Wearable tech, self-driving cars and AI mishaps. There were a lot of new product launches this year ? some more successful than others. This week on Uncanny Valley, we talk about the tech out there that we are most excited about and the tech that has us most terrified for the coming year. Plus, we share our gifting recommendations.  

Write to us at [email protected].

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

In a post-Twitter world, text-based social media apps have taken a new shape. X, BlueSky, and Threads are home to wildly different types of discourse. So, which of these apps are actually worth our time?  This week on Uncanny Valley, we talk about the state of text-based social apps and how they impact journalism. And finally, we ask?is it time to quit?  

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.

Sam Altman is the king of generative artificial intelligence. But is he the person we should trust to guide our explorations into AI? This week, we do a deep dive on Sam Altman. From his Midwest roots, to his early startup days, to his time at Venture Capital, and his rise and fall and rise again at OpenAI. 

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.

It's long been believed that Silicon Valley is a hotbed for libertarian ideals, but where did that idea come from? Aside from some high-profile tech founders and investors who either identify as libertarian or express libertarian-esque beliefs, does this set of ideologies really define the Valley? And what is libertarianism anyway?  

Blood boys. Cryogenic freezing. Living by the algorithm. Silicon Valley is known for a culture of health optimization, but some recent biohacking ventures are becoming more extreme?aimed not just at longevity, but at beating death altogether. This week, we talk about the Silicon Valley moguls obsessed with living forever and the radical measures they're taking to do so.

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.

Much of the tech workforce has become accustomed to remote or hybrid jobs over the last several years. But lately, we?ve seen big tech companies demanding their teams head back into the office. This week, we look at some of these return-to-office mandates and discuss their ripple effects. Plus, we ask the question on all of our minds: does working in person actually make employees more productive? 

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.

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 Neboj?a Vujinovi? 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.

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.

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 Neboj?a Vujinovi? 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.