The End of ‘iPhone’
Ken Segall is the reason so many Apple products start with “i.” Now he says it’s time to drop the prefix entirely. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Episodes
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The latest in-depth coverage covering the intersection of technology and culture will help you make sense of a world in constant transformation. Join us as we explore the ways technology is changing our lives.
Episodes
A Huge Scam Targeting Kids With Roblox and Fortnite ‘Offers’ Has Been Hiding in Plain Sight
We wanted to bring you one of our favorite stories from 2023: The wide-ranging scams, often disguised as game promotions, can all be linked back to one network. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Prepare to Get Manipulated by Emotionally Expressive Chatbots
The emotional mimicry of OpenAI’s new version of ChatGPT could lead AI assistants in some strange—even dangerous—directions. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
These Electric School Buses Are on Their Way to Save the Grid
Loaded with ever more renewables, the grid will need to store a whole lot of energy. Enter: a new kind of magic school bus—one that can both charge and give power back. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Tornado Cash Developer Found Guilty of Laundering $1.2 Billion of Crypto
Alexey Pertsev, cofounder of the crypto-anonymizing tool, has been sentenced to over five years behind bars. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Generative AI Doesn’t Make Hardware Less Hard
Wearable AI gadgets from Rabbit and Humane were panned by reviewers, including at WIRED. Their face-plants show that it’s still tough to compete with big tech in the age of ChatGPT. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Elon Musk's Neuralink Had a Brain Implant Setback. It May Come Down to Design
Neuralink experienced a mechanical issue with its first human brain-computer interface implant. Its novel design may make it more prone to failure. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
How Not to Get Brain-Eating Worms and Mercury Poisoning
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. had both a brain parasite and mercury poisoning at the same time. Just how rare is each condition? Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
OpenAI Is ‘Exploring’ How to Responsibly Generate AI Porn
OpenAI released draft guidelines for how it wants the AI technology inside ChatGPT to behave—and revealed that it’s exploring how to ‘responsibly’ generate explicit content. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
OpenAI Offers an Olive Branch to Artists Wary of Feeding AI Algorithms
ChatGPT developer OpenAI says that artists and other content owners will be able to request that their work be excluded from use in AI development. Many details of the scheme remain unclear. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
No One Knows How Far Bird Flu Has Spread
With little incentive for US farmers to test their cattle, and many undocumented laborers on dairy farms, the full scale of the outbreak is unclear. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The US Government Is Asking Big Tech to Promise Better Cybersecurity
The Biden administration is asking tech companies to sign a pledge, obtained by WIRED, to improve their digital security, including reduced default password use and improved vulnerability disclosures. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The White House Has a New Master Plan to Stop Worst-Case Scenarios
President Joe Biden will update the directives to protect US critical infrastructure against major threats, from cyberattacks to terrorism to climate change. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Net Neutrality Returns to a Very Different Internet
The FCC voted 3-2 to restore net neutrality rules that had disappeared during the Trump administration. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Net Neutrality Returns to a Very Different Internet
The FCC voted 3-2 to restore net neutrality rules that had disappeared during the Trump administration. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Ads for Explicit ‘AI Girlfriends’ Are Swarming Facebook and Instagram
WIRED found thousands of ads running on Meta’s social platforms promoting sexually explicit “AI girlfriend” apps. Some human sex workers say the platform unfairly polices their own posts more harshly. Thanks for listening to WIRED. Talk to you next time for more stories from WIRED.com and read this story here . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Noncompetes Are Dead—and Tech Workers Are Free to Roam
A new rule from the US Federal Trade Commission invalidates most noncompete agreements, frequently used to bind tech workers. It could unlock higher wages, and more entrepreneurship and innovation. Thanks for listening to WIRED. Talk to you next time for more stories from WIRED.com and read this story here . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Bitcoin Miners Brace for the ‘Halving’—and Race to Cash In
The Bitcoin halving is imminent. Crypto mining companies are reaching for every trick in the book to survive it. Thanks for listening to WIRED. Talk to you next time for more stories from WIRED.com and read this story here . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Plant-Based Meat Boomed. Here Comes the Bust
Sales of vegan meat are trending downward in the US, with companies scrambling to win back customers. Thanks for listening to WIRED. Talk to you next time for more stories from WIRED.com and read this story here . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Real-Time Deepfake Romance Scams Have Arrived
Smooth-talking scammers known as “Yahoo Boys” use widely available face-swapping tech to carry out elaborate romance scams. Thanks for listening to WIRED. Talk to you next time for more stories from WIRED.com and read this story here . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
What If Your AI Girlfriend Hated You?
AngryGF offers a perpetually enraged chatbot intended to teach men better communication skills. WIRED took it for a spin. Thanks for listening to WIRED. Talk to you next time for more stories from WIRED.com and read this story here . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
How One Author Pushed the Limits of AI Copyright
Elisa Shupe was initially rebuffed when she tried to copyright a book she wrote with help from ChatGPT. Now the US Copyright Office has changed course—but there’s a catch. Thanks for listening to WIRED. Talk to you next time for more stories from WIRED.com and read this story here . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Google Workers Protest Cloud Contract With Israel's Government
Google employees are staging sit-ins and protests at company offices in New York and California over “Project Nimbus,” a cloud contract with Israel's government, as the country's war with Hamas continues. Thanks for listening to WIRED. Talk to you next time for more stories from WIRED.com and read this story here . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
It Takes Guts, Not College, to Fix Wind Turbines for a Living
Want one of the fastest-growing jobs in the US? Get used to being high. Thanks for listening to WIRED. Talk to you next time for more stories from WIRED.com and read this story here . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Bird Flu Is Spreading in Alarming New Ways
H5N1 has infected cattle across the US and jumped from a mammal to a human for the first time. Experts fear it may someday evolve to spread among humans. Thanks for listening to WIRED. Talk to you next time for more stories from WIRED.com and read this story here . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Eric Schmidt Warned Against China’s AI Industry. Emails Show He Also Sought Connections to It
Transparency advocates say that Eric Schmidt's pursuit of “personal” connections with AI companies in China represents a concerning conflict of interest. Thanks for listening to WIRED. Talk to you next time for more stories from WIRED.com and read this story here . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Europe Rules That Insufficient Climate Change Action Is a Human Rights Violation
In a landmark ruling, the European Court of Human Rights found that Switzerland had not done enough to protect its citizens from climate change—blowing open the door for further cases against governments. Thanks for listening to WIRED. Talk to you next time for more stories from WIRED.com and read this story here . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Students Are Likely Writing Millions of Papers With AI
Turnitin, a service that checks papers for plagiarism, says its detection tool found millions of papers that may have a significant amount of AI-generated content. Thanks for listening to WIRED. Talk to you next time for more stories from WIRED.com and read this story here . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
How I Became a Python Programmer—and Fell Out of Love With the Machine
When I started coding, I was suspicious of all the abstractions. Then I discovered the Django framework. Thanks for listening to WIRED. Talk to you next time for more stories from WIRED.com and read this story here . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
A TikTok Whistleblower Got DC’s Attention. Do His Claims Add Up?
Zen Goziker worked at TikTok for only six months. Many of his allegations about the company and the US government are improbable. But he still may have shaped how the app is viewed in Washington. Thanks for listening to WIRED. Talk to you next time for more stories from WIRED.com and read this story here . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...