Gadget Lab: Weekly Tech News

The United States government just passed the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping piece of legislation that allocates nearly $400 billion dollars to fund clean energy and climate efforts. A big chunk of that amount is earmarked for tax credits for consumers. So if you want to install solar panels, buy better windows, purchase a heat pump, or start driving an electric vehicle, there's a good chance you could get some money to offset the cost.This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED writers Aarian Marshall and Matt Simon join us to talk about the ins and outs of the Inflation Reduction Act and how you can score some of those sweet, sweet tax credits. They also tell us what some of the changes mean for the automobile and construction industries.Show NotesRead Matt’s story about how the Inflation Reduction Act could save you money. Read Aarian’s story about how it will lead to more electric delivery vehicles. Here’s their story about where people in cities will charge their EVs. Follow all of WIRED’s climate coverage here.R

Farming has gotten quite tech-savvy. These days, there are all sorts of Wi-Fi-enabled, app-controlled, and autonomously piloted machines out there doing the tilling and harvesting. The biggest player in the high-tech farming field is John Deere, a company which keeps very tight control over who can modify or repair its tractors and other farm equipment. The company’s policies have drawn ire from advocates in the right-to-repair movement, who think that if you buy something, you should be able to fix it, upgrade it, or modify it without having to jump through the company's hoops. Recently, a white-hat hacker discovered a way to jailbreak John Deere tractors, allowing all sorts of non-company sanctioned access to the devices. It’s a big move that has implications for the security of the food supply and for the repairability of devices across the world.This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Lily Hay Newman joins us to discuss the latest John Deere hack and what it means for the broader right-to-repair move

Samsung's mobile phone design philosophy could best be described as "if it ain't broke, bend it." The company—one of the top smartphone manufacturers in the world—announced some new foldable devices this week, and they don't exactly break the mold. Even the Galaxy Z Fold, once Samsung's flagship showcase of wacky innovation, looks and bends more or less the same as last year’s model. But while the designs may not be the most exciting, they do mean interesting things for Android, the mobile software that powers them.This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED reviews editor Julian Chokkattu joins us to talk about everything Samsung announced this week, plus what it all means for the next versions of Android.Show NotesHere’s everything Samsung announced at its Unpacked event this week. Here’s Julian’s review of last year’s Galaxy Z Fold3 and Z Flip3.RecommendationsJulian recommends the Ampere Shower Power Pro, a speaker for your shower. Lauren recommends oatmeal and not watching The Northman. Mike recommends the book The Ni

Maybe you’re intrigued by NFTs. (They can often be pretty fun.) Maybe you’ve even felt the urge to buy a piece of digital art, only to give up once all the talk of wallets, blockchain transactions, gas fees, and digital ownership restrictions made the experience feel too daunting. And the NFT world is daunting! Especially for non-technical folks. Some companies are trying to make the acquisition process less onerous by selling NFT videos pre-installed in digital photo frames that you can buy, have shipped to you, and then display on your desk or wall next to your photos and other artworks.This week, Lauren Goode takes us into this world of pre-framed NFTs and the marketplaces that power them. She also tells us about the looping Steph Curry video currently brightening her kitchen counter.Show NotesRead Lauren’s story about framed NFT art. Listen to our episode last year about WTF is an NFT. Here’s that Infinite Objects Elon Musk NFT if your stomach can take it.RecommendationsLauren recommends mineral sunscreen

If you've opened Instagram recently, you've certainly seen Reels. The photo-sharing app has started aggressively pushing the TikTok-like video feeds onto its users, a move that has sparked a heated response. Longtime users, and even celebrities like Kylie Jenner, have been urging Instagram to ditch the feature, which in addition to showing you more viral videos also shows you fewer updates from your friends and loved ones. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri has defended the move, saying that Instagram is sticking with Reels and showing more videos in general, no matter how you or the Kardashians feel about that.This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Kate Knibbs joins us to rant about Reels and why all the social media platforms are copying TikTok now.Show NotesWatch Mosseri’s recent video about Reels (on Twitter, of course). Read Kate’s story about how Instagram keeps showing her sick kids.RecommendationsKate recommends the book The Value of a Whale: On the Illusions of Green Capitalism by Adrienne Buller. Laur

Facebook has nearly three billion users, which means that when it makes a change to its business, it affects nearly half the planet. Facebook's ambitions have often manifested in chaotic, unpredictable ways and had profound societal impacts for years after they've been implemented. So when the company decided to rebrand to Meta and funnel billions of dollars toward building its own virtual alternate reality, it's a move that's bound to come with some big consequences—if nothing else, for Meta itself.This week on Gadget Lab, we're joined by Shirin Ghaffary from Recode and Alex Heath from The Verge. The new season of their podcast, Land of the Giants, is all about Facebook's transformation into Meta and what it means for the billions of people on Facebook, and in the world at large.Show NotesListen to the Land of the Giants podcast here or wherever you listen to podcasts. Read Alex’s interview with Mark Zuckerburg about Facebook rebranding as Meta.RecommendationsShirin recommends the book Snow Crash by Neal Ste

Do you even vape, bro? Well if the United States Food and Drug Administration has its way, that answer might soon be a hard "no." Last month, the FDA went after Juul, the reigning champ of the e-cigarette industry, and effectively banned the selling of all Juul products in the US. Of course, Juul fought back, and a judge stayed the order. Now, as Juul fights for its life, the rest of the multibillion dollar market of nicotine-dispensing tech has billowed in to fill the space.This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Arielle Pardes joins us to talk about Juul's battle with the FDA and what it means for vaping and nicotine products as a whole.Show NotesRead Arielle’s story about the battle between Juul and the FDA. Follow all of WIRED’s coverage of Juul and vaping. Read the GQ profile on actor Jeremy Allen White.RecommendationsArielle recommends Nixta licor de elote, if you’re of booze drinking age. Lauren recommends the show The Bear on Hulu. Mike recommends The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen.Arielle

Technologists have been crowing about “the metaverse” for a long time now, and here at WIRED we’ve written about it quite a bit, too. But sometimes we’re still unsure exactly how to define this next generation of the internet, which is contingent on 3D experiences (instead of the flat, 2D screens we’re currently glued to) and also a persistent, continuous federated identity. Still confused? It’s OK: On this week’s Gadget Lab, we talk to Matthew Ball, a strategist, venture capitalist, and author, whose new book The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything, hits shelves July 19. We ask Ball how he defines the metaverse, how the internet can possibly be reinvented when the current version is so driven by corporate interests, whether the metaverse should be regulated, and what a realistic vision of “interoperability” might be. Show NotesMatthew Ball’s book is The Metaverse: And How it Will Revolutionize Everything. Read Gilad’s June cover story about Web3. Follow all of WIRED’s metaverse coverage here.

If you work in an office, chances are you spend a lot of time on Slack. The workplace messaging platform has become an even more important tool in the work-from-home era. And it has been rolling out new stuff that's supposed to replicate the office atmosphere, online. Last year Slack introduced Huddles—a spontaneous audio room you can join right in Slack—and it quickly became became the fastest-adopted feature in Slack's history. Now the company is adding video to Huddles, inching toward becoming a full-fledged video conferencing service.This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED writers Lauren Goode and Gilad Edelman chat about the Zoomification of Slack, whether we really need another video chat app, and what this all means for how we communicate online.Show NotesRead Lauren’s story about how the future of Slack looks a lot like Zoom. Read Mat Honan’s 2014 WIRED profile of Slack founder Stewart Butterfield. Here’s Clive Thompson’s piece about how it’s time for “maximum viable product.”RecommendationsGilad recommends ge

Streaming TV was supposed to be a thing you did to relax. But these days you might grab a drink, kick up your feet, and then sit there paralyzed by an absolute cavalcade of options for what to watch. With so many shows and services of varying quality, the streaming ecosystem has become a bloated mess. And now some of the streaming giants are starting to buckle under their own weight.This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior editor Angela Watercutter and senior writer Kate Knibbs join us to discuss how streaming has become such an overwhelming morass and where it goes from here.Show Notes: Read Kate’s story about how reality TV has become a parody of itself. Read Angela’s story about streaming services’ obsession with the franchise series. And check out all of the stories from WIRED’s series, “Why We Hate Streaming.”Recommendations: Angela recommends the show First Kill. Kate recommends Molly Lambert’s podcast HeidiWorld. Mike recommends the website Justwatch.com. Lauren recommends Elon Musk’s Crash Course, a docu

Spring is in the air, so you know what that means: Developer conference season. Apple held its Worldwide Developers Conference this week and used Monday’s keynote address to announce a bunch of new software updates for iPhones, iPads, and Macs. (Oh, and there are also two new MacBooks.) These kinds of events are good indicators or where the tech industry is headed, so we like to take a good look at all the forward-looking software and hardware Apple unveiled at WWDC. This year's event was an in-person affair, though it mostly entailed watching a pre-recorded video while sitting in an outdoor theater.This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED product writer Brenda Stolyar joins us to talk about Apple's grand strategy for ruling the universe and what it was like on (and under) the ground at WWDC.Show Notes: Read more about the new features coming to iOS and iPadOS and Apple’s MagSafe chargers. Check out everything Apple announced at WWDC. Here’s more about the EU’s ruling that manufacturers must make mobile devices have un

The away message is a relic of desktop chat apps from decades past. But this simple feature helped keep boundaries between your online connections and your IRL self. Now that we all have tiny computers in our pockets wherever we go, those boundaries have evaporated. Instead, there's now the constant anxiety that comes with being connected—and available to chat—at all times.This week on Gadget Lab, we talk about how messaging went from casual, asynchronous correspondence to an all-consuming attention hog, and how the tech companies that shape our correspondence could fix it.Show Notes: Read Lauren’s story about how it’s time to bring back the away message.Recommendations: Lauren recommends Jennifer Khan’s profile on Taika Waititi in WIRED. Mike recommends the book Led Zeppelin: The Biography by Bob Spitz.Lauren Goode can be found on Twitter @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 cover story of this month’s issue of WIRED magazine is “Paradise at the Crypto Arcade: Inside the Web3 Revolution” by Gilad Edelman. We interviewed Gilad about Web3 a couple months ago, and this week, we revisit that conversation.Web3 is the latest internet buzzword which encompasses an egalitarian vision of the web that's more reliable, based on trust, and, inevitably, built on the blockchain. This plan for the future is being pushed by startups, venture capitalists, and Silicon Valley bigwigs, all of whom stand to make some sweet, sweet cryptocurrency from a new breed of web app that takes the power from the platforms and puts it back in the hands of the people.Gilad joins us to talk about whether the reality of whatever Web3 becomes will ever live up to Silicon Valley's rosy vision of it.Gadget Lab will be back next week with a brand new episode.

For a lot of people, riding a bike through a crowded city—or even on suburban avenues—might feel daunting. Should you get an electric or acoustic bicycle? What gear do you need while you ride? How do you avoid getting hit by the great big gas guzzlers that take up most of the road? These are valid questions, and we've got answers. May is national bike month here in the US, and Gadget Lab is ready to get you rolling.This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior associate reviews editor Adrienne So joins us as we cycle through all things bikes: How to start riding more, what to look for in an ebike, and what's the best frame color for your grocery-getter.Show Notes: Read more about Adrienne’s guide to the best ebikes. Here’s our roundup of our favorite bike accessories.Recommendations: Adrienne recommends the book A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit. Mike recommends the Lil Guy hip bag from Road Runner Bags. Lauren recommends Adrienne So’s WIRED story “A Letter to My Fellow Asian Mothers From the Multiverse.”Adr

It’s springtime again, which means developer conference season is in full swing. (Hoo-ray?) This week marks the return of Google I/O, the annual conference for programmers who build apps for Google’s many platforms. But I/O, while technically a software conference, has also long been a launch pad for Google hardware. This year, we saw new phones, new earbuds, a Pixel tablet, and even the oft-rumored Pixel watch.This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED reviews editor Julian Chokkattu joins us to talk all about Google’s announcements, from hardware to software to voice assistants. We also debate the ideal shape for a smartwatch (which, for the record, is round).Show Notes: Read all of our Google I/O 2022 coverage in one place. We wrote about the hardware and software announcements, Assistant, and tablet enhancements for Android. Khari Johnson wrote about Google's new skin tone recognition system for AI. We also have Lily Newman’s roundup of privacy and safety features coming to Android 13. If you missed the keynote addre

Hey, remember how Elon Musk bought Twitter? It's been a chaotic week since then, both on and off the controversial social media platform. There are still a lot of open questions about what's going to happen to Twitter. But the whole strange deal also raises questions that extend far beyond one platform. Like, how might this affect the spread of misinformation online? How might it affect democracy itself? Right now, there's no better person to help answer those questions than powerhouse tech journalist Kara Swisher.This week on Gadget Lab, Kara joins us to talk all about Twitter, Elon's machinations, Web3, and cryptocurrency.Show NotesListen to Kara Swisher’s Sway podcast. Read even more about Elon Musk and Twitter. Peruse the archives of Kara and Lauren’s old podcast Too Embarrassed to Ask.RecommendationsKara recommends the film Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. Mike recommends the book Lost in the Valley of Death by Harley Rustad. Lauren recommends you follow The Center for Reproductive Rights (@reprorigh

The social photo-sharing and messaging app Snapchat is bigger than you probably think it is. According to its parent company, Snap, the app has more than 330 million active daily users—that’s over 100 million more users than Twitter.Since the Snapchat app is all about sharing photos, Snap likes to come up with innovative and unique hardware designs that give its users more interesting ways to take those photos. You might remember its camera-bedecked Spectacles from a few years ago. Now Snap has unveiled a “selfie drone” called Pixy. The $230, palm-sized gadget lifts off, takes a sharable photo or video of you, then lands. It’s just a bit of whimsical fun, which is very much the point of the whole Snapchat experience.This week, Michael and Lauren talk about Snap’s new drone, as well as the company’s place in the larger social media landscape.Show Notes: Read more about the Pixy drone in Lauren’s latest story for WIRED. Read about Snap’s first Spectacles, the second ones, and the third ones. Also read about the

It probably won't surprise you that Twitter's a bit of a mess right now. Last week, billionaire Elon Musk made a play to buy the whole company, stating that his goal was to turn it into a bastion for free speech absolutists. Regardless, Twitter is also in the process of undergoing some changes that are posed to shake up the platform, with or without Musk's involvement.This week on Gadget Lab, we’re joined by Casey Newton, the journalist and writer of the Substack newsletter, Platformer. Casey comes on the show to talk all about Twitter, Elon, and the always controversial edit button.Show Notes: Read and subscribe to Casey’s newsletter Platformer. Here’s how Twitter’s edit button might actually work. Read more about what exactly Elon’s vision of truth means.Recommendations: Casey recommends the show Yellowjackets on Showtime. Lauren recommends Goodreads. Mike recommends simplifying your burgers (i.e., stop putting marshmallow Peeps on them).Casey Newton can be found on Twitter @CaseyNewton. Lauren Goode is @La

Even if you spend a lot of time on the internet, you may not give much thought to your browser. Once you find one you like (probably Google Chrome, if you're anything like the other 3 billion people who use it), chances are it just fades into the background while you do your scrolling. But behind the scenes, browsers handle a lot of information, especially when it comes to collecting all of your sweet, sweet data.This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Matt Burgess joins us to talk about the dark side of browsers, and how to go about blocking ads and controlling your data online.Show Notes: Read Matt’s story about DuckDuckGo’s desktop browser. Listen to the WIRED podcast here. Here’s the EFF’s HTTPS Everywhere browser extension. Here’s the Minimal Twitter Chrome extension. For ad-blocking, check out Ghostery. Read Lauren’s story about how websites tracked her after she called off her wedding.Recommendations: Matt recommends the memoir A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter, and also pomegranate

Peloton has had a turbulent couple of years. After the ups and downs of the pandemic economy came a rash of bad press spurned by a series of tragic product accidents. The resulting stock dips and executive shake-ups put the fitness tech company's future in flux. But now, Peloton is trying something new. Or at least new-ish. The Peloton Guide is a device with a camera that sits on your TV and monitors your workout. (Just don't call it a Kinect.) It's far more modest than Peloton's large, fancy stationary bikes and treadmills, and something Peloton hopes will lure in more subscribers. Still, it's another bet on our continued interest in at-home workouts—a market that may not be as robust as Peloton hoped it was.This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED executive editor Brian Barrett joins us for a conversation about Peloton's newest product and the company's future.Show Notes: Read Lauren’s story about the new Peloton Guide. Here’s Adrienne So’s review of the Guide.Recommendations: Brian recommends the novel Middlemarch b