You know them, you hate them: political robocalls, telemarketers and phone scams.

This week J.D. introduces us to services that help stop that flood of annoying calls and fills us in on what steps the FTC and the FCC are taking to help end the scourge.

In the news, Apple wins a big one in court;  Microsoft finally puts a price on its Hololens augmented headset (and it ain’t cheap); Google’s self-driving car gets into an accident; and a long trip into space comes to an end.

Of course there’s more news and lots of shenanigans, so click play and enjoy the ride!

Questions, we have questions this week. Will Apple be able to stand up to the Justice Department over creating back doors into its software?  Will Old Media and New Media ever figure each other out? Will we soon be able to pay for purchases with our faces? These are just some of the talking points on this week’s episode of Pop Tech Jam as journalist Laura M. Holson rejoins El Kaiser and J.D. at the podcast table, fresh off her trip to last week’s Code/Media Conference in California.

Making a video can take a lot of time and effort, especially if one is not trained in the art. Magisto, a popular consumer app that uses algorithms to analyze raw footage and create a video narrative for home users, has just rolled out a business version designed to help small and mid-sized companies easily craft clips to promote their products. Dr. Oren Boiman, the chief executive officer and a co-founder of Magisto, explains how it all works and what makes for a good business video.

And, as with each and every episode of Pop Tech Jam, El Kaiser and J.D. discuss the latest developments in technology and pop culture, including news from New York Toy Fair 2016 and NASA’S Help Wanted pages.

A big week of tech news as FCC chairman Tom Wheeler announces a proposal that would do away with cable set-top boxes; President Obama looks to increase spending for national cybersecurity; Rumored changes to Twitter gets the Twitterati fired up; and Mikko Hypponen of F-Secure curates a museum of Malware.

Of course there’s lots more tech news to discuss but J.D. also finds time to fill us in on how some tech giants brag about their research and development, while others don’t.

Google’s corporate parent, Alphabet, is now the most valuable company in the world but all Pedro has on his mind is virtual reality. J.D. puts together a set of the Big G’s Cardboard VR goggles for the hapless Kaiser then fills us in on some very useful apps and sites to help U.S. voters make an informed decision on Election Day in November.

 

While still wrapping our brains around the fact that X-Files is back on TV, we found time to pack this episode with snark and shenanigans that will (hopefully) keep you informed and entertained during your commute, at the gym, at home or anywhere you listen to the best darned tech-themed around. This week, J.D. highlights some apps that mix in a dose of fun with the weather details and in the news, Twitter shakes up its executive ranks; Sony does some corporate housekeeping; Amazon gets duped by hackers; and those sites tracking Abe Vigoda’s status make one final update.

Of course there’s more. Just take a listen!

So much going on we had to supersize the show this week! El Kaiser reviews the Steelseries Nimbus wireless game controller, the first controller that officially supports the 4th generation Apple TV. J.D. is back from her jaunt across the pond and reports on a museum exhibition that explores how the “datafied” world affects us all.

We also revel in the Big Stupid with a special segment on the silliest gadgets displayed at this year’s CES extravaganza in Las Vegas and the 25 worst computer and Internet passwords.

Don’t despair, we also offer up a huge chunk of the latest tech news, now with extra snark.

It’s the first week of January and the streets of the Big Apple, the city that (allegedly) never sleeps, are quiet. The Holiday tourists have gone home. Perpetually grumpy New Yorkers are enjoying our short respite from the out-of-towners we love to hate.

But the streets of another sleepless city tell a different story this week. Las Vegas is jam-packed with thousands of gadget nerds reveling in the consumer technology bacchanal that is CES. This year the event features 3,600 exhibiting companies and over 200 conference sessions.

We’ve girded our loins for the onslaught of hyperbolic press releases and breathless on-the-scene reports to bring you the latest news from the desert party.

Also on the show, J.D. shares tips to help us budget our money using online data and El Kaiser gives us his take on the goings on in Nevada this week.

It’s 2016. The podcast revolution continues!

2015 has come and (almost) gone and it’s time for the media-mandated Look Back at the Year We Just Had. [Drumroll … rimshot … clown horn noise] Noted in no particular order, here’s our list of high points, low points and things that just stood out to us here at Pop Tech Jam HQ over the course of the earth’s latest loop around the sun:

• NASA: New Horizons and Beyond.— While it wasn’t quite the Apollo 11 mojo, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had a banner year with the New Horizons successful flyby of Pluto and data treasure trove that’s still trickling back from the other side of the solar system. The agency also grew lettuce, aged whiskey and ran many other experiments up at the International Space Station while its Dawn spacecraft took at look at the dwarf planet Ceres. And that Matt Damon movie was very good publicity.

• Windows 10. Microsoft released its successor to the much-reviled Windows 8 this summer. Despite some major bugs and user wariness, Win10 did see relatively fast adoption rates by 8Haters, people finally upgrading from XP and those who wanted to try out the new technology as soon as they could.

• Security! Security! Security! (or Lack Thereof…). It seemed like no corporate database was safe from intrusion this year. Plenty of major companies got breached, including Anthem health insurance, the CVS Photos site, interactive toymaker VTech, the federal Office of Personal Management, the Internal Revenue Service, the Ashley Madison site for love affairs, Slack and Experian’s T-Mobile servers. Just to name, you know, A FEW OF THEM.

• Underwhelming Apple. The

This week is all about the news with a dash of Holiday cheer to liven things up. The Dynamic Duo rundown the week’s tech news and later in show, J.D.  shows us where to go to stay informed 24/7.

Christmas is just around the corner. Make sure you give yourself the gift of POP | TECH | JAM this year. You’ll be glad you did!