The gadget that saved a refugee in the middle of the Aegean Sea, how an agent uses technology to patrol the U.S. border with Mexico, and how a journalist in exile broadcasts the news with WhatsApp. Listen, decode, and decide: Can technology cro

Encryption

Dec 21st, 2016 28m 33s

Five ways a bioethicist wants to change our bodies to fight climate change

Dec 15th, 2016

Dr. S. Matthew Liao, a bioethicist at New York University, believes that solving climate change starts with the individual. That’s why he suggests we turn humans into cat-eyed, meat-allergic, semi-genius, hobbit people.His proposal is dead ser

Smile! You're on camera, and the person watching could be a world away

Dec 14th, 2016

This story is from Codebreaker, our tech podcast that asks "Can it save us?"Every morning Barbara Morrow, an 80-year-old woman in rural Northern Ireland, wakes up at 6 a.m. and puts on a kettle of water. She makes a cup of coffee, powers up he

World Building

Dec 14th, 2016 39m 22s

A proposal to bioengineer shorter humans with cat eyes, a decades-old idea for a totally new kind of power, a battery made from trash and Bill Nye the Science Guy tries to get us in gear. Listen, decode, and decide: Can world-building save us?

Watching

Dec 7th, 2016 36m 33s

The Augmented Self

Nov 30th, 2016 32m 45s

The man who collected too much data, cyborgs who want to make their body-hardware mainstream, robots that rebuild your hairline and a conversation with Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge aka LeVar Burton. Listen, decode, and decide: Can the a

Alternate Reality

Nov 23rd, 2016 35m 28s

A therapist who creates virtual reality experiences for people with dangerous disorders, a grandmother who uses a headset to escape her surroundings and Ernest Cline on virtual reality in fact and fiction. Listen, decode, and decide: Can altern

Recognition

Nov 16th, 2016 33m 12s

A toddler who saved her mother’s life with Siri, a man whose mysterious ailment opened up a world of voice recognition technology and a dating service that wants to scan the faces of all your exes. Listen, decode, and decide: Can recognition so

Introducing Codebreaker Season 2

Nov 2nd, 2016 2m 32s

Introducing Codebreaker Season 2

Nov 2nd, 2016 2m 32s

You have a message from Codebreaker

Oct 19th, 2016 1m 16s

Is it evil? A year of email controversies

Sep 30th, 2016

To prepare for Season 2 of our tech podcast "Codebreaker," we’re revisiting Season 1 and exploring the news around the technology scrutinized in each episode. First up: email.In Season 1 of "Codebreaker," we asked: is email evil?“You’re asking

Data Tracking

Dec 23rd, 2015 31m 37s

How targeted ads for a pair of men’s sandals broke up one relationship, the researchers trying to keep data tracking honest, and the casualties of ad blockers. Listen, decode, and decide: Is data tracking evil?

Going Viral

Dec 16th, 2015 31m 57s

How people-rating app Peeple drew rage and put its co-founders in danger, how a 16-year-old embraced identity through virality, and the funny video that threatened to put its makers into crushing debt. Listen, decode, and decide: Is going viral

The Decisive Machine

Dec 9th, 2015 30m 57s

A guy who thinks machines can prevent crime, another who thinks machines could destroy humanity and a machine-learning algorithm outsmarted by squirrels. Listen, decode and decide: Is the decisive machine evil?

The Software Update

Dec 2nd, 2015 36m 39s

A software update that almost brought down the International Space Station with astronauts inside, updating software inside your body, and the days when even geeks dreaded installing new programs. Listen, decode, and decide: Is the software upd

The Dark Web

Nov 25th, 2015 32m 16s

A couple is forced onto the dark web to buy life-saving medicine; Ben buys a drug scale; and a researcher who says the dark web might make the illegal drug trade safer. Listen, decode, and decide: Is the dark web evil?

Internet Porn

Nov 18th, 2015 44m 12s

A man whose job is scrubbing porn from the web; adult film star Stoya’s battle against free, pirated porn; and the dirty history of tagging. Listen, decode and decide: Is internet porn evil?

Nov 11th, 2015 34m 10s

A woman answers a mysterious email and finds herself on a plane, spam buries our inbox, and a band falls apart over the send button. Listen, decode, and decide: Is email evil?

Trailer

Announcing Codebreaker Season One

Nov 4th, 2015 1m 40s

Produced by Marketplace in partnership with Tech Insider, Codebreaker is a podcast that dares to ask — and answer — the fundamental questions about technology that consume us every day. In season one, we’re starting with three deceptively simpl