What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future
Every Friday and Sunday, Slate’s popular daily news podcast What Next brings you TBD, a clear-eyed look into the future. From fake news to fake meat, algorithms to augmented reality, Lizzie O’Leary is your guide to the tech industry and the world it’s creating for us to live in.
- Update frequency
- every 3 days
- Average duration
- 28 minutes
- Episodes
- 601
- Years Active
- 2017 - 2025
Best of 2021: It’s Time to Talk About U.F.O.s
This episode originally aired in July 2021
Last week, the U.S. government released a new report that attempts to categorize 144 verified sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena, or U.A.P. They co…
00:24:29 |
Fri 31 Dec 2021
Best of 2021: Are We Getting COVID Testing All Wrong?
This episode originally aired in September.
In the U.S., the PCR test is the gold standard for COVID testing. Common knowledge would have it that the test is more accurate—and therefore more effecti…
00:30:10 |
Fri 24 Dec 2021
The Carbon Capture Fantasy
Using experimental technology to pull gigatons of carbon out of the air and bury it deep beneath the Earth sounds like a bad sci-fi plot point. If things don’t change soon, it also might be one of ou…
00:26:48 |
Fri 17 Dec 2021
Who Online Justice Leaves Behind
The U.S. civil court system doesn’t get as much attention as the criminal courts, but it would be hard to overstate its importance. In 2018, for example, 47 percent of respondents to a Pew survey sai…
00:18:43 |
Fri 10 Dec 2021
Did @jack Ruin Twitter?
On Monday, Jack Dorsey stepped down as CEO of Twitter. It’s not the first time he’s left the job.
Is this really the end for the man who guided Twitter through the Trump era? And how will the platf…
00:18:24 |
Fri 03 Dec 2021
Best of 2021: Inside the Subreddit That Blew Up GameStop
This episode originally aired in January 2021
The story of how GameStop went from the verge of a bankruptcy to a $15 billion market value isn’t an easy one to wrap your head around. But it helps to …
00:23:59 |
Fri 26 Nov 2021
Space Junk! (And Space Wars?)
Over the weekend, Russia tested a new weapon—a type of missile that can fly into space and destroy a satellite in orbit.
The test created thousands of pieces of debris, which will hurtle around t…
00:23:00 |
Fri 19 Nov 2021
The Kid-Vaccine Holdouts
A recent poll showed that about a third of parents of younger children would get their kids vaccinated, a third would not, and the final third said they wanted to wait and see how the vaccines worked…
00:25:25 |
Fri 12 Nov 2021
How Schools Surveil Your Kids
In schools across the country, tighter digital controls were put in place to keep kids on task during the pandemic. Are they here to stay?
Guests: Priya Anand, reporter at Bloomberg
Host: Lizzie O’…
00:22:11 |
Fri 05 Nov 2021
Why Are Bots Buying Sneakers?
The bots aren’t just buying cool sneakers. They’re buying concert tickets. Tickets to basketball games and Broadway shows. At the beginning of the pandemic, they were buying hand sanitizer and face m…
00:26:02 |
Fri 29 Oct 2021
Honey, I Sold the House to Zillow
Between April and June of this year, Zillow bought nearly 4,000 homes. And they had no intention of holding onto them. The plan was to flip houses, often and at scale, joining the ranks of companies …
00:20:24 |
Fri 22 Oct 2021
The Return of Hacktivism
Over the last month, the domain company Epik and the streaming service Twitch have fallen prey to massive-scale hacks. The hackers revealed not just email addresses, but detailed personal information…
00:23:23 |
Fri 15 Oct 2021
Will the Facebook Whistleblower Make a Difference?
The last month has seen a steady drip of leaked documents from inside Facebook, each seemingly more damning than the next. This week, the whistleblower behind the leaks revealed her identity.
What m…
00:24:41 |
Fri 08 Oct 2021
What Instagram Does to Teens
Since 2018, internal research teams at Facebook have been studying the effect on Instagram on mental health. Their results couldn’t be more clear: Instagram is causing problems, especially for teen g…
00:23:24 |
Fri 01 Oct 2021
Are We Getting COVID Testing All Wrong?
In the U.S., the PCR test is the gold standard for COVID testing. Common knowledge would have it that the test is more accurate—and therefore more effective at containing the spread of the dease—than…
00:28:32 |
Fri 24 Sep 2021
Sponsored: Tech Solutions that Serve L.A. Citizens with Ted Ross
The final episode of Season 1 features Ted Ross, Chief Information Officer for the City of Los Angeles. His role became more vital than ever during the pandemic, with L.A.’s 4 million residents and 5…
00:30:10 |
Wed 22 Sep 2021
China vs. Video Games
Recently, China restricted video game playing to just three hours a week for its young people: 8pm to 9pm, Friday through Sunday.
And that’s not the only change. Over the last few months, private tu…
00:17:33 |
Fri 17 Sep 2021
Can This River Be Saved?
The Colorado River Basin is experiencing its 22nd year of drought. Its reservoirs are at their lowest-ever levels. The water stored in the system is at just 40 percent of its capacity. How did the si…
00:20:26 |
Fri 10 Sep 2021
The Rush for Ivermectin
A medicine meant to treat parasites is the latest unproven COVID treatment craze. With warnings from the FDA, and prescribers clamping down, some are going to extreme lengths to get their hands on th…
00:23:22 |
Fri 03 Sep 2021
Elizabeth Holmes on Trial
Elizabeth Holmes convinced countless people that her company would change the world. Can she convince 12 jurors that she didn’t intend to deceive her company’s patients and investors?
Guest: Rebecca…
00:25:18 |
Fri 27 Aug 2021
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