It’s been a couple of weeks since CES—just enough time to fully process everything we saw there. The hosts run through all the trends they spotted at the biggest technology show in the US: Changing television design, the coming wave of high-end gadgets from China, immersive experiences, and Alexa showing up absolutely everywhere. Also, David breaks his iPhone.

Some links: Read all of our CES coverage in one place. David writes the first story in a series about Chinese tech companies. Also, see Liz Stinson’s story about the messy proliferation of Alexa. Recommendations this week are FilmStruck and Google Home as an alarm clock.

Send the hosts feedback on their personal Twitter feeds (David Pierce is @pierce and Michael Calore is @snackfight) or bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab.

Listen closely and you’ll hear the battle cry of the tech adopter: it’ll be better next year! As 2016 comes to a close, we decided to go straight to what’s coming next. Starting the first week of January with CES, 2017 will be a year of big gadget announcements. A new iPhone. A new Pixel. More VR. More Windows. More cameras for your Snapchat. More Snapchat for your parents. And, for better or worse, probably about the same amount of Twitter as this year. Before we left for the holidays, we went through it all.

Some links: The many, many iPhone 8 rumors. Our retrospective on the last year of Twitter. Chris Kohler’s story on Microsoft’s Project Scorpio VR plans. Recommendations this week are two shows you ought to be watching, Fleabag and The 100.

Send the hosts feedback on their personal Twitter feeds (David Pierce is @pierce and Michael Calore is @snackfight) or bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab.

Lots of tech died this year. Went into maintenance mode. Ceased operations. Faded into the distance. Got gobbled up for IP and jettisoned like a spent piece of used jet trash. The hosts run down the list of everything service, app, and piece of hardware that died in 2016. Many we will miss. Some we certainly will not.

Some links: Samsung’s explodo-phone. David’s glowing, claim-chowdery profile of the Project Ara crew. Mat Honan’s 2013 piece about Vine’s distinct culture. Raftery’s Vine eulogy. Hoverboards. VCRs. Ugh. Recommendations this week are Mixcloud and Timepage for iOS.

Send the hosts feedback on their personal Twitter feeds (David Pierce is @pierce and Michael Calore is @snackfight) or bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab.

WIRED’s Chris Kohler and Time’s Matt Peckham discuss Nintendo Switch, Super Mario Run, The Last Guardian, and Final Fantasy XV on the year’s last Game|Life podcast!

Continuing our miniseries of year-end recap shows, David and Michael name their picks for the best products, apps, and gadgets across all of the major categories. Phones, computers, cars, kitchen stuff, and everything else you want to know about. We also hear from the transportation team: Alex, Aarian, and Jack, who discuss Tesla’s big year. Also, we hear from you, our listeners, about your picks for the best gadgets of 2016.

Some notes: The Jonathan Safran Foer article about technology and the human condition can be found at The Guardian. You must try Jeff Morgenthaler’s Clyde Common eggnog recipe. David wants you to know about Tiny Wings.

Send the hosts feedback on their personal Twitter feeds (David Pierce is @pierce and Michael Calore is @snackfight) or bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab.

The sun is setting on 2016, so we’re peeking forward into 2017. David and Michael round up the rumors about what’s next from Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and the other tech heavyweights. The hosts run through all the guesses—credible or not—and judge each one as likely or ludicrous. Also: You’re going to love our new theme song.

Some notes: Rumors about the next iPhone and the next iPad. There’s a Surface Phone and a redo for Windows 10’s design language. The Xbox might get Oculus compatibility. Google’s maybe making a new tablet and laptop, and Amazon is probably going to make an Echo with a screen. Recommendations this week: Auxy and Radio Public. Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

Send the hosts feedback on their personal Twitter feeds (David Pierce is @pierce and Michael Calore is @snackfight) or bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab.

Whatever your politics, whatever your background, whatever your news sources, it seems fair to say that hardly anyone saw the 2016 election ending this way. (Including, it appears, the guy who won the thing.) Which leads us to a somewhat complicated question: What the… how did… are you… did they… what? Or, more helpfully: How did everyone get this so wrong? For the second episode of WIRED Dot Gov, WIRED Deputy Editor Adam Rogers put that question to Tony Blinken, the US Deputy Secretary of State, and to Chamath Palihapitiya, the CEO and founder of Social Capital.

The more pressing question, though, is what happens next. How can Silicon Valley do its part to help all of America, not just the people who sold companies to Google? What responsibility do tech companies have to the “greater good,” whatever that means? And just how much money is too much money? We’re going to spend the next four years, and more, answering those questions. But a few days after the election, while feelings are still raw and the future seems uncertain, it felt like a good time to start.

We’ll be posting each episode of WIRED Dot Gov right here on WIRED.com, or you can subscribe to the WIRED Radio feed in iTunes, or wherever you get podcasts, to hear these and all the other great podcasts we make. Stay tuned.

Earlier this week, David got his sweaty hands on a pair of Snap’s Spectacles, the video-sharing sunglasses (yep!) that have captured the hearts of the digerati and the braces-wearing teens alike. David tells the insane story of trying to buy a pair, failing, and then procuring a set from an enterprising scalper for $600. But it was worth it. The Specs have totally changed the way he looks at Snapchat, social sharing, and humanity. For real, it’s deep.

Some notes: Definitely watch David’s demo video. Read the story about his attempts to purchase a pair of Spectacles. Brian Barrett tells us why Spectacles don’t suck like Google Glass. Keep your eye on the Snapbot, people. Recommendations this week: FIFA 17 The Journey and The NYT Crossword app for Android.

Send the hosts feedback on their personal Twitter feeds (David Pierce is @pierce and Michael Calore is @snackfight) or bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab.

The market for wrist-worn fitness trackers is cooling. With recent reports of Fitbit’s profits dipping and the Apple Watch sales numbers not being super-great, a narrative has emerged over the last few weeks that wearables will soon be dead. There’s some truth to that, though in reality, it just means that the industry is changing to meet new consumer demands. David and Michael discuss what needs to happen for the market to get more interesting.

Some notes: IDC numbers are bad. Canalys numbers are way better. David’s feature story about Fitbit’s quest to get more people wearing Fitbits. David again on smartwatches and fitness trackers. Recommendations this week: Authy and the Garmin Forerunner 735XT.

Send the hosts feedback on their personal Twitter feeds (David Pierce is @pierce and Michael Calore is @snackfight) or bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab.

 

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. Titanfall 2. Dishonored 2. So many games, so little time. What should you play? WIRED’s Jake Muncy has played all three (just a few hours of Dishonored 2, though), so I take this opportunity to quiz her on the results of Blockbuster Brawl 2016.

 

Plus, I yell about the NES Classic Edition, as you knew I might! What does this mean for Nintendo in the long run? The answer may shock you. Or not.