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Personal futures brought to you today by VICE's Motherboard. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.... more
FAQs about Radio Motherboard:How many episodes does Radio Motherboard have?The podcast currently has 131 episodes available.
February 26, 2016Why You Should Own Your Cable BoxThe tyranny of the set-top box may soon be over. The way it works now, you’re forced to rent a cable box from the likes of Time Warner Cable and Comcast to the tune of about $230 per year. The very idea that in 2016 you need a dedicated piece of hardware, whether it’s Comcast’s X1 or Time Warner Cable’s latest “whole home” DVR, just to tune into Guy’s Grocery Games on Food Network is crazy on its own, but the fact that you have to rent these boxes in perpetuity is even worse. The Federal Communications Commission on February 18 issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would make it so that consumers wouldn’t have to rent a set-top box from their cable company. Although this is just the first step in a lengthy process, the prospect of being able to own your own cable box, just as you’re able to own your own cable modem or smartphone, already has supporters of the measure giddy with excitement. And that’s great, of course, but I wanted to lean more about the possible implications of... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....more31minPlay
February 18, 2016Apple vs the FBIEarlier this week, a federal judge in California ordered Apple to help the FBI brute force hack into the encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters, setting up a legal showdown that could have far-reaching ramifications for the future of encryption and privacy in the United States. Here's what you need to know. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....more25minPlay
February 12, 2016Video Games Are Missing Black Voices (Literally)There aren’t many black characters in video games with speaking roles, which is why it’s controversial when some of them are voiced by white actors. The most recent example is Nadine Ross, the strong, black, female antagonist in the upcoming Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, who is played by a white voice actress. To some black players, the fact that major black characters—few and far between as they are—are often voiced by white actors is a reflection of a systemic problem. It’s not the same as a black actor playing a white character, they say, because white actors and white players don’t have a problem with discrimination and exclusion—white people are well represented, if not overrepresented, throughout the industry. This week’s Radio Motherboard features freelance journalist Shonte Daniels, who wrote the original piece for Motherboard; Kotaku writer Evan Narcisse; and voice actor Dave Fennoy, talking about the practice of casting white actors as black characters and the way black people are... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....more58minPlay
February 05, 2016The HyperloopThe hyperloop, Elon Musk’s futuristic, tube-based “fifth mode of transportation” has stoked imaginations unlike any recent transportation technology except for maybe self driving cars.Lots has been said about it—Musk called it a “cross between a Concord, a railgun, and an air hockey table,” while the media has latched on to the promised speeds of more than 700 mph and travel times between San Francisco and Los Angeles of 35 minutes.But much of the promise of the hyperloop still remains theoretical. That changed in a small way last weekend, when SpaceX hosted the first part of its “Hyperloop Pod Design Challenge,” a contest that asks 180 university teams to design the capsules that will actually go inside the hyperloop. In June, 22 of the teams will test their pods in a track being built by SpaceX. I traveled to Texas A&M University to meet the teams, meet the companies actually building the hyperloop, and to separate out the hype from what’s actually happening. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....more33minPlay
January 29, 2016Kickstarter - Failure to LaunchThe Zano drone raised £2.3 million in one of the most successful Kickstarter crowdfunding campaigns of all time. A year later all the money is gone, Zano’s creator is having a nervous breakdown, and its 13,000 backers are livid. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....more39minPlay
January 22, 2016A Practical Guide to Sleep Hacking Your RoomWhat does it take to get a good night’s sleep? In this episode of Radio Motherboard, managing editor Adrianne Jeffries talks to the greatest sleep hacker she knows: her little brother William. We cover blackout curtains, smart light bulbs, sleep headphones, the best white noise mixes, and sleeping in the office. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....more57minPlay
January 15, 2016Free BasicsIf you live in India, or happen to have visited in the past month, you probably noticed the seemingly-ubiquitous advertising for something called Free Basics. It's what you might call a full-court press: full-page ads in newspapers, billboards, and movie theater trailers. Also, if you were to log into Facebook, you'd be presented with an ad (and possibly if you were in the US, too).The first thing to understand is that Free Basics is Facebook, and Facebook is Free Basics, and they're both basically Internet.org. Perhaps more accurately, if expressed in matryoshka dolls, Free Basics is inside Internet.org which is inside Facebook. First, Facebook launched the Internet.org initiative, which covers various projects aimed at spreading internet access to... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....more21minPlay
January 08, 2016The Community-Owned ISPs Building an Alternative to Big Telecom in New York CityIf you want high speed internet in most any spot in New York City, you’re stuck with Time Warner Cable. Or at least, that’s how it usually works. But increasingly around the city, citizens and small community groups are setting up their own locally owned and operated free wifi networks.This week on Radio Motherboard, we take a trip to a meetup where two nascent but potentially disruptive groups were discussing how to collaborate in order to provide new connection options to people around the city.Since 2012, the nonprofit Red Hook Wifi network has been providing totally free internet to people in the small Brooklyn neighborhood. For weeks after Hurricane Sandy struck the neighborhood, the Red Hook Wifi network was the only way many in the community could get on the internet or make phone calls. On any given day, Red Hook Wifi has about 500 users.Meanwhile, NYC Mesh is little more than a meetup group at the moment, but its organizers have big plans. Its network currently has... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....more36minPlay
December 30, 20152015 - The Year in Science Fiction2015 was a banner year for science fiction; Motherboard's resident sci-fi editors, Claire Evans and Brian Merchant, review the year of Mad Max, Ex Machina, and, yes, Star Wars. These are the top stories about the future of 2015. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....more46minPlay
December 25, 2015Transhumanists in Their Own WordsTranshumanism, the idea that humans should use science and technology to extend our natural abilities, is the religion of the 21st century. It's a concept that has been around since the 70s, but seems to be resonating with a growing number of people. Whether it's because of the rise of smartphones, the idea of the quantified self, disillusionment with the world, or something else, transhumanist ideas have been gaining traction in the last 10 years with no signs of stopping. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....more18minPlay
FAQs about Radio Motherboard:How many episodes does Radio Motherboard have?The podcast currently has 131 episodes available.