The Vergecast is the flagship podcast from The Verge about small gadgets, Big Tech, and everything in between. Every Friday, hosts Nilay Patel and David Pierce hang out and make sense of the week’s most important technology news. And every Tuesday, David leads a selection of The Verge’s expert staffers in an exploration of how gadgets and software affect our lives — and which ones you should bring into yours. Click here to subscribe.
Microsoft just can’t quit this whole Office Assistant thing, it turns out — but it might get it right this time. Plus we catch up on Amazon Sidewalk, Matter, and the best laptop microphones money can buy.
Did Pope Drip fool you, too? What does it mean that it worked so well? What will the aliens think when they find the Balenciaga bishop among the remains of our civilization? There’s a lot to talk about this week.
Also, we get into whether Apple’s going to launch an AR headset at WWDC — and whether it should.
We spent the whole hour answering your questions: about tablets and laptops, routers and modems, privacy and gadget reviews. Also doorbells.
We love your questions, please keep ‘em coming! 866-VERGE11, or you can always email vergecast@theverge.com. Without you, we’ll just end up talking about the moon again.
We have... a lot to say about yesterday’s big TikTok hearing, and everything we learned about the app’s future. And grapefruits. And your home Wi-Fi network. And eyes. Plus, we talk Bard and GPT-4 and whether text boxes are the future of the internet.
Did you know that a TV antenna is a useful thing to have, in this the year 2023? I sure didn’t. But we talked a lot about what ATSC 3.0 promises, before getting into how to fill your backpack for a 2,600-mile hike, and which iPad(s) you should buy. This episode is going to cost me a lot of money, I think.
But people are already doing seriously remarkable things with the newest thing in AI. Some people are also seriously nervous about where it’s headed, and how open OpenAI actually is. Plus, would you let a bot write all your emails forever? And wait, hang on, is the moon real? It’s a very existential Vergecast, y’all.
But seriously: what is a Moon photo? What is a photo at all, really? Live from SXSW, that’s what we tried to figure out.
How many wipers does one Cybertruck need, anyway? And can someone please build a good streaming box? Plus we have a lot of ideas about how, when, and why to run right at your bank. Which seems to be a pretty popular activity at the moment. It’s The Vergecast!
They join The Vergecast to discuss Sonos’ new Era 300 and 100 speakers, the ins and outs of spatial audio, and why this is the time to get behind it.
And we’re back! It’s not MWC anymore, but we can still discuss old phones on The Vergecast’s most recent episode (shout out to Windows Phone 7, RIM, and Steven Sinofsky), as well as how Meta’s VR strategy is looking very 32X-ish.
Also, has anyone seen Elon’s Twitter Blue revenue sharing? Let me know if you have.
It must be MWC, because every old mobile grievance was revisited, even as we celebrated what is surely our phone of the future, Motorola’s rollable Rizr concept.
We also dug into Alex Heath’s big scoop exposing Meta’s hardware roadmap, TikTok’s unsettling new filter, and talked a little about Elon Musk. Not too much.
But before we talked about Marvel, Victoria Song came on to help me figure out just what’s going on with the rumors of an Apple Watch that can detect diabetes. Then Ariel Shapiro did a fantastic interview about podcast misinformation, and Charles Pulliam-Moore came on to dissect the latest episode of The Last of Us before we chatted about the backlash to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
On the latest episode (you can find the audio feeds here) TC, Nilay, and Alex broke down this week’s Supreme Court hearings that could significantly impact the internet.
After a break and a lineup change, we also dig into the new fraud charges filed against Sam Bankman-Fried, Spotify’s AI DJ (I don’t trust it), the Microsoft vs. Sony battle over Activision, and Tesla’s new California engineering HQ.
Okay, I also talked with Adi and Sean about their review of the PSVR 2 and we tried to figure out why it isn’t backwards compatible with games from the original PSVR headset. But then Chris Welch, Jen Tuohy, and Chris Person and I debated the best options for multiroom audio.
And then last night the company began telling people to move away from SMS-based 2FA or get willing to pay for Twitter Blue. While we didn’t know what would happen hours later, we did talk about Twitter’s finances, as well as the world’s continued obsession with Bing’s AI, Susan Wojcicki’s departure from YouTube, and more car news than you’d think.
As James Vincent has noted, people simply love Bing despite its tendency to just...make stuff up. Adi Robertson and James joined us to talk about everyone’s newfound affection for AI. We also spoke with Zoe Schiffer about the latest chaos at Twitter and we chatted about Susan Wojcicki’s departure from Youtube.
Bing has gotten smarter, Google had a not great announcement of its competitor, Bard, Elon’s Twitter reach is on the decline, and Bob Iger is restructuring Disney, again. It was a busy week and we covered it all on the Vergecast.
Nilay has access to Bing’s new AI powered search, so we took some of your prompts from Twitter on today’s show. The crew discuss whether this version of search will reshape the way we use the web, and whether or not this can beat Google.
Also on this episode: Disney layoffs, OnePlus announcements, and Elon’s Twitter reach is dropping.
We’re back in video form (audio feeds for your podcast app are here), and this time yes, I admit it — I was occasionally using Nvidia AI to enhance my eye contact with Nilay, Allison, and Monica.
Other than the Galaxy Unpacked news, we also discussed earnings results from Apple and Google as they were announced on Thursday and tried to get a handle on what’s happening to big tech companies.
Big show! Alex Cranz, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, Chris Welch, and Nilay Patel discuss The Verge’s review of Apple’s new second-gen HomePod. How much actually changed?
Later, Katharine Trendacosta and Alex Cranz discuss why and how faking your death has been a common practice on the internet (don’t do it).
Then in segment three, Sean Hollister enlightens us: is the Steam Deck finally ready to play? Listen to the full podcast here.
But besides spending time talking about this new way to watch the Vergecast, we talk about the new M2 Pro and Max devices from Apple, the many existential threats Google faced this week, and Elon’s latest appearance in court.
I sat down with Charles Pulliam-Moore to talk the first two episodes of The Last of Us, but if you want to skip possible spoilers jump straight to 22:05 where I’m joined by Margaret O’Mara, author of The Code, to talk about the unique relationship between noncompetes and Silicon Valley. Finally we wrap the episode up answering your questions—including where all the USB-C only hubs are.
Alex Heath joins the show’s first segment to talk us through the latest update on Elon’s first few months at Twitter, and then we turn to Apple’s eventless hardware announcement, HomePod and all.
We also dove into the revelations about CNET’s AI-written stories and discussed the recent spate of Big Tech layoffs, although we recorded the show (available in audio form here for your podcast apps) prior to Friday morning’s bombshell news from Google.
On the Vergecast we discuss the possibility of touchscreen Macs, and what it all really means for pressing confirmation buttons, zooming in on maps, or maybe using an iPad app or two.
With Nilay roaming the wilderness of upstate New York, I talked to Alex and Dan as we imagined the possibility of Macs with OLED screens that you can touch and tried to figure out what MicroLED would do for us.
We also previewed Samsung’s next Unpacked event and attempted to use unlicensed music with some help from Siri.
I can’t stop thinking about that TV at CES that is not only wireless but also has a whole vacuum suction system on the back of it for mounting on a wall.
Alex Cranz, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, Chris Welch, and Andrew Hawkins dedicate some time to talk about it, as well as some other favorites from CES on today’s show.
This podcast was recorded before Elon Musk’s Twitter ban extravaganza reached its peak, but we dug into the @ElonJets mess. From Apple, we’ll check out the report that it will allow outside app stores on iOS as well as the hole left by a missing M-series Mac Pro in its desktop lineup.
I tried to recap Sam Bankman-Fried’s transition from media tour to handcuffs, and then we talked more about the golden age of streaming and why David Zaslav’s biggest problem might be in his presentation.
So Nilay, Charles, and I gathered to consider who will survive the next streaming age and who will end up on the 90 side of the Go90 Scale of Doomed Streaming Services.
This week on the Vergecast James Vincent joins us to explain ChatGPT and ponder a future where AI writes a lot of the web. Then Nilay has strong feelings about the FTC suing Microsoft, Richard has feelings about Apple’s surprise privacy moves, and I only bring up E Ink once.
