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
The Conspiracy Theory Election
In the hours after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, conspiracy theories started circulating all over social media, often amplified by powerful voices on both sides of the aisle. It shows a …
00:24:04 |
Sun 21 Jul 2024
America’s Tech Trustbuster
The biggest companies in the world are now tech companies, which is why the biggest antitrust, anti-monopoly fights in recent memory are centered around Silicon Valley.
Guest: Jonathan Kanter, Ass…
00:33:09 |
Fri 19 Jul 2024
The New World of DIY Medical Tests
“Home diagnostics” are a $5 billion industry—and growing. Spurred by social media, people are buying into at-home health tests, without input from their doctors, and often, not even the FDA.
Guest…
00:22:54 |
Sun 14 Jul 2024
Boeing Pleads Guilty
Boeing just pled guilty to felony charges of defrauding the federal government, leading to millions of dollars in fines, and new, external oversight. Is this how the company finally turns it around?
…
00:25:28 |
Fri 12 Jul 2024
The Blu-Ray-naissance Is Here. Sort of.
The downsides of the streaming era are coming into focus for movie fans—uncontrollable, changing libraries; lower fidelity; lack of extras and features. Can all of these be solved with a return to ph…
00:22:39 |
Sun 07 Jul 2024
Elon Says Have More Babies
The world’s population has never been bigger, and it’s still growing. but there’s a movement of “pronatalists” who see the slowing birth rate in wealthy, educated populations as a doomsday scenario i…
00:23:14 |
Fri 05 Jul 2024
Why Are IUDs Still a Mystery?
The story of IUDs is a story of technology, reproductive rights, shortcomings in communication about women’s health, and politics.
Guest: Mia Armstrong-Lopez, managing editor at ASU Media Enterpris…
00:25:52 |
Sun 30 Jun 2024
Why Extreme Weather Keeps Surprising You
Saying any one storm or heat wave or weather in general was “caused by climate change” is tricky—summer is, after all, usually pretty hot, and storms happen. But researchers are working on a model th…
00:30:31 |
Fri 28 Jun 2024
Is Your Phone Tracking Your Driving?
As cars get smarter, automakers - with the help of third-party apps - are leveraging the new data they’re able to collect on people's driving habits to influence drivers’ insurance prices. The proble…
00:25:18 |
Sun 23 Jun 2024
Amazon Wants Your Handprint
Amazon has installed digital palm readers at Whole Foods. The reader scans your palm, collecting biometric data, and links it to your credit card to pay for your groceries. What does exchanging vein …
00:23:10 |
Fri 21 Jun 2024
The FBI Made a Phone Network. It Was A Trap.
In 2021, one of the largest global law enforcement operations took place. It was all thanks to an encrypted phone service known as Anom, which was secretly run by the FBI.
The program was a wild su…
00:33:00 |
Sun 16 Jun 2024
Apple Goes Intelligent
On Monday, Tim Cook announced Apple was getting into artificial intelligence. Is Apple about to do for A.I. what it did for personal computers and smartphones?
Guest: Gerrit De Vynck, tech reporter …
00:24:43 |
Fri 14 Jun 2024
Fee’d Up: A Musician’s Take on Ticketmaster
It’s hard to imagine music fans mourning a break-up of Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation, as a Department of Justice lawsuit requests. But even with this monopolistic middleman out of t…
00:23:18 |
Sun 09 Jun 2024
The Secret Semiconductor War
How well is the Biden administration coaxing semiconductor companies to build their chips in the United States? Compared to Taiwan, South Korea, Japan…or even mainland China, things are just okay.
G…
00:23:25 |
Fri 07 Jun 2024
Would You Buy Poop On the Internet?
“Fecal microbial transplants” treat someone’s unhealthy gut with poop from someone else’s healthy gut, and proponents of FMT claim it can help treat everything from IBS to autism. But if your doctor …
00:23:41 |
Sun 02 Jun 2024
He’s Suing Big Tech Over Uvalde
His law firm won a $73 million dollar settlement against Remington on behalf of nine Sandy Hook families. Now he’s filing a lawsuit against the gunmaker Daniel Defense, the video game company Activis…
00:26:44 |
Fri 31 May 2024
Why Hospitals Keep Getting Hacked
Last year saw a record number of healthcare hacks with more than 700 separate incidents. And with a subsidiary of United Healthcare forking over a $22 billion ransom this year, the problem isn’t goin…
00:23:35 |
Sun 26 May 2024
Scarlett Johansson vs OpenAI
When OpenAI showed a demo for the latest version of ChatGPT —the one that you can chat with, you know, with your voice—one of the voices sounded eerily familiar. And instead of a victory lap, it was …
00:26:51 |
Fri 24 May 2024
The Dark Side of GoFundMe
In theory, crowdfunding sites offer an opportunity for anyone to give to any cause, including, say, strangers facing huge medical bills. In practice, crowdfunding suffers from many of the same inequi…
00:32:27 |
Sun 19 May 2024
Too Stonks Too Furious
The 2021 subreddit-coordinated effort to raise the price of Gamestop stock was, in some ways, a proof of concept: the little guy can get into the market and make some noise. Because even though that …
00:24:48 |
Fri 17 May 2024
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