Uncanny Valley | WIRED

The podcast discusses the future of smartphones, including the potential for foldable phones and voice features. They also explore the decline in smartphone sales and the appeal of flip phones. The hosts share personal recommendations for reducing excessive smartphone use and discuss the benefits of swimming and meditation as ways to disconnect from screens. They recommend the book 'Why Buddhism is True' and explore the science behind meditation and its connection to Buddhism philosophy.

An investigation reveals how school administrators in Illinois turned to police to issue fines for student infractions, leading to financial strain and added stress for families. The podcast dives into a case involving a student accused of stealing AirPods that goes to a jury trial. Discussions also cover the issue of punitive discipline in schools, disproportionate ticketing of students of color, and recommendations for the end of summer. Additionally, there is talk about a popular sponge, a diverse newsletter, and the problems caused by cows on an uninhabited island.

Excessive summer heat waves, wildfires, and infrastructure failures caused by climate change are discussed. The podcast explores the impact of heat on the environment, the urgency of the problem, and potential solutions. It also covers the causes and consequences of wildfires in Lahaina, Maui, and debates individual responsibility in combatting climate change. The podcast also touches on the documentary 'How to Catch a TikTok Thief'.

Tech companies have been touting self-driving cars as the future of transportation for over a decade now. Companies like Cruise, Waymo, and Zoox all have active programs testing their autonomous vehicles in US cities like San Francisco, Phoenix, and Austin. Their cars have run endless loops around town to train their algorithms, zipping along city streets—and occasionally blocking them. While the tech has clearly gotten better and Waymo and Cruise now have permission to operate fully autonomously in California, the computer-powered taxis have also driven up some controversy with local governments, safety officials, city residents, and drivers.This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED transportation writer Aarian Marshall joins us to talk about how a vote this week in California will affect robotaxi adoption in cities across the country, and what happens when our roadways are inundated with robots.Show Notes:Read Aarian’s story about how ride-hailing service drivers are responding to self-driving taxis. Read all of WIRED’s coverage of autonomous vehicles.Recommendations:Aarian recommends calling company customer support and trying to talk to a human sometimes. Mike recommends listening to comedy albums on streaming services. Lauren recommends her other podcast Have a Nice Future, particularly the episode with the artist Grimes.Aarian Marshall can be found on Twitter @AarianMarshall. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Cloud computing has streamlined our hyper-mobile digital lives. We upload files, images, and globs of data to the cloud. Once all of our stuff is stored there, we can access it from anywhere and edit things collaboratively with our friends and coworkers. It’s convenient and appealing—but only if you don’t mind that all your personal data is stored on servers run by giant companies like Google and Amazon. The local-first computing movement is advocating for a different kind of communal framework, one that’s more private, more secure, and powered by peer-to-peer software that runs just on the machines where the files are being shared. No giant server farms in faraway lands, no faceless corporations using your data to generate ad revenue. Just the good old internet, by the people and for the people.This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED staff writer Greg Barber joins us to talk all about the local-first computing movement and how its adherents hope to upend our reliance on cloud services using peer-to-peer communication.Show Notes:Read Greg’s story about local-first computing.Recommendations:Greg recommends the Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors installation at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Lauren recommends the Barbie movie if you somehow haven’t seen it already. Mike recommends the latest episode of The War on Cars podcast with Bob Sorokanich.Greg Barber can be found on Twitter @gregoryjbarber. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Back in May, the Writers Guild of America went on strike—partly over disputes about compensation, and partly over fears that studios could use generative artificial intelligence tools to replace human writers and creators. This month, when the actor’s union SAG-AFTRA announced its own strike, things really started to heat up as some of the biggest and most recognizable movie stars joined the picket lines. Production in Hollywood has now mostly ground to a halt, negotiations with studios have stalled, and this stalemate looks as though it will persist for some time.What do these strikes mean for the movies, shows, podcasts, and video games we consume? Will the celebrity podcasts and chat shows also go dark? Are our streaming options now going to be limited to reruns and reality shows? Senior writer Kate Knibbs joins us from WIRED’s Culture desk to discuss the shifts that technology, economics, and income disparity have wrought in Hollywood.Show Notes:Read our coverage of the WGA strike, the actors’ strike. Learn how AI is being used in Hollywood and in video games. We also have a report from a Hollywood-less Comic-Con. Read WIRED’s entire series on the future of entertainment.Recommendations:Kate recommends two music artists, Nation of Language and Yaya Bey. Lauren recommends the episode of WTF with Marc Maron featuring Cillian Murphy. Mike recommends the film How to Blow Up a Pipeline.Kate Knibbs can be found on Twitter @Knibbs. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Elon Musk is back in the news again. (Really, does he ever leave the news?) Last week, Musk announced a new artificial intelligence venture called xAI. The timing of the launch is odd considering Musk still runs Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, Boring Company, and Twitter. Twitter in particular is causing him headaches, with both its sagging business and increased competition from rivals like Meta’s Threads. All of these developments are happening in the shadow of what feels like a lazy subplot on a bad sitcom—a proposed mixed martial arts cage match between Musk and his rival, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.This week, we talk with WIRED editor at large Steven Levy about the launch of xAI and its stated goal of “understanding the true nature of the universe.” We also discuss the places generative artificial intelligence has yet to venture, and the ways in which xAI could make an impact in the field of deep learning. And of course, we talk about that cage match. Yech.Show Notes:Read Steven’s Plaintext newsletter, in which he urges Mark Zuckerberg not to take the bait. Will Knight outlines xAI’s biggest challenges. Amanda Hoover writes about Threads’ threat to Twitter’s domain. Paresh Dave gives an update on AI regulation in Europe and the US. Read all of our generative AI coverage.Recommendations:Steven recommends Oppenheimer. So does Lauren. (We discuss it without spoiling it.) Mike recommends pretzel buns, because it’s not summer without them.Steven Levy can be found on Twitter @StevenLevy. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Hey look, there's a new Twitter alternative. The text-based Instagram offshoot Threads launched a week ago, and in the days since, the platform racked up over a hundred million users. It's a huge showing for parent company Meta that has Mark Zuckerberg and other execs celebrating. Meanwhile, current Twitter owner Elon Musk is fuming as Threads threatens to unravel his platform’s microblogging dominance. But despite its initial success, it's not yet clear whether Threads will emerge as the top social space. These early days of Threads may feel slightly less toxic than Twitter, but it's already being overtaken by cringey influencers and pseudo-sassy brand accounts. It's also just one more thing to sign up for, and could stretch just how much tolerance people have for all these new microblogging platforms.This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior Kate Knibbs joins us to unspool the question of whether Meta's new social service is too much, too little, or just right.Show Notes:Read Kate’s story about how it’s time to stop making Twitter competitors. Read all about how Threads may be the thing that kills Twitter, and how to run Threads on your desktop. Or, you know, don’t sign up for Threads at all until it becomes clear how much of your data it is harvesting.Recommendations:Kate recommends the book Natural Causes by Dan Hurley. Mike recommends Life Examined from KCRW. Lauren recommends season two of The Bear on Hulu.Kate Knibbs can be found on Twitter @Knibbs. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

We're off this week, so instead of our usual show, we're sharing an episode of WIRED's other podcast, Have a Nice Future. It's hosted by Gadget Lab cohost Lauren Goode and WIRED editor in chief Gideon Litchfield. The show features interviews with guests who have big, audacious ideas about the future. Lauren and Gideon dig into whether this is a future we want to live in, and what we can do about it now.On this episode, Gideon and Lauren are joined by someone whose full-time job was to predict the future. Noah Raford spent nearly 15 years working as the UAE’s chief futurist, where he advised the government on how to prepare for all sorts of futuristic challenges, from pandemics to global warming. His advice? Get comfortable with discomfort.This episode originally aired April 26, 2023. Listen to every episode of Have a Nice Future wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Have you ever put on a new shirt and then discovered that it makes you feel itchy? Or have you ever taken off a new pair of pants at the end of the day to find that the fabric has given you a skin rash? This is a problem that’s increasingly common as more and more chemicals are being added to our clothing when they’re dyed different colors or treated with additives that make them stain-, wrinkle-, or odor-resistant. Some of these chemicals are irritants that can cause breathing problems or skin issues. Some others are toxic enough to trigger life-altering autoimmune diseases. Since the fashion industry operates within loose regulations, the problem of toxic apparel isn’t going away anytime soon.This week on Gadget Lab, we're joined by journalist and author Alden Wicker. Her new book is called To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion is Making Us Sick—And How We Can Fight Back. We discuss the wide range of chemicals, dyes, and treatments that get put into our clothes, and we offer tips on how to avoid the worst offenders while shopping for a new wardrobe.Show Notes:Alden’s book is To Dye For. It’s out this week from G.P. Putnam’s Sons; buy it wherever books are sold. Also read Alden’s reporting on the fashion industry for WIRED.Recommendations:Alden recommends Vermont. Lauren recommends tzatziki sauce. Mike recommends The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin.Alden Wicker can be found on Twitter @AldenWicker. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices