What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the...
Every Friday and Sunday, Slate’s popular daily news podcast What Next brings you TBD, a clear-eyed look into the future. From fake news to fake meat, algorithms to augmented reality, Lizzie O’Leary is your guide to the tech industry and the world it’s creating for us to live in.
126
Elon Says Have More Babies
Billions of anything is just never enough for this guy.
19 min
127
Why Are IUDs Still a Mystery?
From a murky, painful start to a symbol of reproductive freedom.
22 min
128
Why Extreme Weather Keeps Surprising You
Scientists are trying to determine when a hot summer is climate change, or just the weather.
27 min
129
Is Your Phone Tracking Your Driving?
The business of collecting driving data is lucrative. Most drivers aren’t aware it exists.
21 min
130
Amazon Wants Your Handprint
Biometric payment methods are coming to Whole Foods and beyond. Should we be worried?
19 min
131
The FBI Made a Phone Network. It Was A Trap.
Anom was used by thousands of criminals. It was run by the FBI.
29 min
132
Apple Goes Intelligent
The giant Silicon Valley holdout joins the AI race. But is the demand real or artificial?
21 min
133
Fee’d Up: A Musician’s Take on Ticketmaster
Look what you made Merrick Garland do
19 min
134
The Secret Semiconductor War
The race is on and America is trailing. Why is it important to catch up?
19 min
135
Would You Buy Poop On the Internet?
The wild world of peer-to-peer Fecal Microbial Transplants.
20 min
136
He’s Suing Big Tech Over Uvalde
The lawsuit includes the gunmaker, Meta, and Activision, the company behind Call of Duty.
23 min
137
Why Hospitals Keep Getting Hacked
New computer security systems may not be a priority for your hospital. They should be.
20 min
138
Scarlett Johansson vs OpenAI
Is OpenAI’s latest scandal a sign of what’s to come?
23 min
139
The Dark Side of GoFundMe
Even when it succeeds, it’s evidence of a broken system.
28 min
140
Too Stonks Too Furious
Meme stocks are back—wait, they never really went away.
21 min
141
Would You Choose Your Child’s Sex?
Almost every country has banned the practice—but in the US, its growing.
25 min
142
Meet the Trump Campaign’s A.I. Guy
The artificial intelligence election is on.
17 min
143
Can California Save Journalism?
The Sunshine State considers making Google and Meta pony up—and making news outlets spend that revenue on their staff.
20 min
144
Bird Flu—It’s in Milk?
Scientists are observing, for the first time, the virus spreading cow-to-cow—is human-to-human next?
21 min
145
The Failures of ‘Organic’ Farming
Organic farms try to make their products better for people, but that doesn’t mean better animal welfare.
24 min
146
So ... Is TikTok Banned?
Or has the long journey to banning the short-video app just begun?
19 min
147
The Internet Archive Endangered
A non-profit site just digitized Aruba’s history. They could be sued out of existence.
19 min
148
What’s Driving Tesla’s Layoffs?
The EV maker may be demonstrating why other car makers don’t do it this way.
19 min
149
Is America Ready for Legal Psychedelics?
How the push for legal ‘shrooms can avoid the problems plaguing legal cannabis.
23 min
150
Does Google Suck Now?
Wither our once-best search engine?
23 min