TechStuff

The Attorney General for Washington DC has named Mark Zuckerberg as a defendant in a lawsuit about Cambridge Analytica. Some companies hope to put a private space station in orbit in a few years. And the Boring Company gets closer to its plans for Las Vegas.

In Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash," we were introduced to the concept of a metaverse. Now companies like Facebook are working to make their own version. But what is it?

Members of Congress imply that it might be time to begin a criminal investigation into Amazon. Facebook's AI isn't up to the task of clamping down on hate speech. And NASA wants to build a communications network for the Moon. Plus more!

What caused the great video game crash of 1983 in North America? Was it too many lousy, cheap games? Was it the home computer? Was it E.T.? Or was it more complicated than that?

Former Pentagon chief software officer Nicolas Chaillan resigned, citing frustrations regarding trying to bring the US Department of Defense up to speed with respect to cyber security and warfare. He said that China has effectively won the cyber battle. Is he right?

This episode is all about issues at Amazon and Facebook as the two companies try to fend off allegations that the companies engage in anti competitive practices. Plus we learn a bit about how Facebook is pursuing AI research.

In this classic episode, Jonathan and Chris Pollette talk about the realities of cyber warfare.

Last week, Facebook was dealing with a whistleblower. This week, the company might have another one. Plus stories about Amazon corporate employees working from home indefinitely, Microsoft blocking a massive DDoS attack and Magic Leap trying to bounce back.

In the world of cryptocurrency, there's a need for algorithms to create a consensus for validating transactions. Bitcoin uses Proof of Work. Ethereum 2.0 will use Proof of Stake. What the heck is the difference?

Holly Frey from Stuff You Missed in History Class joins the show to talk about the sewing machine and how it shaped patent law.

A hacker steals pretty much everything Twitch has. Facebook tries to downplay a whistleblower's allegations. And someone has taken over a US Navy Facebook page.

Listener Terje wants to know about space navigation. We look at how orbital velocities, special and general relativity and even stuff like solar radiation can make navigating from point A to point B a big head scratcher once you go into space.

Facebook and all its services disappeared on Monday, October 4th. What caused the outage? Also, the US Senate interviews a Facebook whistleblower, a former Tesla employee wins a lawsuit against the company and Amazon pushes out a very expensive robot.

It was an engineering feat to link England to France via subsea cables. Connecting Europe to America would require even greater innovation. From failed installations to engineering mistakes, we look at what it took to connect two continents separated by the Atlantic ocean.

Listener Antriksh asked that I look into subsea cables, the physical connections that link distant lands together for communication and power transmission. We learn about how physics creates unique challenges for subsea transmission and how 19th century engineers and scientists tried to overcome them.

Area 51 factors into stories about everything from weather-control devices to aliens. Ben Bowlin joins the show to look at the mythology of Area 51.

Instagram and Facebook argue that the Wall Street Journal inaccurately interpreted data about Instagram's effects on mental health. A California law aims to make companies like Amazon more accountable for worker health and safety. And TikTok hits one billion monthly users. Plus more!

A listener asked that I talk about ADCs and DACs, but to do that we have to understand how sound works, how analog works and how digital works. And then we explore whether one format is superior to the other.