The Engadget Podcast

Texas is facing a once-in-a-century storm, and unfortunately its power grid couldn’t keep up. This week, Devindra and Cherlynn chat with native Texan and techie Alex Cranz about what happened, and why Texas is so unique when it comes to power infrastructure in the US. Also, they dive into Facebook’s decision to halt new sharing in Australia, and why Lastpass decided to make its free password management a lot more complicated.

While it'll be a while before we can celebrate a manned mission to Mars, this week the United Arab Emirates and China made a step towards that goal. Both countries now have satellites orbiting the Red Planet, and China also plans to launch a rover to the surface later this year. In this week's episode, Cherlynn and Devindra discuss the new Space Race for Mars, and how it'll help us learn more about our neighbor. Also, they dive into Facebook's test to limit political content, and the halted TikTok acquisition.

Are we living in a simulation? That’s what Rodney Ascher aims to explore with his new documentary, A Glitch in the Matrix, which premiered at Sundance this week. In this special interview episode, we chat with Ascher about how he broke down such a complex subject. And we also talk with Natalia Almada, the director of Users, about her gorgeous exploration of our relationship with tech, and why it’s particularly anxiety-inducing for parents.

We didn’t have to travel to Utah to drown ourselves in content from the Sundance Film Festival. This week, Devindra and Engadget’s Managing Editor, Terrence O’Brien, chat about all of the wild movies, VR experiences and new media projects they saw at the show. We discuss Rodney Ascher’s dive into simulation theory, A Glitch in the Matrix; the meditative tech documentary Users; and our experiences exploring VR parties. Also, we chat about Jeff Bezos’ plan to step down as Amazon’s CEO (and why it’s terrifying that he has more time to become a supervillain), and the Apple Car rumors are finally starting to sound realistic.

If you were confused about how, exactly, a bunch of Reddit finance obsessives turned the beleaguered GameStop into a white hot stock, you’re not alone. This week, Cherlynn and Devindra chat with Mike Futter, author of the GameDev Business Handbook and co-host of the Virtual Economy Podcast, to make sense of this surprising story. Are the online traders just doing it for the lols? Or are they trying to teach the financial industry a lesson? And isn’t this just another example of online memes bleeding into reality, leading to potentially disastrous consequences? We also get a bit of context from an anonymous member from the infamous R/WallStreetBets subreddit.

We’re back in review mode this week! Cherlynn dishes her thoughts on the Samsung Galaxy S21 and S21 Ultra, and whether they’re worthy upgrades over last year’s phones. Do all those cameras make a difference? And is there a point to releasing a Galaxy Note this year? Also, Devindra discusses the virtual inauguration for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, as well as the rumors around Apple’s upcoming and potentially pricey VR headset. Is this the best strategy to get to an AR headset?

We lived through CES 2021 and all we have to show for it is our tired typing fingers. This week, Devindra, Cherlynn and UK Bureau Chief Mat Smith chat about the most notable announcements from the show. Sure, there were tons of TVs, but PC hardware like AMD’s new Ryzen 5000 laptop chips and NVIDIA’s RTX 30-series mobile GPUs will also shape all the systems we see throughout the year. And they also touch on what happened after the US Capitol was attacked by right-wing extremists. It turns out, social media companies finally decided to take action.

This week, Devindra and Cherlynn were planning to chat about everything coming at CES 2021... but the siege on the U.S. Capitol by right-wing extremists changed things. We discuss how social media and mobile tech played a huge role in planning and executing the attempted coup, and what this means for Twitter and Facebook. And then we somehow manage to keep talking about gadgets and CES.

For the last episode of 2020, Cherlynn and Devindra answer a slew of listener questions, covering everything from when to buy a PlayStation 5 to the future of folding PCs. We also look back at the best moments of covering tech throughout the year (which mostly involve this podcast). And of course, we can’t help but dream about what we’d like to see in 2021, when society (hopefully) shifts back into gear.

This week, Cherlynn and Devindra look back at 2020 to figure out the best and worst of tech. From Apples M1 chip to the downfall of Quibi, it was a year of serious highs and lows for the tech industry, especially once you factor how the COVID-19 pandemic changed our lives.