archive

November 16, 2011 When he died on Oct. 5, Steve Jobs was eulogized as the tech visionary who put elegantly designed gadgets into the lives of people who often hadn't realized the devices were essential — until Jobs, and Apple, created them. A recently recovered 1995 interview offers another chance to hear from the late CEO.

Summary

November 5, 2011 Las Vegas has seen better days — the unemployment and foreclosure rates are well above the national averages. But there are signs of hope. Tech companies that seemed destined to flourish in Silicon Valley are setting up shop in Sin City, in an effort to revitalize the downtown area.

Summary

September 28, 2011 It's hard to think that in just a year or so trending could be so 2000-and-late. But we all know what happened to car phones. How long will Twitter and Facebook be with us? What fleeting highlights of the 21st century will you miss?

Summary

August 23, 2011 Today on the podcast, we talk to some close observers of the hacker group Anonymous to find out how they operate and what they want.

Summary

ListenPlaylist

July 7, 2011 Old gadgets never die, they just get buried in the back of the closet. As blogger Scott Cameron's ReplayTV announces its intention to stop working at the end of July, it faces the same fate as his Palm Pilot, robotic dog and VHS player.

Summary

June 14, 2011 If you know the right people — and if you can get other criminals to vouch for you — you can go online and buy huge bundles of stolen credit cards. As it turns out, Planet Money knows the right people.

Summary

ListenPlaylist

May 3, 2011 There was a brief moment — post-Friendster, pre-Facebook — when MySpace was a big deal. How did that happen? And why was the moment so brief? The answer involves porn, spyware, and total ignorance.

Summary

ListenPlaylist

April 27, 2011 I just found out I have a disease. It's called, "Netflix Streaming Syndrome." Actually, to be fair, it's more like Netflix/Hulu/Xfinity/Amazon/YouTube Streaming Syndrome. While our streaming obsession is easy to laugh off, there's something to be said about our addiction to immediate media content.

Summary

April 8, 2011 President Obama kicked off his re-election campaign earlier this week with a videoposted on his website and an email and text message blast to supporters stating, "Today, we are filing papers to launch our 2012 campaign – because we've got more work to do."

Summary

April 1, 2011 Welcome to April Fools' Day in the Internet age! Ever since last year's April 1st, when Google changed its name to Topeka for the day, I have been anxiously awaiting this year, to see what kind of shenanigans the web's most popular sites would pull.

Summary

February 25, 2011 When it comes to using mobile devices to talk, text and surf, our manners are getting worse, Americans say. Where do you think you rate? "Rude as you can get" or "an angel"?

Summary

January 11, 2011 What happens when children of the current generation get to play with record players and computer parts from the past? Confusion. Hilarity. And a sense that the times are a changin'.

Summary

December 3, 2010 Man versus machine is the timeless theme of sci-fi books and movies, but many of us fight the battle in our everyday lives.  Where do you go or what do you do to escape technology overload?

Summary