Slate Technology

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.

Public health officials are asking: what will it take to convince that third group that now is the time to vaccinate? 

Guests:

Julie Hamill

Dr. Aaron Carroll, pediatrician and professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine

Host: Lizzie O’Leary

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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’Leary

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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 masks. And later, they were booking vaccine reservation spots.

Why are bots taking over certain markets? And is there anything we can do to slow them down?

Guests: 

Derreck Johnson, designer at Slate

Eric Budish, economics professor at the University of Chicago

Host: Seth Stevenson

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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 like Opendoor and Offerpad, also known as iBuyers. 

So, why did Zillow put their plans on pause last weekend? Can online middlemen really change the way we buy and sell houses?

Guests: 

Tony Santos, homeowner

Patrick Clark, reporter at Bloomberg

Host: Henry Grabar

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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 too. For Twitch, it was the entire source code for their site. 

But the attackers aren’t holding this data for ransom. In fact, they don’t seem to want much of anything. What’s motivating this new wave of activist hacks? And who suffers?

Guest: Drew Harwell, tech reporter at the Washington Post

Host: Lizzie O’Leary

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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 motivates Frances Haugen? And can she do real damage to the social media giant?

Guest: Jeff Horwitz, tech reporter at the Wall Street Journal. 

Host: Lizzie O’Leary

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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 girls. 

Why has it taken so long for their research to surface? And what can be done to improve the relationship between kids and the platform?

Guest: Georgia Wells, tech reporter at the Wall Street Journal. 

Host: Lizzie O’Leary

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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 the rapid antigen test. 

What if that isn’t quite true? 

Guest: Michael Mina, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health 

Host: Lizzie O’Leary

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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 tutors, diehard celebrity fans, and tech giants have all faced fresh restrictions from Beijing. What’s behind this new wave of crackdowns?

Guest: Brenda Goh, technology correspondent for Reuters

Host: Lizzie O’Leary

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Hey Secret History fans! We thought you might like this episode of What Next: TBD. What Next is Slate’s daily news show. And every Friday, What Next: TBD turns the news of the present into a glimpse of what tomorrow holds. From fake news to fake meat, augmented reality to MRNA, in each episode host Lizzie O'Leary talks to an expert about the technology that’s reshaping our world.

In this episode: The Biden administration says a third dose of vaccines for all American adults will end the pandemic faster. And experts say there is evidence of waning vaccine effectiveness against mild-to-moderate disease. But globally, what’s the best use of the next available dose? 

If you like this episode, subscribe to What Next or What Next: TBD on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Guest: Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health. 

Host: Lizzie O’Leary

This episode was produced by Alyssa Edes.

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