TechStuff
HowStuffWorks
TechStuff is getting a system update. Everything you love about Tech Stuff now twice the bandwidth with new hosts, Oz Woloshyn (Sleepwalkers) and Karah Preiss (Sleepwalkers).
Oz and Karah bring humour and wit to the table as they break down what's happening in tech...and what it says about us.
TechStuff is the podcast where technology meets culture.
We speak to the folks building the future to understand what tomorrow will look like and how our technology is changing us: how we live, how we love, how we work and even how we die. With a healthy dose of drama, too, as tech titans clash over their interstellar ambitions.
Get in touch here: techstuffpodcast@gmail.com
Location:
Atlanta, GA
Description:
TechStuff is getting a system update. Everything you love about Tech Stuff now twice the bandwidth with new hosts, Oz Woloshyn (Sleepwalkers) and Karah Preiss (Sleepwalkers). Oz and Karah bring humour and wit to the table as they break down what's happening in tech...and what it says about us. TechStuff is the podcast where technology meets culture. We speak to the folks building the future to understand what tomorrow will look like and how our technology is changing us: how we live, how we love, how we work and even how we die. With a healthy dose of drama, too, as tech titans clash over their interstellar ambitions. Get in touch here: techstuffpodcast@gmail.com
Twitter:
@TechStuffHSW
Language:
English
Contact:
HowStuffWorks.com One Capital City Plaza 3350 Peachtree Road, Suite 1500 Atlanta, GA 30326 404-760-4729
Email:
media@howstuffworks.com
Episodes
What the Tech? w/ Jonathan Strickland in Doha
2/28/2025
This week, Oz is on the road, at the Web Summit Qatar, and he’s not alone. Joining him from the iHeart pop-up studio in Doha is a very familiar figure, Jonathan Strickland. Oz and Jonathan sit down to discuss some of the highlights of the Web Summit, including the future of the AI chip race, advances in augmented reality and how news organizations are grappling with AI.
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Duration:00:38:53
The Story: Russia’s Espionage ‘Laboratory’ w/ Ben Taub
2/26/2025
Ben Taub is a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and staff writer at The New Yorker. His piece, “Russia’s Espionage War in the Arctic,” covers tensions at the Russian border with Norway. An area Russia uses as a testing ground for future intelligence operations. Taub sits down with Oz to discuss the technology being used for survival and for espionage, as the war in Ukraine escalates and things heat up with NATO.
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Duration:00:31:58
TechStuff x Part-Time Genius: Redefining ‘Luddite’ w/ Brian Merchant
2/21/2025
This week, TechStuff teams up with Part-Time Genius for a special crossover episode. Oz and Mangesh Hattikudur, host of Part-Time Genius, discuss a largely misunderstood group of machine destroyers. The Luddites. Joining them is tech journalist Brian Merchant, author of Blood in the Machine, to dig into the history of humans fighting against job automation, why we equate Luddites with technophobes and what we can learn from these 19th century rebels in the age of AI.
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Duration:00:43:53
The Story: Liar, Liar, Deepfakes on Fire w/ Hany Farid
2/19/2025
Hany Farid is a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He's been a leading voice on digital forensics for over two decades—pioneering ways to identify if an image, audio or video has been digitally altered. Since the rise of social media, Farid has kept busy helping news organizations, government agencies and law enforcement determine what is real and what is fake online. Farid sits down with Oz to talk about his initial interest in digital forensics, the effects of misinformation on society, and whether he wants an AI likeness of himself to live on after he dies.
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Duration:00:29:19
Week in Tech: Musk and Federal Money–A Love Story
2/14/2025
What do the Brits want from Apple? This week in the News Roundup, Oz and producer Eliza Dennis explore how lithium-ion batteries and wildfires don’t mix, the UK government’s demand for a backdoor to iPhones and the James Webb Space Telescope–it rocks! On TechSupport with 404 Media’s Emanuel Maiberg, a new study finds that AI might affect our critical thinking skills. And finally, Oz digs into Elon Musk’s government contracts.
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Duration:00:28:32
The Story: Denial Isn’t the Answer w/ Geoffrey Hinton
2/12/2025
Geoffrey Hinton is a computer scientist, cognitive psychologist, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics. His work on artificial neural networks earned him the title, ‘Godfather of AI,’ but in recent years, he’s warned that without adequate safeguards and regulation, there is an “existential threat that will arise when we create digital beings that are more intelligent than ourselves.” Hinton sits down with Oz to discuss his upbringing, research, time at Google and how his experience with grief informs how he thinks about the future of AI.
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Duration:00:36:18
Week in Tech: Are You There God? It’s Me, AI
2/7/2025
Do smart fridges help business? This week in the News Roundup, Oz and producer Eliza Dennis unpack Walgreens’ refrigeration woes, the future of supersonic planes, and what the Vatican has to say about AI. On TechSupport with 404 Media’s Joseph Cox, the FBI’s unique relationship to one encrypted phone company. And finally, Oz tests out Google’s virtual office assistant in When Did This Become a Thing?
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Duration:00:35:23
The Story: Ask Lots of Questions w/ Meredith Whittaker
2/5/2025
Meredith Whittaker is the president of the Signal Foundation and serves on its board of directors. She is also the co-founder of NYU’s AI Now Institute. Whittaker got her start at Google, where she worked for 13 years until resigning in 2019 after she helped organize the Google Walkouts. She speaks with Oz about learning on the job, championing data privacy and being awarded the Helmut Schmidt Future Prize for “her commitment to the development of AI technology oriented towards the common good.”
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Duration:00:42:41
Week In Tech: DeepSeek Freak Out
1/31/2025
Is China winning the AI race? This week in the News Roundup, the story that roiled US stock markets on Monday – DeepSeek. Oz and producer Eliza Dennis unpack the hype. On TechSupport with 404 Media’s Jason Koebler, how human ingenuity continues to subvert tech. We hear how one coder has decided to entrap AI web crawlers. And finally, Oz digs into our love affair with personal data in When Did This Become a Thing?
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Duration:00:33:51
The Story: Mars, Asterisk w/ Nathaniel Rich
1/29/2025
Nathaniel Rich is a novelist, essayist and writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine. Rich sits down with Oz to talk about his essay, “Can Humans Endure the Psychological Torment of Mars?” The piece explores NASA's CHAPEA (“Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog”) mission, a simulation meant to test a major challenge of Mars missions – isolation.
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Duration:00:47:55
Smart Talks with IBM: How Infrastructure is Powering the Age of AI
1/28/2025
In this episode of Smart Talks with IBM, Malcolm Gladwell speaks with Ric Lewis, IBM’s Senior Vice President of Infrastructure. They discuss how hardware capability has enabled the matrix math required to run large language models. Furthermore, they delve into some creative examples of how to put AI to work: from your bank to your local coffee shop. Ric underscores the importance of infrastructure in unlocking the potential of AI, helping businesses harness their data to drive transformative outcomes.
This is a paid advertisement from IBM. The conversations on this podcast don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.
Visit us at https://ibm.com/smarttalks
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Duration:00:55:42
Week in Tech: Broval Office
1/24/2025
Is AI charging you different prices for groceries than your roommate? This week, Oz and Karah bring you a news roundup featuring a look at surveillance pricing and the rise of AI companies eager to work with the U.S. military. On TechSupport with 404 Media’s Jason Koebler, the hosts dive into last weekend's temporary TikTok ban and why Mark Zuckerberg didn’t want it to end. And finally we get to the bottom of why so many PayPal alumni are showing up on our newsfeeds this week in When Did This Become a Thing?
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Duration:00:35:05
The Story: Vibe Shift in the Valley w/ Jessica Lessin
1/22/2025
Jessica Lessin is the founder and CEO of The Information, a media company that’s a trusted source for tech readers and tech leaders. She’s reported on the industry for almost two decades and is deeply familiar with the culture shifts in Silicon Valley. Lessin sits down with Oz to discuss these trends, including tech titans appealing to the new Trump administration.
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Duration:00:33:19
Week in Tech: Dox, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
1/17/2025
Are you sharing misleading Instagram stories? This week, Oz and Karah bring you a news roundup including a ChatGPT-powered gun and a free app that’s keeping people informed about the LA wildfires. On TechSupport with 404 Media’s Joseph Cox, they get to the bottom of why a group of hackers have become so fond of U-Haul user data; and a look at when the world split into digital natives and digital immigrants…and when it might split again.
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Duration:00:35:21
The Story: How to be a (Rational!) Techno-Enthusiast w/ Nicholas Thompson
1/15/2025
Nicholas Thompson is the former editor-in-chief of Wired and current CEO of The Atlantic. There, he negotiated a controversial partnership with OpenAI that The Atlantic’s newsroom referred to as “a devil’s bargain.” In his free time, he uses AI to help himself run faster and write better. Through it all, he maintains a worldview perhaps best described as “techno-enthusiasm.”
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Duration:00:36:30
Week in Tech: Hungry Hungry Hippocampus
1/10/2025
How scared should we be of deceptive AI? Oz and Karah take the mic from Jonathan for their first episode of TechStuff and bring you a news roundup of their favorite headlines—including using ChatGPT to plan a crime and brain benefits for those who can still navigate without Waze. On TechSupport with Jason Koebler from 404 Media they discuss a recent study showing that AI can actively deceive us to achieve its own goals; and a special segment with Emma Barker from Time with the 200 Best Inventions of 2024.
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Duration:00:34:51
Introducing the new TechStuff hosted by Oz Woloshyn and Karah Preiss
1/9/2025
TechStuff is getting a system update. Everything you love about TechStuff now twice the bandwidth with new hosts, Oz Woloshyn (Sleepwalkers) and Karah Preiss (Sleepwalkers). Oz and Karah bring humour and wit to the table as they break down what's happening in tech...and what it says about us.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Duration:00:02:09
The Future of TechStuff (Is So Bright, Karah Has to Wear Shades)
1/8/2025
Jonathan has his final episode, but more importantly introduces the new stewards of the podcast, Oz Woloshyn and Karah Preiss. These phenomenal storytellers and journalists explore their plans for the show and how you will be a part of it!
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Duration:01:05:26
What the Tech Happened? Part Two
1/6/2025
We're looking at some of the big tech stories that have unfolded since TechStuff debuted in 2008. In this episode, we pick up in 2015 and look at the controversies, triumphs, trials, and tribulations tech encountered over the last decade.
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Duration:01:07:34
What the Tech Happened? Part One
1/3/2025
Since TechStuff first launched in 2008, a lot of stuff has happened in the world of tech. Join Jonathan as he looks back on a big tech story for each year of his experience in hosting a technology podcast.
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Duration:00:45:45