What's Tech?
Enjoy the archives of this retired, award-winning series from Christopher Thomas Plante and The Verge that explained technology bit by bit. The series finale aired December 6th, 2016, shortly before Chris re-joined Polygon as its executive editor. For more on what’s happening now (and next) in technology and gadgets, listen and subscribe to The Vergecast.
- Update frequency
- every 6 days
- Average duration
- 24 minutes
- Episodes
- 88
- Years Active
- 2015 - 2016
What is biohacking?
We have a few cyborgs on staff. Ben Popper is arguably the reporter best known for peeling back his skin to insert a piece of technology, which he chronicled in his feature, Cyborg America. But other…
00:24:01 |
Tue 11 Aug 2015
What is space colonization?
After a light night spent skimming the Interstellar Wikipedia page, I began to wonder about some of the bigger questions of humankind: Will we live on Mars? Will we inhabit the moon? Will we just bui…
00:26:35 |
Tue 04 Aug 2015
What is internet television?
I am nostalgic for internet videos in the time before YouTube. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, I remember watching strange, absurd, hideous shorts — shot on home camcorders or animated with cheap …
00:29:50 |
Tue 28 Jul 2015
What are video games?
If you named a video game, I could probably tell you who made it, when, and how it was received. I've reported on the medium in some capacity for seven years, and in that time I've acquired an encycl…
00:26:44 |
Tue 21 Jul 2015
What is beauty vlogging?
Sometimes I’m ashamed by the pockets of the internet I overlook until a friend holds them right in front of me. I knew beauty vlogging was a thing, for example, but I didn’t grasp that the video form…
00:26:08 |
Tue 14 Jul 2015
What is Bitcoin?
Will Bitcoin make me rich? That was my first question about Bitcoin when I heard the term years ago. I didn’t know a thing about cryptocurrency, or why or how a Bitcoin might be used, but it sounded …
00:32:01 |
Tue 07 Jul 2015
What are selfies?
The selfie gets a bad wrap. Labeled shallow and self-centered by its critics, self-portraiture has a rich history, dating back to humanity’s earliest works of art. What changed between artists painti…
00:17:13 |
Tue 30 Jun 2015
What are emoji?
Emoji have become such an everyday part of my life that I can't remember my iPhone keyboard without the adorable icons. The tiny cartoon characters have been my go-to solution for Poe's Law, a way fo…
00:17:29 |
Wed 24 Jun 2015
Bonus: What is Verge ESP?
We're taking this week off because Chris is deep in the throes of E3. We'll be back with a brand new episode next Tuesday/ But today, we have a special bonus!
Verge ESP is a brand new podcast from th…
00:58:25 |
Wed 17 Jun 2015
What is Uber?
Uber is an ideal topic for an episode of What's Tech. It's a ubiquitous piece of technology that millions of people use across the planet. But even intelligent veteran tech executives throw around th…
00:29:43 |
Tue 09 Jun 2015
What is E3?
In two weeks, I will fulfill one of my childhood dreams for the sixth time over by attending E3. The Electronic Entertainment Expo, held every June in Los Angeles, is no longer the biggest video game…
00:29:15 |
Tue 02 Jun 2015
What is space travel?
I want to visit space before I die. I have no practical reason to do so, and surely I'm not alone. I just want to. There's something about the concept of exploration that I pine to achieve. Which is …
00:28:37 |
Tue 26 May 2015
What is Twitter?
While traveling from New York City to my new home in Austin, I downloaded Twitter onto my phone. I have a sordid history with the social media platform, particularly when its stream of opinions is ac…
00:24:37 |
Tue 19 May 2015
What is high-tech coffee?
Every day I practice the same routine: I hop out of bed, take a shower, get dressed, and drink a cup of coffee. The process is so repetitive, it's become this uninspired dance I do with my eyes half …
00:23:38 |
Tue 12 May 2015
What is the Marvel Universe?
If you watched Avengers: Age of Ultron this weekend, you're in good company. The film had one of the strongest openings of all time. As the credits rolled, though, I wondered about the sustainability…
00:22:46 |
Tue 05 May 2015
What is a camera?
I love my new camera, even though I have little understanding of how it works. I recently wrote about the Fuji X100T, which I swear is less complicated than its Terminator-esque name would have you b…
00:24:45 |
Tue 28 Apr 2015
What is the singularity?
If only new episodes of What's Tech appeared on Mondays, we could have run this week's explanation of the Singularity on 4/20. That would have been appropriate. This is, after all, the strangest thin…
00:20:44 |
Tue 21 Apr 2015
What is vaping?
Don't smoke. At least, don't start smoking because of this episode. Vaping has become a niche of tech culture, to the point that I can't attend a press event without getting lost in a plume of root b…
00:22:59 |
Tue 14 Apr 2015
What is live streaming?
When Gary Schteyngart wrote about the äppärät, an iPhone-like device that could stream our thoughts and conversations while monitoring our popularity, the idea seemed like an extreme parody of real l…
00:23:54 |
Tue 07 Apr 2015
What are self-driving cars?
Our future will involve driverless cars. At this year's CES, car companies and graphics card manufacturers alike featured the technology that they believe will power the vehicles of tomorrow. But how…
00:21:37 |
Tue 31 Mar 2015
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