TechStuff

What is Periscope? What's the technology behind the company? And did Jonathan livestream a podcast?

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The makers of Grand Theft Auto are responding to a hacker who leaked dozens of videos of the next title in the series. Russia implies it might shoot down Starlink satellites. And Iran cracks down on the Internet in the wake of civil protests.

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What is the ping tool, what is it used for, and where did it come from? We learn about the man who first created ping, why it's not an acronym for anything, and why gamers care about it.

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An appeals court is preparing to hear arguments from Epic, Apple, the State of California and even the US Department of Justice in the ongoing battle between developers and Apple. Hackers gained access to Uber's systems and we're not sure how bad it was yet. And Nvidia is announcing new GPUs today! 

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The Fairphone company's mission is to make smartphones that are repairable, rely on sustainable and recycled materials, and that aren't contributing to troublesome operations in your typical electronics supply chain. So we take this opportunity to turn a critical eye to the tech industry to understand why Fairphone's mission is so important.

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What was HitchBot all about and what happened to it? From hitchhiking across Canada to a violent end in Philadelphia, we tell the robot's story. Scott Benjamin guest hosts.

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Twitter shareholders voted to approve Elon Musk's acquisition bid for Twitter even as a whistleblower testified in front of Congress that Twitter has terrible security practices. Plus Senators put social media in the hot seat, California sues Amazon and EA's anti-cheat strategy is scary. 

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Listener Ryan Barrier asked how advertising works in podcasting, and how even old episodes can have current ads in them. So in this episode, we look at dynamic ad insertion and the tricky challenge of balancing business with content.

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Twitter's shareholders are expected to approve Elon Musk's proposed Twitter acquisition even as Musk continues to try and extricate himself from the deal. Meta spins off the PyTorch project into a new, independent foundation. Square Enix announces that a computer game is going to shut down prematurely. And much more!

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One challenge with data preservation is that the way we store information changes rapidly. In this episode, we look at some media formats that are now obsolete, including some that Jonathan had never heard about before!

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Is Google Plus heading off into the sunset? What happened? In this update to a classic episode, TechStuff looks at what went wrong.

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Apple held its Far Out event and unveiled new iPhones, Apple Watches and Airpods. Google is telling employees to cut back on company travel. Microsoft has invested in Travis Kalanick's next company. And Twitter is going to let a subset of users finally edit their tweets.

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Way back in 1939, GM proposed a highway system that would allow cars to travel rapidly down highways with no danger of traffic congestion or accidents. What would it take to create an automated highway system, and why is the focus instead on making vehicles themselves autonomous? 

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We'll have to wait a while longer before the first of NASA's missions to return us to the Moon takes off. Plus, Brazil tells Apple to include phone chargers or else, a human rights group tells Meta to step up against Brazilian President Bolsonaro's misinformation campaign, and the hardware chief who oversaw the development of the PS5 is retiring. And more!

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Special guest Jack Pattillo joins the show to talk about the former Disney Hollywood Studios attraction, The Great Movie Ride. From immersive storytelling to the implementation of a new kind of animatronic, Jack and Jonathan explore this long-gone ride.

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How does radiocarbon dating work? And why might it be less reliable in the future? Learn about carbon-14 and how it can be used to guess when ancient things were alive.

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NASA is going to try again with the Artemis I launch, part of the program to return humans to the Moon's surface. Microsoft faces potential resistance to its acquisition of Activision Blizzard among UK regulators. And Dungeons & Dragons sends a D20 to space. Kind of.

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What is a cam? How do cams fit into mechanical systems, and why do we use them? 

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