What's Tech?

By The VergeSociety & Culture News Technology Arts Tech News

What's Tech? episodes

June 07, 2016 How a computer the size of a credit card is changing education — and GameBoy emulators
For longer than I would like to admit, I thought Raspberry Pi was a dessert. I'm not proud of that. Fortunately, I eventually learned what Raspberry Pi actually is, and though it's not nearly as tasty, it's just as exciting: an affordable, customizable computer the size of a credit card.
Raspberry Pi has changed how thousands of people tinker with and learn about computers. People have used the hardware to create Game Boy emulators and synthesizers, tiny cameras and jukeboxes.
To learn more about Raspberry Pi and how the hardware is changing computer education, I invited my pal and colleague, The Verge video director Miriam Nielsen, to the show.
Subscribe to What's Tech on iTunes, listen on SoundCloud or Spotify, or subscribe via RSS. And be sure to follow us on Twitter. You can also find the entire collection of What's Tech stories right here on the The Verge Dot Com.
16 min
May 31, 2016 How people play Nintendo games on a computer, and why that's probably illegal
Whether or not you've used a video game emulator yourself — and if you have, it's okay, I'm not gonna snitch — it's impossible to deny their prevalence. Since the age of modern computing, people have figured out how to use code to mimic game consoles like NES and Genesis in order to play them on everything from laptops to smartwatches. Sometimes it's a near-perfect recreation of a childhood memory. Sometimes it's a virtual reality "remix" of a popular cartoon fighter (blatant self-promotion) or something indescribably trippy. In either case, it's probably something the game's developer and publisher are pretty mad about.
20 min
May 24, 2016 What are graphics cards, and why do you want one?
Graphics cards! So hot right now. Whether it's the slow realization that jumping on board with the 2016 VR revolution requires a tricked-out gaming rig you'd never previously have dreamed of stashing under your desk, or the blitz of hype surrounding Nvidia's latest 1000-series GPUs, there's more reason to get excited about PC gaming hardware than there has been in years. But what is a graphics card? Do you really need one, and which one do you need?
29 min
May 17, 2016 Everything you wanted to know about Drake, but were too afraid to ask
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Drake is a former child actor, current pop star, and the secular god of memes — even if he denounces that last label. Born Aubrey Drake Graham, the Canadian celebrity has been inescapable, not just for fans of music, but enthusiasts of technology. That's because Drake is a meeting point of the two.
To talk about Drake's give-take relationship with technology — specifically social media — I invited my friend and colleague Jamieson Cox onto this week's episode of What's Tech. Jamieson is one of my favorite music critics, and as an added bonus, shares the same hometown as Drake, and nearly the same birthday. None of this is relevant, but this is my post, gosh dang it, and I'll include what I want.
Subscribe to What's Tech on iTunes, listen on SoundCloud or Spotify, or subscribe via RSS. And be sure to follow us on Twitter. You can also find the entire collection of What's Tech stories right here on the The Verge Dot Com.
28 min
May 10, 2016 Why movie theaters should and shouldn't be afraid of VOD
A couple weeks ago, my friend and colleague Bryan Bishop visited Las Vegas for a flashy conference called CinemaCon, where movie studios and theater owners discuss the future of the film industry — a future that isn't as predictable as it used to be.
Many theater owners worry that in the age of streaming, the cineplex will become less relevant. The message from studios, however, was clear: theater owners have nothing to fear, because studios still believe big, communal screens are the true home of movies. Of course, that's not entirely true.
Over the past decade, more and more movies have been released directly to VOD, or video-on-demand. VOD is a large umbrella of a format, covering everything from online streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon, to the On Demand section on your cable box. The format has grown dramatically, over the years, in terms of users, but also in terms of reach and power. Movies transition from theaters to home viewing formats faster than ever. And Sean Parker, known for his involvement in Napster and Facebook, is pitching a service called the Screening Room that would allow people with a $150 set-top box to stream movies that are currently in theaters for a $50 flat fee.
So, James Cameron may have been sincere when took the stage at this event to allay concerns about threats to the relevancy of the traditional movie theater. But studios are not so quietly trying to glean their best options from a murky future. To provide us some context and prediction, I invited Bryan onto this week's episode of What's Tech.
Subscribe to What's Tech on iTunes, listen on SoundCloud, or subscribe via RSS. And be sure to follow us on Twitter. You can also find the entire collection of What's Tech stories on the The Verge Dot Com.
29 min
May 03, 2016 Why the future of video games may be free-to-play
If you own a smartphone or have a Facebook account, odds are you've played a free-to-play game. Maybe you grew crops in Farmville or scrimmaged in Clash of Clans. If you're anything like me, one of those city-building games (the kind that publishers shrewdly pair with a popular intellectual property like The Simpsons or Star Wars), has sunk its claws into your free time and shredded it into gory pulp.
Odds are you haven't, however, paid for your free-to-play games. The format, which makes money from secondary purchases inside of the game after its been downloaded for free, only sees purchases from 2.2 percent of its players, according to 2014 report by Swrve. This year's Swrve report has an even more seemingly grim stat: nearly half of free-to-play revenue comes from 0.19 percent of players.
So with those numbers in mind, why is free-to-play gaming still popular amongst some of the industry's best and smartest video game publishers? And why might it be the dominant revenue model for big publishers in the future? I invited my friend and colleague Andrew Webster to explain on this week's episode of What's Tech.
Subscribe to What's Tech? on iTunes, listen on SoundCloud, or subscribe via RSS. And be sure to follow us on Twitter. You can also find the entire collection of What's Tech? stories right here on the The Verge Dot Com.
20 min
April 28, 2016 What is a gadget blog, anyway?
This week, The Verge launched a gadget blog. It's called Circuit Breaker, and you can read about its origin and purpose in The New York Times. Paul Miller, the editor of Circuit Breaker, has spoken a lot this week about the broader hopes and ambitions for the new site. But ever the dullard, I wanted to learn the basics: what is a gadget blog, anyway?
I invited Miller onto the show to get an answer. Miller co-launched The Verge years ago, and before that he worked for Engadget, one of the original gadget blogs. In today's episode we talk about how that site and other former gadget blogs evolved and expanded over the past decade, and why Miller and his crew are returning to the looser, faster, scrappier format.
After you give the show a listen, be sure to visit Circuit Breaker on its two homes: The Verge and Facebook.
Subscribe to What's Tech? on iTunes, listen on SoundCloud, or subscribe via RSS. And be sure to follow us on Twitter. You can also find the entire collection of What's Tech? stories right here on the The Verge Dot Com.
20 min
April 19, 2016 Why bots are the new big thing, and what that means for ordering pizza
2016 is shaping up to be the year of the bot. Late last month, Microsoft made a big bet on tools that will help developers create artificial intelligence software meant to improve the lives of humans by completing small tasks, and last week Facebook launched an entire bot platform for its communication tool, Messenger.
I invited my buddy and colleague Casey Newton — who wrote one of my favorite features on bots — to explain the technology. Newton has some predictions for the applications of bots that I think you'll find interesting. But in the meantime, the most useful bots may be the ones that just order a pizza. The episode pairs well with our recent episode on artificial intelligence, so be sure to give that a listen, too!
Subscribe to What's Tech? on iTunes, listen on SoundCloud, or subscribe via RSS. And be sure to follow us on Twitter. You can also find the entire collection of What's Tech? stories right here on the The Verge Dot Com.
33 min
April 12, 2016 Why artificial intelligence is more important than ever and how it will change our lives
For nearly 60 episodes, one question has persisted through What's Tech: what is happening in the ending of Steven Spielberg's 2001 sci-fi film A.I. Artificial Intelligence? To settle the question once and for all, I invited my friend and artificial intelligence expert, Sam Byford, to appear on the show.
Sadly, as you will hear me learn, Sam Byford is in expert in actual artificial intelligence, not the film Artificial Intelligence. Truth is, he's never even seen the film. But that's okay. This is still one of my favorite episodes of What's Tech, as Byford shares what it was like to attend the recent match-up of human Go champion Lee Se-dol and artificial intelligence AlphaGo.
As for the ending of A.I., I'm sure we'll have an answer in the next 60 episodes.
30 min
April 05, 2016 What is Slack, why is everybody using it, and will it destroy my work-life balance?
I love Slack, the mega-popular corporate-friendly chat client. I love it so much that I desperately want to delete it from my phone, because I can't help but check its messages every hour of every day. Yesterday night, I responded to a message at 3AM. Lol, I have no self-control and this is a cry for help!
Anywho, Slack is still so new that it's possible you haven't heard of, let alone used, the service, which I describe to newcomers as something between text messaging, AOL chatrooms, and AIM — it's no less addicting than a combination of the three. I invited my buddy, colleague, and Slack expert Casey Newton to tell me more about the app, and more importantly, guide me onto a road of self-improvement.
Subscribe to What's Tech? on iTunes, listen on SoundCloud, or subscribe via RSS. And be sure to follow us on Twitter. You can also find the entire collection of What's Tech? stories right here on the The Verge Dot Com.
22 min

About What's Tech?

From the publisher's feed

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…