Out by Peter Coleman. Mike recommends the novel Denial by Jon Raymond. Lauren recommends Matt Reynolds’ WIRED story about how you’ve been thinking about food all wrong, and also getting a bag to make nut milk.

Jonathan Stray can be found on Twitter @jonathanstray. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

If you have feedback about the show, take our brief listener survey. Doing so will earn you a chance to win a $1,000 prize.

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-guy stuff and reel in the freebies. Companies across the stream-o-sphere are tweaking subscription tiers, raising prices, and canceling unprofitable shows. Netflix has introduced an ad-supported tier to its formerly ad-free service, and even started cracking down on people sharing account credentials. And corporate shake ups at HBO Max have resulted in gobs of stuff being removed from that platform entirely.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior editor Angela Watercutter joins us to talk about why the streaming ecosystem has grown so complicated and hostile toward its customers.

Show Notes

Read WIRED’s series about why we hate streaming. Listen to WIRED and 1A’s series about AI, Know It All.

Recommendations

Angela recommends the cinematic masterpiece Cocaine Bear. Lauren recommends Marc Maron’s stand-up special From Bleak to Dark on HBO. Mike recommends the film EO, which is about a donkey.

Angela Watercutter can be found on Twitter @WaterSlicer. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 stuff up online. It's even got Google scrambling to reclaim its spot on the search throne after Microsoft implemented its own AI tools to miraculously make Bing feel relevant again.

This week, we talk with WIRED senior writer Will Knight about how generative AI is changing how we search for information and create content online, and whether we should actually be freaking out about our new robot overlords.

Show Notes

Read more from Will about the very weird and occasionally horrifying world of generative AI. Follow all of WIRED’s ChatGPT and AI coverage.

Recommendations

Will recommends The Amazing Acro-Cats, which is a cat circus that is about to go on tour. Lauren recommends the CBC documentary Big Dating. Mike recommends the World Bollard Association Twitter account.

Will Knight can be found on Twitter @willknight. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 legal and illicit goods on the web with total anonymity, the fact is that nearly all cryptocurrency transactions leave a digital trail behind them that can point to your true identity. No matter how hard you try to hide, a dedicated sleuth with the right resources can find you.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior cybersecurity writer and author of the book Tracers in the Dark digs into all the ways investigators, government agents, and hackers can track down criminals online by “following the money” exchanged in cryptocurrency transactions.

Show Notes

Andy’s book is Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency. You can read two excerpts from the book on WIRED.com: the six-part AlphaBay saga and the feature about the takedown of a website for sharing child sex abuse materials.

Recommendations

Andy recommends the deliberately frustrating game Getting Over It. Lauren recommends Andy’s WIRED story about the animal activists whose spy cams revealed the grim realities of pork slaughterhouses. Mike recommends the book Art Is Life by the art critic Jerry Saltz.

Andy can be found on Twitter @a_greenberg. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Phones have been pretty boring for a long time. Don’t get us wrong—phones are still amazing little devices! It just feels like we haven’t seen any truly innovative phone designs or new standout features in a long while. This year’s phone looks and works a lot like last year’s phone. Your phone looks and works a lot like my phone. Have phones actually plateaued, leveled off, or chilled out? Is their transition from fetish object to commodity complete?

The perfectly fine boringness of phones gets thrown into focus every time a new handset is launched into the world. This week, we saw the debut of the newest Samsung Galaxy devices. WIRED staff writer (and our podcast's producer) Boone Ashworth joins us to talk about those new phones, and phones in general, and how breathtaking and bland they all are, all at once.

Show Notes

Read our roundup of everything Samsung announced at Galaxy Unpacked 2023, including three new Galaxy phones and five new laptops. If you want to preorder a Galaxy device, we have some buying advice for you. Last year’s model is also just great. Read Lauren’s story about safely buying a used phone.

Recommendations

Boone recommends Barbarian, which you can watch on HBO Max or rent elsewhere. Mike recommends Sichuan Gold hot sauce from Fly By Jing. Lauren recommends the HBO documentary Navalny.

Boone Ashworth can be found on Twitter @BooneAshworth. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

TikTok’s influence is expanding well beyond the social sphere. The app is increasingly being used for the types of internet searches one would normally rely on a web search engine for. The video-based social app might not seem like the best place to find answers to your burning questions, but many users have made it their tool of choice for finding bars and restaurants to visit, movies to watch, or clothes to wear. It's a trend that has companies like Google more than a little concerned. The popularity of the app has also raised the hackles of US lawmakers, who have cited security concerns about the app and have even introduced legislation calling for a wholesale national TikTok ban.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED's Lily Hay Newman joins us to discuss why all the kids are using TikTok for search and dig into whether the app's ownership by a Chinese firm really makes it a national security threat.

Show Notes

Read Lauren’s story about her week of using TikTok for search. Here’s Lily on TikTok’s security threats. Follow all of WIRED’s coverage of TikTok.

Recommendations

Lily recommends the essay collection "You Are Not Expected to Understand This": How 26 Lines of Code Changed the World, edited by Torie Bosch. Lauren recommends the book I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. Mike recommends the classic seasons of the show Doctor Who, which you can find on BritBox.

Lily Newman can be found on Twitter @lilyhnewman. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Gas stoves are so hot right now. A recent report found that emissions from gas cooktops are worsening both the environmental crisis and the health of the humans who use them. This knowledge has stoked a heated cultural debate in the US. Some people have piped up to advocate for phasing out gas stoves, while others have fired back that the government can pry gas stoves out of their cold (presumably because they stopped paying the gas bill) dead hands. While the controversy has blown up, the reality is that gas is a problematic energy source with many worrisome issues. Reducing our dependence on the appliances and the fossil-based fuels they consume will be no easy task.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED staff writer Amanda Hoover joins us to re-spark the gas stove debate, and talk about what we can actually do to fix the problems these old-school appliances are causing.

Show Notes

Read Amanda’s story about the gas stove culture wars.

Recommendations

Amanda recommends the Normal Gossip podcast. Lauren recommends getting a short term gym membership. Mike recommends the audiobook of Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums as read by Ethan Hawke.

Amanda Hoover can be found on Twitter @amandahoovernj. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

The tractor company John Deere has faced a lot of criticism for the tight hold it keeps over its products. If someone needs to repair their tractor, they’ve got to do it through John Deere’s official channels, which farmers say creates unnecessary hassles. If a problem arises during harvest time, a days-long wait for a sanctioned repair could spell financial ruin. Now, in an effort to stave off lawsuits from right-to-repair advocates, John Deere is making some concessions about repairability. But the move has been criticized by some advocates, who say the company still has to do more to make its products truly accessible.

This week on Gadget Lab, we dig into the dirt about John Deere and what the repairability of tractors means for the rest of the gadgets out there.

Show Notes

Read Lauren’s story about John Deere. Follow all WIRED’s coverage of the right-to-repair movement.

Recommendations

Mike recommends the book Hippie Food: How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs, and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat by Jonathan Kaufmann. Lauren recommends taking the train. Choo choo!

Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

In the world of consumer tech, there’s no palette-cleanser for the new year quite like the annual CES, the giant electronics show. What better way to kick off 2023 than to find your way through the maze of metal and screens (and germs) and Alexa-equipped toothbrushes and pet-feeding robots (and germs) and hyper-futuristic electric vehicles that may never actually ship (also, probably germs)? Our WIRED editors on the ground at CES, keeping an eye out for the most important developments to emerge from the gadget extravaganza. 

So for this week’s WIRED Gadget Lab podcast, we come to you (alive but a little exhausted) from Las Vegas to talk about the big trends from CES and how they might shape our tech experiences for the rest of the year.

Show Notes

Follow WIRED’s liveblog of all the news from CES. Or just check out the coolest stuff from the event. Read all of WIRED’s coverage of CES.

Recommendations

Julian recommends not feeling like you have to see everything at CES. Adrienne recommends the Aeropress Pro and a collapsible travel kettle. Mike recommends not partying until your last night of CES and taking showers at night.

Adrienne So can be found on Twitter @adriennemso. Julian Chokkattu is @JulianChokkattu. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Lauren Goode (who will be returning to the show next week) is @LaurenGoode. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Keeping on theme with the roaring ‘20s, this year has been a doozy. Social media sites are aflame, all that hype over the metaverse has fizzled, the cryptocurrency economy has all but collapsed, and you can't always tell if a piece of art was created by a person or an eerily human bot. The future is now, and there sure is a lot of it.

On this final Gadget Lab episode of the year, we discuss 2022’s biggest stories and guess at what wild tech frontiers might be awaiting us all in 2023.

Show Notes

Check out all WIRED’s coverage of art, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, and the metaverse. Read more about Twitter and Elon Musk, if you must. Read Lauren’s story about how no one cares about her NFT. Here’s Steven Levy’s story about how big tech layoffs may fuel new industry upstarts.

Recommendations

Mike recommends finding a local foot race to run. Lauren recommends meditation, particularly guided meditations from Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, and 10% Happier podcast.

Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Plastic waste never really breaks down. It just splits into tinier and tinier pieces until it becomes trillions of microscopic bits scattered across the world. Microplastics are everywhere: In the air we breathe and the water we drink, atop the highest mountains and in the deepest parts of the ocean. Microplastics are even coursing through our bloodstreams and sitting in our digestive systems. It's a problem we have only recently begun to understand, and are still trying to figure out how to solve.

This week on Gadget Lab, Matt Simon, WIRED climate writer and author of the new book A Poison Like No Other, joins us to talk about how microplastics became such a scourge and what—if anything—we can do about it.

Show Notes

Matt’s book A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies is out now. Read an excerpt of the book on WIRED. You can also find other Matt Simon stories about microplastics and the climate by browsing his author page.

Recommendations

Matt recommends Derry Girls on Netflix. Lauren recommends a plastic or metal water bottle that you can use over and over again. She likes the 32-ounce narrow mouth Nalgene bottle. Mike recommends bringing back Follow Friday on Twitter.

Matt Simon can be found on Twitter @mrMattSimon. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

This episode originally aired on October 27, 2022. Read the transcript.

Even if you own no Bitcoin, no Ether, and no NFTs, crypto wallets—pocket-friendly hardware lockers that store digital assets—will be a part of your future. They’re essential tools for securing not only coins and digital tokens, but also the next generation of passports, drivers licenses, and concert tickets. A French company called Ledger, one of the leaders in digital wallets, is trying to take the technology mainstream with the help of Tony Fadell, one of Silicon Valley’s most celebrated hardware designers. Fadell designed the iPod and the Nest thermostat, and now he’s designed Ledger’s next product, a crypto wallet called Stax.

This week, WIRED editor at large Steven Levy joins the show to tell us about the time he spent with Fadell and the Ledger team in Paris (we know, tough gig) to witness the birth of the Stax. We cover all you need to know about crypto wallets, why they are safer places to store digital assets than exchanges, and how digital wallets will be useful beyond the world of cryptocurrencies.

Show Notes

Read Steven’s story about the development of the Ledger Stax. You can also read about Fadell’s Paris-based consultancy business. Read all of WIRED’s cryptocurrency coverage.

Recommendations

Steven recommends Paxlovid, the antiviral treatment for people suffering from Covid symptoms. Lauren recommends the second season of HBO’s White Lotus and also Zebra Sarasa Grand pens. Mike recommends dusting off your old iPod.

Steven Levy can be found on Twitter @StevenLevy. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Artificial intelligence is advancing faster than ever, with a new crop of generative AI programs that are creating art, videos, humor, fake news, and plenty of controversy. The technologies powering this latest slate of tools have been in the works for years, but the public release of these programs—particularly a new chatbot enabled by OpenAI’s GPT system—represents a big step forward for machine intelligence. Same with the image-generating app Lensa, which creates painterly selfies that have captured the public’s imagination. Now, engineers are asking chat programs for coding help, students are using AI to generate book reports instantly, and researchers are testing the tools’ ethical boundaries. It's all gotten very weird, but AI is about to get bigger and even weirder still.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED artificial intelligence reporter Will Knight joins us to talk about ChatGPT, how generative AI has grown up since the early days, and what the latest tools mean for everything from school book reports to online disinformation campaigns.

Show Notes

Read Will’s WIRED story about ChatGPT. He’s also written a bunch of recent stories about generative AI. Follow all of WIRED’s AI coverage. Read more about Lensa from Olivia Snow. Try the new chatbot for yourself.

Recommendations

Will recommends the Tractive GPS Tracker for Cats. Mike recommends Das Keyboard MacTigr keyboard, which he reviewed this week. Lauren recommends that you keep an eye on your keys using a Tile or AirTag tracker.

Will Knight can be found on Twitter @willknight. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Money is tight these days. Holiday shopping, ballooning inflation, and a looming recession have forced people to more carefully consider their finances. Those factors might help explain the explosion of Buy Now, Pay Later services. BNPL plans offered by companies like Affirm, Afterpay, and Klarna let you spread the cost of a purchase over multiple installments, without the fees or interest rates of most credit cards. Of course, free money always comes with a catch.

This week on Gadget Lab, we dig into the Buy Now, Pay Later phenomenon and what it means for the future of shopping.

Show Notes

Read Lauren’s interview with Max Levchin. Check out more of WIRED’s reporting about buy now, pay later programs. Follow our coverage of all things ecommerce.

Recommendations

Lauren recommends the third season of the show Dead to Me. Mike recommends the Select Five podcast, specifically the episode with him on it (episode 19).

Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Companies love sticking chips in everything. That's how you get a feast of connected kitchen tech: app-controlled Instant Pots, $400 touchscreen toasters, and Wi-Fi enabled fridges that let you check Twitter while you wait for some crushed ice. It's all very high tech and modern, but does any of it actually help you cook—or live—any better?

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED contributor and food writer Joe Ray joins us to talk about how to navigate the smart kitchen and whether any of these connected gadgets will really improve your cuisine or bring you happiness.

This episode originally ran on September 29, 2022. Read the transcript.

Show Notes

Read Joe Ray’s many reviews of smart kitchen tech.

Recommendations

Joe recommends the cookbook I Dream of Dinner (so You Don't Have To) by Ali Slagle. Lauren recommends pasta e ceci. Mike recommends the Oxo Brew Precision Scale With Timer.

Joe Ray can be found on Twitter @joe_diner. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Twitter doesn't work like it used to. Under new ownership, the site is operating with half its usual staff and an entirely new set of executive pressures. As a result, Twitter has become a more unstable platform. As features break, security measures lapse, and personnel struggle to keep up, Twitter is likely to also become more vulnerable to cybersecurity threats.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED security writer Lily Hay Newman joins the show to talk about what could happen if Twitter gets breached by hackers.

Show Notes

Read Lily’s story about the problems with Twitter’s SMS two-factor authentication. Read all of WIRED’s recent Twitter coverage.

Recommendations

Lily recommends Wicked protein bars, specifically the maple flavor. Lauren recommends Andy Greenberg’s book Tracers in the Dark. (WIRED has published a few excerpts.) Mike recommends the show The Sandman on Netflix.

Lily Newman can be found on Twitter @lilyhnewman. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Amid all the Twitter hubbub, the lesser known social site Mastodon has seen a surge of new users. Mastodon is a loosely connected network of individually run servers, which all play by their own rules and answer to their own moderators. It's a very different environment than Twitter. But even though Mastodon aims to be a new form of social media, it could still be prone to the same kinds of troubles that have plagued the platforms that existed before it.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior editor of security Andrew Couts joins us to talk about the ins and outs of Mastodon, and whether something like the decentralized network can ever truly replace Twitter.

Show Notes

Read more about how Mastodon is handling the influx of users. And here's how to find your friends on Mastodon.

Recommendations

Andrew recommends Fi smart dog collars. Mike recommends So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley by Roger Steffens. Lauren recommends the new season of the HBO show White Lotus.

Andrew Couts can be found on Twitter @AndrewCouts He's on Mastodon @[email protected]. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Her Mastodon handle is @[email protected]. Michael Calore is @snackfight. He is not on Mastodon yet. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

If you've been on Twitter in the past week, you may have noticed that the platform has been emanating some slightly different vibes. Mostly because everybody on there is talking about how Elon Musk just bought the place. There's no doubt Twitter—as a company and as a community—is in flux. So far Musk has already fired top executives, flirted with adding additional paid tiers of service, tasked employees with finding ways to make the company more money, and spread his own share of misinformation.

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with WIRED platforms and power reporter Vittoria Elliot about the changes coming to Twitter and how they may affect the future of the social network.

Show Notes

Vittoria covered the news of the takeover deal closing. Users are flocking to other platforms because of Elon’s ownership of Twitter. Read more about the potential privacy risks that could arise from Elon cleaning house. Read Twitter users’ reactions to the power shift. Read all of our stories tagged with “Elon Musk.”

Recommendations

Vittoriai recommends encouraging your male-presenting friends interested in fathering children to watch House of the Dragon on HBO. Mike recommends the new album from Natalia Lafourcade, De Todas las Flores. Lauren recommends reevaluating your relationship with Twitter, and social media in general.

Vittoria Elliott can be found on Twitter @telliotter. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Plastic waste never really breaks down. It just splits into tinier and tinier pieces until it becomes trillions of microscopic bits scattered across the world. Microplastics are everywhere: In the air we breathe and the water we drink, atop the highest mountains and in the deepest parts of the ocean. Microplastics are even coursing through our bloodstreams and sitting in our digestive systems. It's a problem we have only recently begun to understand, and are still trying to figure out how to solve.

This week on Gadget Lab, Matt Simon, WIRED climate writer and author of the new book A Poison Like No Other, joins us to talk about how microplastics became such a scourge and what—if anything—we can do about it.

Show Notes

Matt’s book A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies is out now. Read an excerpt of the book on WIRED. You can also find other Matt Simon stories about microplastics and the climate by browsing his author page.

Recommendations

Matt recommends Derry Girls on Netflix. Lauren recommends a plastic or metal water bottle that you can use over and over again. She likes the 32-ounce narrow mouth Nalgene bottle. Mike recommends bringing back Follow Friday on Twitter.

Matt Simon can be found on Twitter @mrMattSimon. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Modern cars are giant computers. They're packed full of chips and bits, all working toward the goal of making your ride smoother, safer, and more comfortable. But when it comes time to take these technical marvels in for repairs, all the code under the hood becomes more of a nuisance than anything. Auto shops have struggled to keep up with the needs of these high-tech vehicles. And companies aren’t about to stop filling their cars with gadgets anytime soon.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED staff writer Aarian Marshall joins us to talk about how computerized cars have become a nightmare for auto shops and how cars will evolve in the future.

Show Notes

Read Aarian’s story about how the accelerated computerization of cars is killing auto shops. Read Aarian and Greg Barber’s stories about EV batteries. Here’s Lauren’s story about how you own nothing.

Recommendations

Aarian recommends appointment TV (aka watching a show with your friends) and not going to baseball games anymore. Mike recommends all three seasons of Twin Peaks. Lauren recommends weighted blankets.

Aarian Marshall can be found on Twitter @AarianMarshall. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

As its new company name would imply, Meta’s making a big deal about the metaverse. The company formerly known as Facebook just announced a new VR headset, the $1,500 Meta Quest Pro. It’s an expensive hunk of face hardware meant to entice users into the metaverse—an ambitious virtual realm that Mark Zuckerberg so desperately wants to make A Thing. But the supposed VR revolution still feels like it’s a long way off.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED editor at large Steven Levy joins the show to talk about Meta’s latest VR ambitions and whether Zuckerberg’s metaverse gamble will pay off.

Show Notes

Read Lauren’s story about the Meta Quest Pro. Follow Steven Levy’s Plaintext newsletter.

Recommendations

Steven recommends the play Leopoldstadt by Tom Stoppard on Broadway. Lauren recommends Tap to Pay on the New York subway system and just having tap top pay everywhere, really.

Steven Levy can be found on Twitter @StevenLevy. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Even though it’s already October, we are somehow still seeing new products announced by the tech giants. This week, it was Google's turn to show off its new gadgets. There's the new Pixel 7 phone, of course, but Google also unveiled the Pixel Watch, its first smartwatch release since its acquisition of the wearable company Fitbit.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED reviews editor Julian Chokkattu joins us to go over all the stuff Google announced this week, including new Pixel phones and Google's entry into the very crowded smartwatch space.

Show Notes

Read more about the Pixel Watch and the Pixel 7 phones. Also read the initial announcement from Google I/O earlier this year.

Recommendations

Julian recommends the Netflix show Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Mike recommends the book Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky. Lauren recommends the book Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America by Emily Dreyfuss, Joan Donovan, and Brian Friedberg and also the 24-part CNN documentary from the 90s about the Cold War.

Julian Chokkattu can be found on Twitter @JulianChokkattu. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Companies love sticking chips in everything. That's how you get a feast of connected kitchen tech: app-controlled Instant Pots, $400 touchscreen toasters, and Wi-Fi enabled fridges that let you check Twitter while you wait for some crushed ice. It's all very high tech and modern, but does any of it actually help you cook—or live—any better?

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED contributor and food writer Joe Ray joins us to talk about how to navigate the smart kitchen and whether any of these connected gadgets will really improve your cuisine or bring you happiness.

Show Notes

Read Joe Ray’s many reviews of smart kitchen tech.

Recommendations

Joe recommends the cookbook I Dream of Dinner (so You Don't Have To) by Ali Slagle. Lauren recommends pasta e ceci. Mike recommends the Oxo Brew Precision Scale With Timer.

Joe Ray can be found on Twitter @joe_diner. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Peloton's been weathering a rough year. The home workout company soared high in the early days of the pandemic, when demand for its stationary bikes and treadmills exploded. Then people started to ease back out into the world, and a number of high-profile accidents on Peloton equipment caused demand for the machines to plummet. But Peloton is still at it, hoping that one of its new products will lure people back to its brand of prestige workout tech. The latest is Peloton's new rowing machine.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED's outgoing executive editor of news Brian Barrett joins us one last time to talk about the new Peloton Row, and whether it could prove to be a lifeboat for the sinking company.

Show Notes

Read Lauren’s story about Peloton’s new rower. Also read Lauren on the camera-bedecked Peloton Guide, and Adrienne So’s review of the Guide.

Recommendations

Brian recommends that you subscribe to WIRED. Lauren recommends the fifth season of the podcast Fiasco, which is all about the AIDS crisis. Mike recommends Rachel Levin’s story in Bon Appetit called “I Eat Meat. Why Was Killing My Own Food So Hard?”

Brian Barrett can be found on Twitter @brbarrett. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Virtual reality has long been hailed as the next big thing in tech. It's pure escapism; strap on a headset and immerse yourself in a different world. At least, it would be easy to truly immerse yourself if the headsets were comfier to wear, less awkward to use, and a little more cool-looking. As unwieldy as the headsets are, the technology inside them is actually getting pretty good. The latest headset to make news is Sony’s PlayStation VR2. It’s the first update to the PSVR in six years, and Sony gave us a preview of the device as it nears an official release next year. We are also expecting to hear details soon about Meta's newly beefed Oculus headset meant to better hook you into the company’s weird metaverse.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED staff writer Boone Ashworth joins us to talk about his experience trying the PSVR2, what's next for Meta and Oculus, and whether if you die in VR that means you die in real life.

Show Notes

Read Boone’s impressions of the day he spent trying out PSVR2. Read Lauren on the recent Oculus price hike. Read all of our virtual reality coverage.

Recommendations

Boone recommends Paradise by Lizzy Johnson. Mike recommends the game Johann Sebastian Joust. Lauren recommends breakfast salads for some reason. Boone Ashworth can be found on Twitter @BooneAshworth. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth. Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

At a splashy media event this week, Apple announced four configurations of the new iPhone 14, as well as some new Apple Watches and an update to the wireless AirPod Pro. Many of the changes were iterative—some tweaks to phone design here, a new software feature there—but the biggest surprise was the new Apple Watch Ultra, a big, rugged, and expensive version of the wearable that's aimed at adventurous types like climbers, distance runners, and scuba divers.

This week on Gadget Lab, we dig into everything Apple announced this week, including new iPhones 14, AirPods, and that new Apple Watch Ultra.

Show Notes

Check out our roundup of everything Apple announced during Wednesday’s event. Read Adrienne So on the Apple Watch Ultra competing with Garmin and other premium smartwatch brands. Matt Burgess digs into passkeys replacing passwords in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. Follow WIRED’s coverage of all the Apple news.

Recommendations

Julian recommends portable monitors like those from Espresso, Innocn, or the ones recommended in our Work From Home buying guide. Mike recommends maybe doing the planet a solid by not buying a new iPhone this year unless you absolutely need to upgrade.

Julian Chokkattu can be found on Twitter @julianchokkattu. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode and will be back next week. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Collectively, people stream more than a billion hours of video on YouTube every single day. That's a lot of eyeballs, and it means the platform has enormous influence. In its twisty-turny path from dwarfish startup to internet colossus, YouTube has launched the careers of creatives, and hosted a host of misinformation and conspiracy theories. It has been a source of joy and entertainment, and also sparked real-world tragedies.

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with journalist and author Mark Bergen about his new book, which is all about the video-streaming platform and its path to cultural domination.

Show Notes

Mark Bergen’s new book, Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube’s Chaotic Rise to World Domination is out September 6.

Recommendations

Mark recommends the YouTube channel of Bill Wurtz. Lauren recommends the book Normal Family by Chrysta Bilton. Mike recommends the climate newsletter “One5C” by Joe Brown.

Mark Bergen can be found on Twitter @mhbergen. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

The United States government just passed the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping piece of legislation that allocates nearly $400 billion dollars to fund clean energy and climate efforts. A big chunk of that amount is earmarked for tax credits for consumers. So if you want to install solar panels, buy better windows, purchase a heat pump, or start driving an electric vehicle, there's a good chance you could get some money to offset the cost.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED writers Aarian Marshall and Matt Simon join us to talk about the ins and outs of the Inflation Reduction Act and how you can score some of those sweet, sweet tax credits. They also tell us what some of the changes mean for the automobile and construction industries.

Show Notes

Read Matt’s story about how the Inflation Reduction Act could save you money. Read Aarian’s story about how it will lead to more electric delivery vehicles. Here’s their story about where people in cities will charge their EVs. Follow all of WIRED’s climate coverage here.

Recommendations

Aarian recommends going to a baseball game, preferably on the days when dogs are allowed. Matt recommends Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Mike recommends playing Wordle, which is now (finally) in The New York Times’ mobile app. Lauren recommends NPR’s Life Kit podcast series about personal finance.

Aarian Marshall can be found on Twitter @aarianmarshall. Matt Simon is @mrmattsimon. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Farming has gotten quite tech-savvy. These days, there are all sorts of Wi-Fi-enabled, app-controlled, and autonomously piloted machines out there doing the tilling and harvesting. The biggest player in the high-tech farming field is John Deere, a company which keeps very tight control over who can modify or repair its tractors and other farm equipment. The company’s policies have drawn ire from advocates in the right-to-repair movement, who think that if you buy something, you should be able to fix it, upgrade it, or modify it without having to jump through the company's hoops. Recently, a white-hat hacker discovered a way to jailbreak John Deere tractors, allowing all sorts of non-company sanctioned access to the devices. It’s a big move that has implications for the security of the food supply and for the repairability of devices across the world.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Lily Hay Newman joins us to discuss the latest John Deere hack and what it means for the broader right-to-repair movement.

Show Notes

Read Lily’s story about the jailbreak of John Deere tractors. Read Andy Greenberg’s story about getting hacked while driving a Jeep at 70 mph. Here’s Lily on what happened when a ransomware attack hit JBS meat processing facilities. Follow all of WIRED’s security and right-to-repair coverage.

Recommendations

Lily recommends wearing N95 masks, in particular the very stylish Kimberly Clark duckbill mask. Lauren recommends the New Yorker interview with Ocean Vuong, author of poetry collection Night Sky with Wounds and the novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Mike recommends the music of Patrice Rushen.

Lily Newman can be found on Twitter @lilyhnewman. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Samsung's mobile phone design philosophy could best be described as "if it ain't broke, bend it." The company—one of the top smartphone manufacturers in the world—announced some new foldable devices this week, and they don't exactly break the mold. Even the Galaxy Z Fold, once Samsung's flagship showcase of wacky innovation, looks and bends more or less the same as last year’s model. But while the designs may not be the most exciting, they do mean interesting things for Android, the mobile software that powers them.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED reviews editor Julian Chokkattu joins us to talk about everything Samsung announced this week, plus what it all means for the next versions of Android.

Show Notes

Here’s everything Samsung announced at its Unpacked event this week. Here’s Julian’s review of last year’s Galaxy Z Fold3 and Z Flip3.

Recommendations

Julian recommends the Ampere Shower Power Pro, a speaker for your shower. Lauren recommends oatmeal and not watching The Northman. Mike recommends the book The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman.

Julian Chokkattu can be found on Twitter @JulianChokkattu. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Maybe you’re intrigued by NFTs. (They can often be pretty fun.) Maybe you’ve even felt the urge to buy a piece of digital art, only to give up once all the talk of wallets, blockchain transactions, gas fees, and digital ownership restrictions made the experience feel too daunting. And the NFT world is daunting! Especially for non-technical folks. Some companies are trying to make the acquisition process less onerous by selling NFT videos pre-installed in digital photo frames that you can buy, have shipped to you, and then display on your desk or wall next to your photos and other artworks.

This week, Lauren Goode takes us into this world of pre-framed NFTs and the marketplaces that power them. She also tells us about the looping Steph Curry video currently brightening her kitchen counter.

Show Notes

Read Lauren’s story about framed NFT art. Listen to our episode last year about WTF is an NFT. Here’s that Infinite Objects Elon Musk NFT if your stomach can take it.

Recommendations

Lauren recommends mineral sunscreen. Mike recommends the casual mobile game Holedown.

Lauren Goode can be found on Twitter @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

If you've opened Instagram recently, you've certainly seen Reels. The photo-sharing app has started aggressively pushing the TikTok-like video feeds onto its users, a move that has sparked a heated response. Longtime users, and even celebrities like Kylie Jenner, have been urging Instagram to ditch the feature, which in addition to showing you more viral videos also shows you fewer updates from your friends and loved ones. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri has defended the move, saying that Instagram is sticking with Reels and showing more videos in general, no matter how you or the Kardashians feel about that.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Kate Knibbs joins us to rant about Reels and why all the social media platforms are copying TikTok now.

Show Notes

Watch Mosseri’s recent video about Reels (on Twitter, of course). Read Kate’s story about how Instagram keeps showing her sick kids.

Recommendations

Kate recommends the book The Value of a Whale: On the Illusions of Green Capitalism by Adrienne Buller. Lauren recommends the Jordan Peele movie Nope and also Jason Parham’s WIRED review of the film. Mike recommends the Netflix show How to Change Your Mind and John Semley’s WIRED story about the companies racing to engineer new psychedelic drugs.

Kate Knibbs can be found on Twitter @Knibbs. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Facebook has nearly three billion users, which means that when it makes a change to its business, it affects nearly half the planet. Facebook's ambitions have often manifested in chaotic, unpredictable ways and had profound societal impacts for years after they've been implemented. So when the company decided to rebrand to Meta and funnel billions of dollars toward building its own virtual alternate reality, it's a move that's bound to come with some big consequences—if nothing else, for Meta itself.

This week on Gadget Lab, we're joined by Shirin Ghaffary from Recode and Alex Heath from The Verge. The new season of their podcast, Land of the Giants, is all about Facebook's transformation into Meta and what it means for the billions of people on Facebook, and in the world at large.

Show Notes

Listen to the Land of the Giants podcast here or wherever you listen to podcasts. Read Alex’s interview with Mark Zuckerburg about Facebook rebranding as Meta.

Recommendations

Shirin recommends the book Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Alex recommends the show The Bear on Hulu. Lauren recommends Taylor Blake’s TikTok channel and the viral videos of her emu, Emmanuel. Mike recommends the book Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand, by John Markoff.

Shirin Ghaffary can be found on Twitter @shiringhaffary. Alex Heath is @alexeheath. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Do you even vape, bro? Well if the United States Food and Drug Administration has its way, that answer might soon be a hard "no." Last month, the FDA went after Juul, the reigning champ of the e-cigarette industry, and effectively banned the selling of all Juul products in the US. Of course, Juul fought back, and a judge stayed the order. Now, as Juul fights for its life, the rest of the multibillion dollar market of nicotine-dispensing tech has billowed in to fill the space.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Arielle Pardes joins us to talk about Juul's battle with the FDA and what it means for vaping and nicotine products as a whole.

Show Notes

Read Arielle’s story about the battle between Juul and the FDA. Follow all of WIRED’s coverage of Juul and vaping. Read the GQ profile on actor Jeremy Allen White.

Recommendations

Arielle recommends Nixta licor de elote, if you’re of booze drinking age. Lauren recommends the show The Bear on Hulu. Mike recommends The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen.

Arielle Pardes can be found on Twitter @pardesoteric. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Technologists have been crowing about “the metaverse” for a long time now, and here at WIRED we’ve written about it quite a bit, too. But sometimes we’re still unsure exactly how to define this next generation of the internet, which is contingent on 3D experiences (instead of the flat, 2D screens we’re currently glued to) and also a persistent, continuous federated identity. Still confused? It’s OK: On this week’s Gadget Lab, we talk to Matthew Ball, a strategist, venture capitalist, and author, whose new book The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything, hits shelves July 19. 

We ask Ball how he defines the metaverse, how the internet can possibly be reinvented when the current version is so driven by corporate interests, whether the metaverse should be regulated, and what a realistic vision of “interoperability” might be. 

Show Notes

Matthew Ball’s book is The Metaverse: And How it Will Revolutionize Everything. Read Gilad’s June cover story about Web3. Follow all of WIRED’s metaverse coverage here.

Recommendations

Matthew recommends the show The Old Man on FX and the legal podcast about the US Supreme Court Strict Scrutiny. Gilad recommends trying out an electric car sometime. Lauren recommends the 5-4 podcast, also about analyzing the Supreme Court.

Matthew Ball can be found on Twitter @ballmatthew. Gilad Edelman is @GiladEdelman. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

If you work in an office, chances are you spend a lot of time on Slack. The workplace messaging platform has become an even more important tool in the work-from-home era. And it has been rolling out new stuff that's supposed to replicate the office atmosphere, online. Last year Slack introduced Huddles—a spontaneous audio room you can join right in Slack—and it quickly became became the fastest-adopted feature in Slack's history. Now the company is adding video to Huddles, inching toward becoming a full-fledged video conferencing service.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED writers Lauren Goode and Gilad Edelman chat about the Zoomification of Slack, whether we really need another video chat app, and what this all means for how we communicate online.

Show Notes

Read Lauren’s story about how the future of Slack looks a lot like Zoom. Read Mat Honan’s 2014 WIRED profile of Slack founder Stewart Butterfield. Here’s Clive Thompson’s piece about how it’s time for “maximum viable product.”

Recommendations

Gilad recommends getting a chef’s pan. Lauren recommends using the Calendar chatbot in Slack.

Gilad Edelman can be found on Twitter @GiladEdelman. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Streaming TV was supposed to be a thing you did to relax. But these days you might grab a drink, kick up your feet, and then sit there paralyzed by an absolute cavalcade of options for what to watch. With so many shows and services of varying quality, the streaming ecosystem has become a bloated mess. And now some of the streaming giants are starting to buckle under their own weight.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior editor Angela Watercutter and senior writer Kate Knibbs join us to discuss how streaming has become such an overwhelming morass and where it goes from here.

Show Notes: 

Read Kate’s story about how reality TV has become a parody of itself. Read Angela’s story about streaming services’ obsession with the franchise series. And check out all of the stories from WIRED’s series, “Why We Hate Streaming.”

Recommendations: 

Angela recommends the show First Kill. Kate recommends Molly Lambert’s podcast HeidiWorld. Mike recommends the website Justwatch.com. Lauren recommends Elon Musk’s Crash Course, a documentary from The New York Times, FX, and Hulu.

Angela Watercutter can be found on Twitter @WaterSlicer. Kate Knibbs is @Knibbs. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Spring is in the air, so you know what that means: Developer conference season. Apple held its Worldwide Developers Conference this week and used Monday’s keynote address to announce a bunch of new software updates for iPhones, iPads, and Macs. (Oh, and there are also two new MacBooks.) These kinds of events are good indicators or where the tech industry is headed, so we like to take a good look at all the forward-looking software and hardware Apple unveiled at WWDC. This year's event was an in-person affair, though it mostly entailed watching a pre-recorded video while sitting in an outdoor theater.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED product writer Brenda Stolyar joins us to talk about Apple's grand strategy for ruling the universe and what it was like on (and under) the ground at WWDC.

Show Notes: 

Read more about the new features coming to iOS and iPadOS and Apple’s MagSafe chargers. Check out everything Apple announced at WWDC. Here’s more about the EU’s ruling that manufacturers must make mobile devices have uniform charging ports.

Recommendations: 

Brenda recommends season four of the Netflix show Stranger Things. Lauren recommends asking your smart speaker to play ocean sounds while you sleep. Mike recommends the podcast Why We Run.

Brenda Stolyar can be found on Twitter @BStoly. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

The away message is a relic of desktop chat apps from decades past. But this simple feature helped keep boundaries between your online connections and your IRL self. Now that we all have tiny computers in our pockets wherever we go, those boundaries have evaporated. Instead, there's now the constant anxiety that comes with being connected—and available to chat—at all times.

This week on Gadget Lab, we talk about how messaging went from casual, asynchronous correspondence to an all-consuming attention hog, and how the tech companies that shape our correspondence could fix it.

Show Notes: 

Read Lauren’s story about how it’s time to bring back the away message.

Recommendations: 

Lauren recommends Jennifer Khan’s profile on Taika Waititi in WIRED. Mike recommends the book Led Zeppelin: The Biography by Bob Spitz.

Lauren Goode can be found on Twitter @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

The cover story of this month’s issue of WIRED magazine is “Paradise at the Crypto Arcade: Inside the Web3 Revolution” by Gilad Edelman. We interviewed Gilad about Web3 a couple months ago, and this week, we revisit that conversation.

Web3 is 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 is being pushed by startups, venture capitalists, and Silicon Valley bigwigs, all of whom stand to make some sweet, sweet cryptocurrency from a new breed of web app that takes the power from the platforms and puts it back in the hands of the people.

Gilad joins us to talk about whether the reality of whatever Web3 becomes will ever live up to Silicon Valley's rosy vision of it.

Gadget Lab will be back next week with a brand new episode.

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 do you avoid getting hit by the great big gas guzzlers that take up most of the road? These are valid questions, and we've got answers. May is national bike month here in the US, and Gadget Lab is ready to get you rolling.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior associate reviews editor Adrienne So joins us as we cycle through all things bikes: How to start riding more, what to look for in an ebike, and what's the best frame color for your grocery-getter.

Show Notes: 

Read more about Adrienne’s guide to the best ebikes. Here’s our roundup of our favorite bike accessories.

Recommendations: 

Adrienne recommends the book A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit. Mike recommends the Lil Guy hip bag from Road Runner Bags. Lauren recommends Adrienne So’s WIRED story “A Letter to My Fellow Asian Mothers From the Multiverse.”

Adrienne So can be found on Twitter @adriennemso. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

It’s springtime again, which means developer conference season is in full swing. (Hoo-ray?) This week marks the return of Google I/O, the annual conference for programmers who build apps for Google’s many platforms. But I/O, while technically a software conference, has also long been a launch pad for Google hardware. This year, we saw new phones, new earbuds, a Pixel tablet, and even the oft-rumored Pixel watch.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED reviews editor Julian Chokkattu joins us to talk all about Google’s announcements, from hardware to software to voice assistants. We also debate the ideal shape for a smartwatch (which, for the record, is round).

Show Notes: 

Read all of our Google I/O 2022 coverage in one place. We wrote about the hardware and software announcements, Assistant, and tablet enhancements for Android. Khari Johnson wrote about Google's new skin tone recognition system for AI. We also have Lily Newman’s roundup of privacy and safety features coming to Android 13. If you missed the keynote address, watch a replay.

Recommendations: 

Julian recommends that you should try paying for professional movers if you move, but also get some mover’s insurance. Lauren recommends the book Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe. Mike recommends slip-on shoes for cycling, work, and life.

Julian Chokkattu can be found on Twitter @JulianChokkattu. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Hey, remember how Elon Musk bought Twitter? It's been a chaotic week since then, both on and off the controversial social media platform. There are still a lot of open questions about what's going to happen to Twitter. But the whole strange deal also raises questions that extend far beyond one platform. Like, how might this affect the spread of misinformation online? How might it affect democracy itself? Right now, there's no better person to help answer those questions than powerhouse tech journalist Kara Swisher.

This week on Gadget Lab, Kara joins us to talk all about Twitter, Elon's machinations, Web3, and cryptocurrency.

Show Notes

Listen to Kara Swisher’s Sway podcast. Read even more about Elon Musk and Twitter. Peruse the archives of Kara and Lauren’s old podcast Too Embarrassed to Ask.

Recommendations

Kara recommends the film Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. Mike recommends the book Lost in the Valley of Death by Harley Rustad. Lauren recommends you follow The Center for Reproductive Rights (@reprorights) and the Yellowhammer Fund (@Yellowfund).

Kara Swisher can be found on Twitter @karaswisher. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 100 million more users than Twitter.

Since the Snapchat app is all about sharing photos, Snap likes to come up with innovative and unique hardware designs that give its users more interesting ways to take those photos. You might remember its camera-bedecked Spectacles from a few years ago. Now Snap has unveiled a “selfie drone” called Pixy. The $230, palm-sized gadget lifts off, takes a sharable photo or video of you, then lands. It’s just a bit of whimsical fun, which is very much the point of the whole Snapchat experience.

This week, Michael and Lauren talk about Snap’s new drone, as well as the company’s place in the larger social media landscape.

Show Notes: 

Read more about the Pixy drone in Lauren’s latest story for WIRED. Read about Snap’s first Spectacles, the second ones, and the third ones. Also read about the augmented reality glasses the company released last year.

Recommendations: 

Lauren recommends the episode of The Verge’s Decoder podcast with crypto investor Chris Dixon. Mike recommends the YouTube channel Fault Radio for streaming electronic music DJ sets.

Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys

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 for free speech absolutists. Regardless, Twitter is also in the process of undergoing some changes that are posed to shake up the platform, with or without Musk's involvement.

This week on Gadget Lab, we’re joined by Casey Newton, the journalist and writer of the Substack newsletter, Platformer. Casey comes on the show to talk all about Twitter, Elon, and the always controversial edit button.

Show Notes: 

Read and subscribe to Casey’s newsletter Platformer. Here’s how Twitter’s edit button might actually work. Read more about what exactly Elon’s vision of truth means.

Recommendations: 

Casey recommends the show Yellowjackets on Showtime. Lauren recommends Goodreads. Mike recommends simplifying your burgers (i.e., stop putting marshmallow Peeps on them).

Casey Newton can be found on Twitter @CaseyNewton. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 people who use it), chances are it just fades into the background while you do your scrolling. But behind the scenes, browsers handle a lot of information, especially when it comes to collecting all of your sweet, sweet data.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Matt Burgess joins us to talk about the dark side of browsers, and how to go about blocking ads and controlling your data online.

Show Notes: 

Read Matt’s story about DuckDuckGo’s desktop browser. Listen to the WIRED podcast here. Here’s the EFF’s HTTPS Everywhere browser extension. Here’s the Minimal Twitter Chrome extension. For ad-blocking, check out Ghostery. Read Lauren’s story about how websites tracked her after she called off her wedding.

Recommendations: 

Matt recommends the memoir A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter, and also pomegranate seeds. Mike recommends giving cash at weddings instead of buying something off the registry. Lauren recommends Apple TV+, particularly for shows like Severance, WeCrashed, and The Morning Show.

Matt Burgess can be found on Twitter @mattburgess1. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 executive shake-ups put the fitness tech company's future in flux. But now, Peloton is trying something new. Or at least new-ish. The Peloton Guide is a device with a camera that sits on your TV and monitors your workout. (Just don't call it a Kinect.) It's far more modest than Peloton's large, fancy stationary bikes and treadmills, and something Peloton hopes will lure in more subscribers. Still, it's another bet on our continued interest in at-home workouts—a market that may not be as robust as Peloton hoped it was.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED executive editor Brian Barrett joins us for a conversation about Peloton's newest product and the company's future.

Show Notes: 

Read Lauren’s story about the new Peloton Guide. Here’s Adrienne So’s review of the Guide.

Recommendations: 

Brian recommends the novel Middlemarch by George Eliot. Lauren recommends the Apple TV+ show WeCrashed. Mike recommends the memoir The History of Bones by John Lurie.

Brian Barrett can be found on Twitter @brbarrett. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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. Which makes it a real problem when that system, and all that login info, gets hacked.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Lily Hay Newman joins the show to tell us about the group behind the recent Okta hack, how the hackers took control of such a vast system, and what happened in the aftermath.

Show Notes: 

Read all Lily’s stories about the Lapsus$ Okta hack. This episode was recorded and scheduled shortly before news broke that two teenagers in the UK have been charged in connection with the hacks.

Recommendations: 

Lily recommends setting up two-factor authentication on all your services. (Here’s how!) Mike recommends the podcast Poog with Kate Berlant and Jacqueline Novak.

Lily Hay Newman can be found on Twitter @lilyhnewman. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 autonomous organizations, if that helps) are growing more popular with proponents of cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies. But what's up for some debate is what these communities are actually good for, and what kind of impact this purposeful gatekeeping can have on the real world.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Gilad Edelman joins us to talk about the topsy turvy world of DAOs and his own experience with creating one.

Show Notes: 

Read Gilad’s story about his experimental DAO for punchlines. 

Recommendations: 

Gilad recommends calling the IRS (yes, seriously). Mike recommends the New Yorker Android app. Lauren recommends WIRED’s beginner’s guide to Discord.

Gilad can be found on Twitter @GiladEdelman. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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 have catastrophic, life-changing consequences. People can get wrongly identified, arrested, and convicted, often without ever being told they were ID’d by a computer. It’s especially troubling when you consider false identifications disproportionately affect women, young people, and people with dark skin—basically everyone other than white men.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Khari Johnson joins us to talk about the limits of facial recognition tech, and what happens to the people who get misidentified.

Show Notes: 

Read Khari’s stories about how facial recognition tech has led to wrongful arrests that derailed people’s lives. Here’s Lauren’s story about Garmin’s Fenix smartwatch. (And here’s WIRED’s review of the latest model.) Arielle’s story about the wave of shows about Silicon Valley tech founders is here.

Recommendations: 

Khari recommends hoagies. Lauren recommends Garmin smartwatches. Mike recommends the show The Dropout on Hulu.

Khari Johnson can be found on Twitter @kharijohnson. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.