Tech

This week Jonathon and Chris discuss how data affects education, emojis in politics, time-traveling killer robots, and more!

Episode 10: The One about Sarah Connor

The potential to turn messaging into a platform is driving much of the excitement in mobile, says a16z’s Benedict Evans. It's a platform through which other apps flow (and where all the users get aggregated).

Take for example Facebook's recent announcements, which put it right where it wants to be on the mobile phone -- in control. So what’s next in messaging? And what will Apple, Google, and other players like WeChat have to say about it?

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a16z Podcast: Messaging is the Medium

This week’s episode is with Donald Rumsfeld.

Donald is the former Secretary of Defense for the US and, at the tender age of 83, released an app - a solitaire game inspired by Winston Churchill.

We talk about the app, lessons learned over his career, thoughts about succeeding in politics, in business, how he thinks about the future and much more.

Edited by @jennaweissberman
Lavish Praise to @Rumsfeldoffice
Constructive Criticism to @eriktorenberg


Episode 90: Donald Rumsfeld

Over the past couple years web security has become a staple of the nightly news. The stories usually hinge on government leaks, foreign hackers, or web encryption. There’s  menacing subtext that practically everything put online is vulnerable to “cyber attacks.” Though one might wonder what steps are being taken to protect not just the government and giant corporations, but you, the individual. What keeps you safe when you stumble your way into a Wikipedia hole or click a strange link sent from a friend? 

To find out, I invited my colleague Russell Brandom to talk about web security, and particularly HTTPS. As Russell explains, while your information isn’t necessarily less vulnerable, websites themselves are becoming safer. This is a dense topic, but fortunately Russell brought a helpful metaphor. It involves pie.

Subscribe to What's Tech on iTunes, listen on Spotify, or subscribe via RSS. And be sure to follow us on Twitter. You can also find the entire collection of What's Tech stories right here on the The Verge Dot Com.

How HTTPS is slowly but surely making the internet safer

In the early 2000s, the digital photography revolution made it possible for miniaturized camera hardware and image sensors to be packed into cell phones without adding a significant amount of weight. Then the iPhone was announced. As the smartphone war began, the camera became an important part of the ongoing spec race. Competitors tried to beat Apple in making an excellent camera (and app) that was easy to use — and it took until this year for that to start happening.

Now, two-thirds of adults in the US own a smartphone. The average smartphone user takes at least 150 photos per month. Instagram has half a billion monthly users. Even if it’s just selfies or pictures of lunch — nothing has familiarized people with photography like smartphone cameras. It’s now a part of our everyday lives.

I joined Chris on this week’s What’s Tech to talk about my first camera phones, why the newest smartphones have such equally excellent shooters, and where it all goes from here.

How smartphone cameras took over the world

Barcelona had back to back tech conferences the past few weeks. First, VMworld, then OpenStack Summit. We talk with Keith Norbie (@KeithNorbie) and Andrew Sullivan, who were able to attend both events.

Episode 64: VMworld & OpenStack Summit Recaps

This week, the Tech ONTAP Podcast team was very fortunate to corral the godfather of DevOps and author of the Phoenix Project, Gene Kim! We talk about all things DevOps, as well as Gene’s new book, The DevOps Handbook

Episode 65: DevOps with Gene Kim

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