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...
Apr 28, 2022•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Apr 21, 2022•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 t...
Apr 15, 2022•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Apr 08, 2022•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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. S...
Apr 01, 2022•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Mar 25, 2022•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 s...
Mar 18, 2022•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Apple held its first product announcement event of the year on Tuesday. It showed off a bunch of new devices, including a new iPhone SE, a revamped iPad Air, and a big, beefy, expensive system called Mac Studio. But some of the most noticeable aspects of the show was what Apple didn't say. The company made no mention of the war in Ukraine, despite the fact that the company recently made the decision to stop selling its products in Russia. In a time of such worldwide turmoil, Apple's carefully cr...
Mar 11, 2022•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Russia's armed invasion of Ukraine has already exacted a terrible human cost. Thousands of people are dead and over a million have been displaced. In condemning Russia's actions, other nations across the world have sought to hit the country with a broad array of economic sanctions. One of those sanctions targets several large Russian banks, and could have repercussions across the globe. This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with Rachel Rizzo, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, about the economi...
Mar 04, 2022•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Apple has been sprucing up its mobile operating system, bolstering privacy and safety features and sprinkling in some new emoji to boot. But while the company shores up iOS, it has also faced renewed criticism about privacy lapses in its AirTags trackers. Reports of the devices being used by stalkers to track others without their permission have raised questions about Apple's tracking tech. Why did it take so long for the company to introduce features that could alert or protect potential victim...
Feb 18, 2022•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, Samsung held its Galaxy Unpacked event, its annual product spectacle the company uses to announce new mobile devices. In addition to its new Galaxy S22 line of phones, Samsung also introduced three new (and very expensive) tablets. The gadgets are part of a push to solidify Android tablets as "the future of computing," which is what Google recently called them. This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED reviews editor Julian Chokkattu joins us to dish about Samsung's new devices, and whether Andr...
Feb 11, 2022•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast You probably know Spotify as a streaming music juggernaut, but its business model has grown far beyond just music. Last year, the company paid a reported $100 million dollars for exclusive distribution rights to the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. But now Rogan's penchant for interviewing controversial guests, some of whom propagate disinformation about Covid vaccines and climate science, has riled up Spotify users and artists alike. Prominent musicians like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and India ...
Feb 04, 2022•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast When the real world's a mess, the metaverse that Facebook (er, Meta) is pitching might seem like a welcome refuge. Just strap on a headset and play some VR games in a sprawling digital realm. Fun for the whole family! At least, that’s what WIRED senior associate editor Adrienne So has been turning to lately to keep her small kids occupied. But it's not all virtual puzzles and endless sunshine. Meta has a track record of privacy and ethical lapses in its business practices that may give people pa...
Jan 28, 2022•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast For years, companies and techno-bros have been saying that self-driving cars are ready to roll. Now companies like the ride-hailing service Lyft are actually letting customers take rides in autonomous vehicles. And at CES this year, John Deere unveiled a self-driving tractor that lets farmers put the latest automation tech to work in the fields. But if the time for self-driving vehicles is finally nigh, what does that mean for the workers who make a living behind the wheel? This week on Gadget L...
Jan 21, 2022•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Many people are taking a break from alcohol this month, a cultural moment that’s come to be known as Dry January. Beyond trends fueled by new year’s resolutions, however, the de-alcoholized drink has been enjoying a boom. Beverage brands and fancy bartenders are crafting complex virgin cocktails and beers in an effort to tantalize the tastebuds of sober folks, temporary teetotalers, and the generally alcohol-averse. But how do they actually devise these drinks? And how well do they hold up to ou...
Jan 14, 2022•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast New year, new chaotic mega tech exhibition. CES was this week, complete with all of its usual glitzy gizmos and gaudy gadgets. It was a strange year for the tech conference. It was held in person and virtually, and multiple presenters pulled out at the last minute, citing Covid concerns. Still, many companies were undeterred, and the slew of tech announcements continued unabated. WIRED covered CES from afar, including a live taping of the Gadget Lab podcast. This week, WIRED senior associate rev...
Jan 07, 2022•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast Good thing 2021 was the year we fixed all of the brokenness of 2020, huh? OK, not even close. But for some people, 2021 was a year of reassessing, recommitting (or resigning), and reconnecting. And technology was a big part of that, whether through cloud services that kept us all occupied and sane, or game-changing vaccines that let us actually hug some of our friends and family members again. On this week’s Gadget Lab, Michael Calore and Lauren Goode are joined by Adrienne So and Julian Chokkat...
Dec 10, 2021•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Web3! It's the latest internet buzzword which encompasses an egalitarian vision of the web that's more reliable, based on trust, and, inevitably, built on the blockchain. This plan for the future 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. This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Gilad Ede...
Dec 03, 2021•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Over his nearly four-decade career as a novelist, Neal Stephenson has built complex visions of future worlds that, looking back at them now, feel eerily prescient. He writes about the possible ways unchecked globalization, pollution, and technological capitalism could transform our planet. Along the way, he’s introduced readers to concepts like cryptocurrency, virtual reality, and the metaverse. In his new novel, Termination Shock , Stevenson brings readers into a near future when an eccentric b...
Nov 19, 2021•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mark Zuckerberg may be busy pushing the idea of augmented and virtual reality worlds, but he is far from the first to start imaging them. Niantic CEO John Hanke heads the company that created Pokemon Go , the mobile game that was one of the first massive AR hits. Hanke has been augmenting reality for years now, and he says that his vision to bring people together in the real world is more egalitarian than Facebook's. This week on Gadget Lab, we welcome WIRED editor at large Steven Levy, who spok...
Nov 12, 2021•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Hey, how's that holiday shopping coming along? It's still a little early to start panicking in earnest, but right now is the best time to start buying stuff if you want it to arrive in time for the holidays. You might have noticed how you'll go to order something online, but it's either completely unavailable or it won’t ship for weeks or months. That's because the global supply chain has been a little screwy lately, set off kilter by a combination of logistical problems, resource shortages, and...
Nov 05, 2021•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast Facebook has a new name. This week, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company is changing its name to Meta. The title comes from something Facebook has been calling the metaverse—an VR/AR experience that allows users to interact remotely with a mix of virtual and in-person elements. It's a very deliberate change of course for the company, and one that comes at a time when Facebook is embroiled in a weeks-long controversy about how its product may harm its users. But while the company may ha...
Oct 29, 2021•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Yep, it’s still product announcement season. This week, Google officially unveiled its new Pixel phones and Apple showed off new MacBook Pro models. Both device families sport substantial upgrades over their previous designs—though in the MacBook's case, many of its "new" features are just ones that Apple has omitted from its most recent laptops. All of these devices have received their biggest updates in years, so naturally we have some nitpicks. This week on Gadget Lab, we bring on WIRED produ...
Oct 22, 2021•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Facebook has once again found itself in the hot seat. Things heated up for the company after a whistleblower shared thousands of pages of Facebook internal documents with The Wall Street Journal and Congress last month. The documents reveal that the company had researched how its apps affect the people who use them—and that Facebook often chooses to put its business interests ahead of the wellbeing of its users. This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with WIRED politics writer Gilad Edelman about the ...
Oct 15, 2021•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Description: Andrew Yang, former presidential and New York mayoral candidate, really likes to ride his electric scooter. He's been a big proponent of micromobility in general, among other grand ambitions like establishing a nationwide universal basic income. He's also trying to launch a new American political party—a near-impossible task in such an ideologically divided country. This week on Gadget Lab, Lauren talks with Andrew Yang at the Micromobility America conference in Richmond, California...
Oct 08, 2021•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast About this time every year, Amazon announces a slew of new products. Some of them are fairly normal: new Echo devices, smart screens, video doorbells. But sometimes the company will roll out something truly bonkers, like a flying home security drone or a Roomba-like robot with an extending periscope camera that wheels around your house. Outlandish or otherwise, the company's output offers a look at where it's headed. And this year, Amazon seems increasingly intent on becoming a home security com...
Oct 01, 2021•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's product announcement season, and this week was Microsoft's turn. The company slid out a few new Surfaces, a weird flippy laptop thing, and an eco-friendlyish mouse that looks like a bar of soap. Microsoft also doubled down on its dual screen mobile design with the Surface Duo 2, a device that we're still not quite sure what to do with. This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED product and reviews writer Brenda Stoylar joins us to talk all about Microsoft's hardware announcements and the future of the ...
Sep 24, 2021•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's September, which can only mean one thing: Apple's got some new products. This week, the company held a virtual event to detail its slate of upcoming iPhones, iPads, and smartwatches. Along with the new chips, Apple showed off some flashy photo and video features meant to appeal to pro users. But are those features all they're cracked up to be? And do you really need to buy the new hardware in order to use them? This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED reviews editor Julian Chokkattu joins us to talk ...
Sep 17, 2021•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast On Thursday, President Biden announced a number of new policies to fight Covid-19. Chief among them: More vaccine mandates are coming. Now, businesses that employ over 100 workers will have to require those employees to be vaccinated, or to produce a negative Covid test every week. Biden also doubled down on his decision to offer booster shots to fully vaccinated Americans, a move that’s faced some pushback from world health leaders, and from other countries that have been unable to fully vaccin...
Sep 10, 2021•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, Hurricane Ida swept through the southern US, hitting Louisiana and parts of Mississippi especially hard. The storm disabled the power grid across Louisiana, including heavily populated areas like New Orleans, and officials say it could be weeks before power is fully restored. It's not the first disaster to reveal how woefully unprepared our infrastructure is for weathering disasters—and it won't be the last. This week on Gadget Lab, we talk with WIRED senior writer Lily Hay Newman abo...
Sep 03, 2021•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
