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The toxic transformation of Warcraft maker Blizzard
3 oktober 2024 · 50 min
Today, I’m talking to Jason Schreier, a Bloomberg journalist and author of the new book Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment. If you don’t know Blizzard, you do know its games — the studio behind Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch has achieved legendary status over three decades. At the same time, the company has become emblematic of many of gaming’s biggest failings. Lees meer
Jason’s book is out on October 8th, and it’s an incredible, detailed accounting of how Blizzard started, grew into a hitmaker and, eventually, became a victim of its own mismanagement. Oh, and there are a series of chaotic acquisitions along the way, culminating in Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard last year. In this episode, Jason and I get into all of this and more.
Links:
Play Nice: The Rise, Fall and Future of Blizzard Entertainment | Hachette
How Blizzard’s canceled MMO Titan fell apart | Polygon
Blizzard was built on crunch, co-founder says, but it’s ‘not sustainable’ | Polygon
Inside Activision and Blizzard’s corporate warcraft | Bloomberg
Blizzard cofounder’s new company Dreamhaven aims to recreate old magic | Bloomberg
Activision Blizzard’s rot goes all the way to the CEO, alleges report | The Verge
Activision Blizzard’s workplace problems spurred $75 billion microsoft Deal | WSJ
California settles Activision Blizzard gender discrimination lawsuit | The Verge
Microsoft completes Activision Blizzard acquisition | The Verge
Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees | The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
NBCU's streaming chief isn't worried about you canceling cable
30 september 2024 · 1 uur 12 min
Matt Strauss is the Chairman of Direct-to-Consumer at NBC Universal. That’s a big fancy title that means he’s not only in charge of Peacock but also every other streaming video offering the company has worldwide. So you can bet Matt and I got into what that structure even looks like, and how it all operates under the overall ownership of Comcast, which is in the middle of its own massive transition as its traditional cable TV business continues to fade. There’s a lot in this one – tech, media, sports, and culture, all at once. It’s quite a ride. Lees meer
Links:
Comcast's new DVR ditches the hard drive, stores your recordings in the cloud (The Verge, 2013)
Comcast and Charter Lost Another 269,000 Broadband Customers Last Quarter (The Motley Fool)
It's official, people aren't watching TV as much as they used to (The Verge)
The future of TV is up in the air (The Verge)
Peacock Quarterly Loss Narrows to $348M as Subscribers Drop to 33M (THR)
OTA and free online video drives higher US TV-video viewing hours (S&P Global)
Streaming was part of the future — now it’s the only future (The Verge)
US pay-TV losses reach a nadir (Light Reading)
The 2024 Olympics were a big win for TV of all kinds (The Verge)
Court blocks Disney-Fox-WBD sports streaming bundle (The Verge)
An AI version of Al Michaels will deliver Olympic recaps on Peacock (The Verge)
Transcript:
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Why Mark Zuckerberg wants to end the smartphone era
25 september 2024 · 1 uur 7 min
We have a very special episode of Decoder today. It’s become a tradition every fall to have Verge deputy editor Alex Heath interview Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the show at Meta Connect. This year, before his interview with Mark, Alex got to try a new pair of experimental AR glasses the company is calling Orion. Lees meer
Alex talked to Mark about a whole lot more, including why the company is investing so heavily in AR, why he's shifted away from politics, Mark's thoughts on the link between teen mental health and social media, and why the Meta chief executive is done apologizing for corporate scandals like Cambridge Analytica that he feels were overblown and misrepresented.
Links:
Hands-on with Orion, Meta’s first pair of AR glasses | The Verge
The biggest news from Meta Connect 2024 | The Verge
Mark Zuckerberg: publishers ‘overestimate the value’ of their work for training AI | The Verge
Meta extends its Ray-Ban smart glasses deal beyond 2030 | The Verge
The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses actually make the future look cool | The Verge
Meta has a major opportunity to win the AI hardware race | The Verge
Instagram is putting every teen into more private and restrictive new account | The Verge
Threads isn’t for news and politics, says Instagram’s boss | The Verge
Facebook puts news on the back burner | The Verge
Meta is losing a billion dollars on VR and AR every single month | The Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24017522
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt; our editor is Callie Wright. This episode was additionally produced by Brett Putman and Vjeran Pavic. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
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Arc creator Josh Miller on why you need a better browser than Chrome
23 september 2024 · 1 uur 8 min
Today, I’m talking with Josh Miller, co-founder and CEO of The Browser Company, a relatively new software maker that develops the Arc browser. The company also has a mobile app called Arc Search that does AI summaries of webpages, which puts it right in the middle of a contentious debate in the tech industry around paying web creators for their work. Lees meer
We’ve been talking about these topics pretty much nonstop for last year here on Decoder. So I was really excited to have Josh on the show to explore why he built Arc, what he hopes it will accomplish, and what might happen to browsers, search engines, and the web itself as these trends evolve.
Links:
Researcher reveals ‘catastrophic’ security flaw in the Arc browser | The Verge
The Arc browser is the Chrome replacement I’ve been waiting for | The Verge
Arc’s mobile browser is here — and it’s not really a web browser at all | The Verge
Arc is getting better bookmarks and search results, all thanks to AI | The Verge
Arc Search combines browser, search engine, and AI into something new | The Verge
Judge rules that Google ‘is a monopolist’ in US antitrust case | The Verge
Google paid Apple $20 billion in 2022 to be Safari’s default search engine | The Verge
One startup's quest to take on Chrome and reinvent the web browser | Protocol
Scenes from a dying web | Platformer
Perplexity’s grand theft AI | The Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24011410
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Why Google is back in court for another monopoly showdown
19 september 2024 · 31 min
Google’s in the middle of its antitrust case in just as many months, after it lost a landmark trial in August over anticompetitive search practices. This time around, the DOJ is claiming Google has another illegal monopoly in the online advertising market.
Verge senior policy reporter Lauren Feiner has been on the ground at the courthouse to hear testimony from news publishers, advertising experts, and Google executives to make sense of it — and, ultimately, to see whether a federal judge hands the company another antitrust defeat. Lees meerLinks:
Google and DOJ return for round two of their antitrust fight | The Verge
Judge rules that Google ‘is a monopolist’ in US antitrust case | The Verge
In US v. Google, YouTube’s CEO defends the Google way The Verge
Google and the DOJ’s ad tech fight is all about control | The Verge
How Google altered a deal with publishers who couldn’t say no | The Verge
Google dominates online ads, says antitrust trial witness, but publishers are feeling ‘stuck’ | The Verge
US considers a rare antitrust move: breaking up Google | Bloomberg
This deal helped turn Google into an ad powerhouse. Is that a problem? | NYT
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
How Philips CEO Roy Jakobs is turning the company around after major recall
16 september 2024 · 1 uur 7 min
Today, I’m talking with Roy Jakobs. He’s the CEO of Royal Philips, which makes medical devices ranging from MRI machines to ventilators. Philips has a long history —- the company began in the late 19th century as a lightbulb manufacturer, and over the past century it’s grown and shrunk in various ways. Basically, while every other company has been trying to get bigger, Philips has been paring itself down to a tight focus on healthcare, and Roy and I talked about why that market is worth the focus. Lees meer
Roy and I also talked about an ongoing controversy at Philips that he had a part in: In 2021, after years of consumer complaints, Philips was made to recall millions of its breathing machines. Those devices were eventually tied to more than 500 deaths. That’s a pretty big decision, with massive life-or-death consequences, and you’ll hear us talk about it in detail.
Links:
Problems reported with recalled Philips ventilators, BiPAP & CPAP machines | FDA
FDA says 561 deaths tied to recalled Philips sleep apnea machines | CBS News
Philips kept complaints about dangerous breathing machines secret | ProPublica
Top Philips executive approved sale of defective breathing machines | ProPublica
Philips reaches final pact with DOJ, FDA on ventilator recall | WSJ
Philips suspends U.S. sales of breathing machines after recall | NYT
CPAP maker reaches $479 million settlement on breathing device defects | NYT
Philips exits shrinking home entertainment business | Reuters
Original TSMC investor Philips sells off final shares | PC World
Philips unveils new AI-powered cardiovascular ultrasound | Mass Device
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24006874
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Why AI image editing isn’t “just like Photoshop”
12 september 2024 · 42 min
We’ve been covering the rise of AI image editing very closely here on Decoder and at The Verge for several years now — the ability to create photorealistic images with nothing more than a chatbot prompt could completely reset our cultural relationship to photography. But one argument keeps cropping up in response. You’ve heard it a million times, and it’s when people say “it’s just like Photoshop,” with “Photoshop” standing in for the concept of image editing generally. Lees meer
So today, we’re trying to understand exactly what it means, and why our new world of AI image tools is different — and yes, in some cases the same. Verge reporter Jess Weatherbed recently dove into this for us, and I asked her to join me in going through the debate and the arguments one by one to help figure it out.
Links:
You’re here because you said AI image editing was just like Photoshop | The Verge
No one’s ready for this | The Verge
The AI photo editing era is here, and it’s every person for themselves | The Verge
Google’s AI ‘Reimagine’ tool helped us add disasters and corpses to photos | The Verge
X’s new AI image generator will make Taylor Swift in lingerie and Kamala Harris with a gun | The Verge
Grok will make gory images — just tell it you're a cop. | The Verge
Leica launches first camera with Content Credentials | Content Authenticity Initiative
You can use AI to get rid of Samsung’s AI watermark | The Verge
Spurred by teen girls, states move to nan deepfake nudes | NYT
Florida teens arrested for creating ‘deepfake’ AI nude images of classmates | The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Anthropic’s Mike Krieger wants to build AI products that are worth the hype
9 september 2024 · 1 uur 19 min
Today, I’m talking with Mike Krieger, the new chief product officer at Anthropic, one of the hottest AI companies in the industry. Anthropic’s main product right now is Claude, the name of both its industry-leading AI model and a chatbot that competes with ChatGPT. Lees meer
Mike has a fascinating resume: he was the cofounder of Instagram, and then started AI-powered newsreader Artifact. I was a fan of Artifact, so I wanted to know more about the decision to shut it down as well as the decision to sell it to Yahoo. And then I wanted to know why Mike decided to join Anthropic and work in AI — an industry with a lot of investment, but very few consumer products to justify it. What’s this all for?
Links:
Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger is Anthropic’s new chief product officer | The Verge
Instagram’s co-founders are shutting down their Artifact news app | The Verge
Yahoo resurrects Artifact inside a new AI-powered News app | The Verge
Authors sue Anthropic for training AI using pirated books | The Verge
The text file that runs the internet | The Verge
Anthropic’s crawler is ignoring websites’ anti-AI scraping policies | The Verge
Golden Gate Claude | Anthropic
Inside the white-hot center of AI doomerism | New York Times
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, on the paradoxes of AI safety | Hard Fork
No one’s ready for this | The Verge
OpenAI announces SearchGPT, its AI-powered search engine | The Verge
Amazon-backed Anthropic rolls out Claude AI for big business | CNBC
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24001603
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
How the Wayback Machine is fighting linkrot
5 september 2024 · 40 min
The web has a problem: huge chunks of it keep going offline. The web isn’t static, parts of it sometimes just… vanish. Lees meer
But it’s not all grim. The Internet Archive has a massive mission to identify and back up our online world into a vast digital library. In 2001, it launched the Wayback Machine, an interface that lets anyone call up snapshots of sites and look at how they used to be and what they used to say at a given moment in time. Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine, joins Decoder this week to explain both why and how the organization tries to keep the web from disappearing.
Links:
When Online Content Disappears | Pew Research
Game Informer is shutting down | The Verge
When Media Outlets Shutter, Why Are the Websites Wiped, Too? Slate
MTV News lives on in the Internet Archive | The Verge
The video game industry is mourning the loss of Game Informer | The Verge
Guest host Hank Green makes Nilay Patel explain why websites have a future | Decoder
How The Onion is saving itself from the digital media death spiral | Decoder
The Internet Archive is defending its digital library in court today | The Verge
The Internet Archive has lost its first fight to scan and lend ebooks | The Verge
The Internet Archive just lost its appeal over ebook lending | The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
The AI election deepfakes have arrived
29 augustus 2024 · 41 min
Decoder is off this week for a short end-of-summer break. We’ll be back with both our interview and explainer episodes after the Labor Day holiday. In the meantime we thought we’d re-share an explainer that’s taken on a whole new relevance in the last couple weeks, about deepfakes and misinformation. Lees meer
In February, I talked with Verge policy editor Adi Robertson how the generative AI boom might start fueling a wave of election-related misinformation, especially deepfakes and manipulated media. It’s not been quite an apocalyptic AI free-for-all out there. But the election itself took some really unexpected turns in these last couple of months. Now we’re heading into the big, noisy home stretch, and use of AI is starting to get really weird — and much more troublesome.
Links:
The AI-generated hell of the 2024 election | The Verge
AI deepfakes are cheap, easy, and coming for the 2024 election | Decoder
Elon Musk posts deepfake of Kamala Harris that violates X policy | The Verge
Donald Trump posts a fake AI-generated Taylor Swift endorsement | The Verge
X’s Grok now points to government site after misinformation warnings | The Verge
Political ads could require AI-generated content disclosures soon | The Verge
The Copyright Office calls for a new federal law regulating deepfakes | The Verge
How AI companies are reckoning with elections | The Verge
The lame AI meme election | Axios
Deepfakes' parody loophole | Axios
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Disney Is a Tech Company?
26 augustus 2024 · 38 min
Decoder is off this week for a short end-of-summer break. We’ll be back with both our interview and explainer episodes after the Labor Day holiday, and I’m very excited for what we have coming up on the schedule. Lees meer
But while we’re out, we’d like to highlight a great episode from the Land of the Giants podcast, which is over at Vulture this season, for a deep dive into Disney. Can it be a tech company? It’s the question that defines the struggles of its streaming service Disney Plus — and it also tells us where it needs to go in the future to compete with Amazon, Apple, and Netflix.
Links:
Disney Is a Tech Company? | Vulture
Why Disney plussed itself | Vulture
Disney’s CEO drama explained, with Julia Alexander | Decoder
The clock is ticking on Disney’s streaming strategy | Decoder
The Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max streaming bundle is now available | The Verge
Disney reportedly wants to bring always-on channels to Disney Plus | The Verge
How baseball's tech team built the future of television | The Verge
The year Netflix ended the streaming wars | The Ringer
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
How The Onion is saving itself from the digital media death spiral
22 augustus 2024 · 58 min
The Onion is a comedy institution — and like everything else in media, it went on a pure nightmare hell ride in the 2010s. We could do an entire episode on the G/O Media calamity, but the short version is: A bunch of friends just managed to buy The Onion, and they're busy relaunching the website, going back to print, and, clearly, having a blast doing it. CEO Ben Collins and chief product officer Danielle Strle joined me to explain how that even works in 2024. Lees meer
Links:
The Onion sold by G/O Media | The New York Times
Sam Reich on revamping the game show - and Dropout’s success | NPR
Platformer’s Casey Newton on surviving the great media collapse | Decoder
Craig Silverman: Digital advertising’s structure has been weaponized | Digiday
US Warns a Gaza Ceasefire Would Only Benefit Humanity | The Onion
The Truth is Paywalled but the Lies are Free | Current Affairs
A newsroom expands and The Onion is out again on paper | Washington Post
Report: Nuclear War Sounds Fucking Amazing Right Now | The Onion
Google defends AI search results after they told us to put glue on pizza | The Verge
Jury awards nearly $1B to Sandy Hook families in Alex Jones defamation case | CNN
‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens | The Onion
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23989633
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke says the AI industry needs competition to thrive
19 augustus 2024 · 1 uur 17 min
Today I’m talking with Thomas Dohmke, the CEO of GitHub. GitHub is the platform for managing code – but since 2018, it’s also been owned by Microsoft. We talk a lot about how independent GitHub really is inside of Microsoft — especially now that Microsoft is all-in on AI, and Gitbhub Copilot is one of the biggest AI product success stories that exists right now. But his perspective on AI is pretty refreshing: It’s clear there’s still a long way to go. Lees meer
Links:
Original GitHub landing page | Wayback Machine
Introducing Entitlements | GitHub Blog
ashtom (Thomas Dohmke) | GitHub
The developers suing over GitHub Copilot got dealt a major blow in court | The Verge
GitHub Copilot can now help start a project with AI | The Verge
GitHub users can mess around with different AI models | The Verge
GitHub’s AI-powered Copilot will help you write code for $10 a month | The Verge
Google DeepMind co-founder joins Microsoft as CEO of its new AI division | The Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23986019
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
What's next for the controversial 'child safety' internet bill
15 augustus 2024 · 38 min
There’s a major internet speech regulation currently making its way through Congress, and it has a really good chance of becoming law. It’s called KOSPA: the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act, which passed in the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support late last month. At a high level, KOSPA could radically change how tech platforms handle speech in an effort to try and make the internet safer for minors. Lees meer
It’s a controversial bill, with a lot going on. To break it all down, I invited on Verge senior policy reporter Lauren Feiner, who’s been covering these bills for months now, to explain what’s happening, what these bills actually do, and what the path forward for this legislation looks like.
Links:
Senate passes the Kids Online Safety Act | The Verge
The teens lobbying against the Kids Online Safety Act | The Verge
How the Kids Online Safety Act was dragged into a political war | NYT
House Republicans won’t bring up KOSA in its current form | Punchbowl News
Why a landmark kids online safety bill is still deeply divisive | NBC News
Why Sen. Schatz thinks child safety bills can trump the First Amendment | Decoder
Child safety bills are reshaping the internet for everyone | The Verge
Online age verification is coming, and privacy is on the chopping block | The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Replika CEO Eugenia Kuyda says it’s okay if we end up marrying AI chatbots
12 augustus 2024 · 1 uur 8 min
Today, I’m talking with Replika founder and CEO Eugenia Kuyda, and I will just tell you right away, we get all the way to people marrying their AI companions, so get ready. It’s a ride. Lees meer
Replika’s basic pitch is pretty simple: what if you had an AI friend? The company offers avatars you can curate to your liking that pretend to be human, so they can be your friend, your therapist, or even your date. That’s a lot for a private company running an iPhone app, and Eugenia and I talked a lot about the consequences of this idea and what it means for the future of human relationships.
Links:
The AI boyfriend business is booming | Axios
Speak, Memory | The Verge
Your new AI Friend is almost ready to meet you | Verge
What happens when sexting chatbots dump their human lovers | Bloomberg
AI chatbot company Replika restores erotic roleplay for some users — Reuters
Replika’s New AI App Is Like Tinder but With Sexy Chatbots — Gizmodo
Replika’s new AI therapy app tries to bring you to a zen island — The Verge
Replika CEO: AI chatbots aren’t just for lonely men | Fortune
Gaze Into the Dystopian Hell of Bots Dating Bots | Slate
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23980789
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
DOJ antitrust chief is ‘overjoyed’ after Google monopoly verdict
8 augustus 2024 · 44 min
Today, I’m talking to Jonathan Kanter, the assistant attorney general for antitrust at the United States Department of Justice. This is Jonathan’s second time on the show, and it’s a bit of an emergency podcast situation. On Monday, a federal court issued a monumental decision in the DOJ’s case against Google, holding that Google Search and the text ads in search are monopolies. Lees meer
The court hasn’t decided on the penalties for all this yet — that process is scheduled to start next month. But it’s the biggest antitrust win against a tech company since the Microsoft case from two decades ago. I wanted to know what Jonathan thought of the ruling, what it means for the law, and most importantly, what remedies he’s going to seek to try and restore competition in search.
Links:
Judge rules that Google ‘is a monopolist’ in US antitrust case | The Verge
All the spiciest parts of the Google antitrust ruling | The Verge
Now that Google is a monopolist, what’s next? | The Verge
DOJ’s Kanter says the antitrust fight against Big Tech is just beginning | Decoder
The DOJ Antitrust Division isn’t afraid to go to court | The Verge
The US government is gearing up for an AI antitrust fight | The Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23979725
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Booking CEO Glenn Fogel wants you to take out your travel frustrations on AI chatbots
5 augustus 2024 · 1 uur 13 min
Today, I’m talking with Glenn Fogel, the CEO of Booking Holdings, which owns a large portfolio of familiar travel brands: OpenTable, Kayak, and Priceline, as well as its largest subsidiary, Booking.com. This episode is pure Decoder bait all the way through — from Booking’s structure, to competition with hotels and airlines increasingly going direct to consumer, even to how European regulation affects competition with Google. Oh, and of course, how Booking is incorporating AI; Glenn has some fascinating thoughts there. Lees meer
Glenn really got into it with me — there’s a lot going on in this space, and it’s interesting because there are so many players and so much competition across so many of the layers, even among Booking’s own subsidiaries. I think we probably could have gone twice as long.
Links:
The oral history of travel’s greatest acquisition | Skift
Long-term travel looks like a strong growth industry, says Booking’s Glenn Fogel | CNBC
Ryanair wins screen-scraping case against Booking.com | Airways
Aggregation Theory | Stratechery
A Call for Embracing AI—But With a ‘Human Touch’ | Time
Booking.com launches new AI Trip Planner | Booking
Priceline releases new AI platform and ‘Penny’ chatbot | Skift
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23976178
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Amanda Rose Smith. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
AI has a climate problem — but so does all of tech
1 augustus 2024 · 33 min
Every time we talk about AI, we get one big piece of feedback that I really want to dive into: how the lightning-fast explosion of AI tools affects the climate. AI takes a lot of energy, and there’s a huge unanswered question as to whether using all that juice for AI is actually worth it, both practically and morally. Lees meer
It’s messy and complicated and there are a bunch of apparent contradictions along the way — so it’s perfect for Decoder. Verge senior science reporter Justine Calma joins me to see if we can untangle this knot.
Links:
This startup wants to capture carbon and help data centers cool down | The Verge
Google’s carbon footprint balloons in its Gemini AI era | The Verge
Taking a closer look at AI’s supposed energy apocalypse | Ars Technica
AI is exhausting the power grid. Tech firms are seeking a miracle | WaPo
AI Is already wreaking havoc on global power systems | Bloomberg
What do Google’s AI answers cost the environment? | Scientific American
AI is an energy hog | MIT Tech Review
Microsoft’s AI obsession is jeopardizing its climate ambitions | The Verge
The answer to AI’s energy needs could be blowing in the wind | The Verge
AI already uses as much energy as a small country | Vox
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Callie Wright and Amanda Rose Smith. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber wants your next mouse to last forever
29 juli 2024 · 1 uur 1 min
Today, I’m talking with Hanneke Faber, the CEO of Logitech. Hanneke’s still pretty fresh to the role: She joined the company last October, after former CEO Bracken Darrell left following the pandemic boom and subsequent economic slowdown that halted Logitech’s growth. Hanneke, who comes from Unilever and Procter & Gamble, is new to the world of consumer electronics. Lees meer
So we talked about the structural changes she’s already making at Logitech, and the changes she intends to make in the future. It sounds like some Logitech products, like its smart home doorbells and cameras, are not long for this world. You’ll also hear Hanneke talk about a concept called the “forever mouse” — a mouse you buy once and upgrade over time with new software features — features that of course might carry a subscription fee. Subscription mice! It’s a lot.
Links:
How Logitech bet big on work from home | Decoder
Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell is leaving for another job | The Verge
Webcams have become impossible to find, and prices are skyrocketing | The Verge
Logitech appoints Hanneke Faber as new CEO | Reuters
Logitech’s new low-profile keyboard fits Cherry MX keycaps | The Verge
Logitech’s Meta Quest stylus helps artists work in 3D | The Verge
Logitech targets faster growth via education, health and AI | Reuters
Logitech wants you to press its new AI button | The Verge
Logitech’s best gaming mouse just got better | The Verge
Logitech’s articulating arm webcam launches on Indiegogo | The Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23970888
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
The Supreme Court ruling that could kill net neutrality
25 juli 2024 · 38 min
The Supreme Court has just taken on the entire idea of the US administrative state — and the Court is winning. Earlier this month, a conservative majority overturned a longstanding legal principle called Chevron deference. The implications are enormous for every possible kind of regulation — and net neutrality looks poised to be the first victim. Verge editor Sarah Jeong joins me to explain why. Lees meer
Links:
Supreme Court overrules Chevron, kneecapping federal regulators | The Verge
What SCOTUS just did to broadband, the right to repair, the environment, and more | The Verge
FCC votes to restore net neutrality | The Verge
Reinstatement of net neutrality rules temporarily halted by appeals court | The Verge
Clarence Thomas' 38 Vacations: The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel | ProPublica
The Supreme Court's coming war with Joe Biden | Vox
Transcript:
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe says too many carmakers are copying Tesla
22 juli 2024 · 1 uur 4 min
Today, I’m talking with Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe. RJ was on the show last September when we chatted at the Code Conference, but the past 10 months have seen a whirlwind of change throughout the car industry and at Rivian in particular. This year alone, the company unveiled five new models in its lineup and also just announced a $5 billion joint venture with Volkswagen. We got into all that and more. Lees meer
If you’re a Decoder listener, you’ve heard me talk to a lot of car CEOs on the show, but it’s rare to talk to a car company founder, and RJ was game to talk about basically anything — even extremely minor feature requests I pulled from the forums. It’s a fun one.
Links:
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe isn't scared of the Cybertruck | Decoder
VW will invest up to $5 billion in Rivian as part of new EV joint venture | The Verge
Rivian blazed a trail with its adventure EVs — can it stay on top? | The Verge
Rivian R2 revealed: a $45,000 electric off-roader for the masses | The Verge
Rivian surprises with R3 and R3X electric SUVs | The Verge
Rivian puts its Georgia factory plans on pause | The Verge
Rivian’s R1 vehicles are getting a gut overhaul | The Verge
Rivian R1S review: king of the mountain | The Verge
Rivian’s long, narrow road to profit | WSJ
Tesla’s Share of U.S. Electric Car Market Falls Below 50% | NYT
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23965790
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
What happened to the metaverse?
18 juli 2024 · 44 min
This week I’m talking to Matthew Ball, who was last on the show in 2022 to talk about his book “The Metaverse: How it Will Revolutionize Everything.” It’s 2024 and it’s safe to say that has not happened yet. But Matt’s still on the case — in fact he just released an almost complete update of the book, now with the much more sober title, “Building the Spatial Internet.” Lees meer
Matt and I talked a lot about where the previous metaverse hype cycle landed us, and what there is to learn from these boom and bust waves. We talked about the Apple Vision Pro quite a bit; if you read or watched my review when it came out, you’ll know I think the Vision Pro is almost an end point for one set of technologies. I wanted to know if Matt felt the same and what needs to happen to make all of this more mainstream and accessible.
Links:
Fully revised and updated edition to the “The Metaverse” | W.W. Norton
Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it’s not | The Verge
Apple’s Vision Pro: five months later | Vergecast
Is the metaverse going to suck? A conversation with Matthew Ball | Decoder
Interviewing Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth on the Metaverse, VR/AR, AI | Matthew Ball
Interviewing Epic CEO Tim Sweeney and author Neal Stephenson | Matthew Ball
An Interview with Matthew Ball about Vision Pro and the state of gaming | Stratechery
Tim Sweeney explains how the metaverse might actually work | The Verge
Fortnite is winning the metaverse | The Verge
Is the Metaverse Just Marketing? | NYT
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem”
15 juli 2024 · 1 uur 1 min
Today, I’m talking with Arati Prabhakar, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. That’s a cabinet-level position, where she works as the chief science and tech advisor to President Biden. Arati and her team of about 140 people at the OSTP are responsible for advising the president on not only big developments in science but also about major innovations in tech, much of which come from the private sector. Lees meer
Her job involves guiding regulatory efforts, government investment, and setting priorities around big-picture projects like Biden’s cancer moonshot and combating climate change. More recently, Arati has been spending a lot of time talking about the future of AI and semiconductors, so I had the opportunity to dig into both of those topics with her as the generative AI boom continues and the results of the CHIPS Act become more visible.
One note before we start: I sat down with Arati last month, just a couple of days before the first presidential debate and its aftermath, which swallowed the entire news cycle. So you’re going to hear us talk a lot about President Biden’s agenda and the White House’s policy record on AI, among other topics. But you’re not going to hear anything about the president, his age, or the presidential campaign.
Links:
Biden’s top science adviser resigns after acknowledging demeaning behavior | NYT
Teen girls confront an epidemic of deepfake nudes in schools | NYT
Senate committee passes three bills to safeguard elections from AI | The Verge
The RIAA versus AI, explained | The Verge
Lawyers say OpenAI could be in real trouble with Scarlett Johansson | The Verge
Barack Obama on AI, free speech, and the future of the internet | Decoder
Meet the Woman Who Showed President Biden ChatGPT | WIRED
Biden releases AI executive order | The Verge
Biden’s science adviser explains the new hard line on China | WashPo
Where the CHIPS Act money has gone | The Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23961278
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Why The Atlantic signed a deal with OpenAI
11 juli 2024 · 51 min
Today I’m talking to Nicholas Thompson, the CEO of The Atlantic. I was really excited to talk to Nick. Like so many media CEOs, including Vox Media’s, he just signed a deal allowing OpenAI to use The Atlantic’s vast archives as training data, but he also has a rich background in tech. Before he was the CEO of The Atlantic, Nick was the editor-in-chief of Wired, where he set his sights on AI reporting well before anyone else. Lees meer
I was also really interested in asking Nick about the general sense that the AI companies are getting vastly more than they’re giving with these sorts of deals — yes, they’re paying some money, but I’ve heard from so many of you that the money might now be the point — that there’s something else going on here – that maybe allowing creativity to get commodified this way will come with a price tag so big money can never pay it back. If there is anyone who could get into it with me on that question, it’s Nick.
Links:
Vox Media and The Atlantic sign content deals with OpenAI | The Verge
Journalists “deeply troubled” by OpenAI’s content deals with Vox, The Atlantic | Ars Technica
What the RIAA lawsuits mean for AI and copyright | The Verge
Perplexity plagiarized our story about how Perplexity Is a bullshit machine | Wired
How to stop Perplexity and save the web from bad AI | Platformer
The text file that runs the internet | The Verge
OpenAI, WSJ owner News Corp strike content deal valued at over $250 Million | WSJ
The media bosses fighting back against AI — and the ones cutting deals — WashPo
The New York Times spent $1 million so far in its OpenAI lawsuit | The Verge
AI companies have all kinds of arguments against paying for copyrighted content | The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. … -
Canva CEO Melanie Perkins is happy to provide designers alternatives to Adobe
8 juli 2024 · 1 uur 6 min
Canva got its start more than a decade ago as a different form of disruptive tech for creatives. It’s a web-based platform that makes design tools cheaper and accessible for individuals, schools, and businesses from tiny to enterprise. Melanie has big goals to grow the company — and try to do good in the process. Lees meer
Links:
Canva tackled digital design — and now the office suite is next | The Verge
Canva Inks Deals With Warner Music Group, Merlin | Variety
Canva founders join Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge to give away most of their fortune | Sydney Morning Herald
Canva partnership tackling extreme poverty in Malawi one year on | GiveDirectly
Canva’s Two-Step Plan: Celebrating 10 years of impact | Canva
Adobe’s new terms of service aren’t the problem — it’s the trust | The Verge
‘The general perception is: Adobe is an evil company that will do whatever it takes to F its users.’ | The Verge
Why Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen thinks AI is the future | The Verge
Canva corporate 'Hamilton' cringe rap presentation goes viral | YouTube
Transcript:
https://www.theverge.com/e/23955121Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking
1 juli 2024 · 1 uur 16 min
It’s almost the Fourth of July, and that means it’s time for our annual grilling episode. This year, I’m talking with Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov, who has big plans for using very modern fan-based marketing techniques to expand the market for the company’s old-fashioned, fire-burning, aspirational product. Lees meer
Links:
Big Green Egg Appoints a New CEO | CookOut News
Big Green Egg 50th Anniversary 1974-2024 | Big Green Egg
Yep, Big Green Egg Just Made a Beer Keg | Gear Patrol
AI could kill creative jobs that ‘shouldn’t have been there in the first place,’ OpenAI CTO says | Fortune
Campfires, explained | Vox
An ‘Epidemic’ of Loneliness Threatens Health of Americans | Scientific American
RIP: Here are 70 things millennials have killed | Mashable
“Genius of the AND” | Jim Collins
Keurig's attempt to 'DRM' its coffee cups totally backfired | The Verge
A Look at the Danny Meyer Documentary The Restaurateur | Eater
Transcript:
https://www.theverge.com/e/23952121Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
The rise of shadow lobbying and its influence on decades of US policy
27 juni 2024 · 46 min
Today, we’re talking about politics and lobbying in America. It’s hard to imagine a time when the influence of big corporations and billionaires didn’t touch every part of American politics, but the kind of lobbying we have now didn’t really exist before the 1970s. Now, our political debates about everything from energy, finance, and healthcare are deeply intertwined with corporations and their money — and new big players in tech now spend tons of political money of their own. Lees meer
To understand the structure of today’s political lobbying and how we go here, I brought Pulitzer Prize winner Brody Mullins on the show. Brody has a new book he co-wrote with his brother Luke Mullins called The Wolves of K Street: The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government, which came out last month. It’s a definitive history of modern lobbying in America, told through the lens of some of the industry’s most unsavory characters and the influence they’ve exerted on DC politics across decades.
Links:
If Donald Trump Wins, Paul Manafort Will Be Waiting in the Wings | NYT
Meta had its biggest lobbying quarter ever | The Verge
Apple quietly bankrolled a lobbying group for app developers | The Verge
The Many Reinventions of a Legendary Washington Influence Peddler | Politico
The Wolves of K Street review: how lobbying swallowed Washington | The Guardian
Big Tech Has a New Favorite Lobbyist: You | WSJ
SOPA bill shelved after global protests from Google, Wikipedia and others | WashPo
The Russia Inquiry Ended a Democratic Lobbyist’s Career. He Wants It Back. | NYT
The Swamp Builders | WashPo
The Rise and Fall of a K Street Renegade | WSJ
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters on the streamer's shifting culture and where ads, AI, and games fit in
24 juni 2024 · 1 uur 7 min
Today, I’m talking with Greg Peters, the co-CEO of Netflix. I caught up with Greg while he was at the Cannes Lions festival in France, which is basically the world’s biggest gathering of advertisers and marketers. It’s an increasingly important place for Greg to be, as Netflix’s new ad tier has nearly doubled in six months to more than 40 million subscribers and feels increasingly pivotal to the future of the company. Lees meer
On top of that, Netflix is updating its famous culture memo, and I wanted to chat with Greg about the changes he’s making to that document, and how he’s thinking about maintaining that culture as Netflix grows into things like advertising and gaming.
Links:
Netflix Culture Memo | Netflix
Netflix Culture Memo (2009) | Netflix
Streaming is cable now | The Verge
Netflix’s ad tier hits 40 million users | The Verge
Netflix is different now — and there’s no going back | The Verge
Netflix just fired the organizer of the trans employee walkout | The Verge
Netflix doesn’t want to hear it anymore | The Verge
It’s hard to believe Samsung’s new, matte The Frame is actually a TV | The Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23946561
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Inside the players and politics of the AI industry
20 juni 2024 · 46 min
We’ve got a special episode of the show today – I was traveling last week, so Verge deputy editor Alex Heath and our new senior AI reporter Kylie Robison are filling in for me, with a very different kind of episode about AI. We talk a lot about AI in a broad sense on Decoder — it comes up in basically every single interview I do these days. But we don’t spend a ton of time on the day-to-day happenings of the AI industry itself. Lees meer
So we thought it would be a good idea to take a beat and have Alex and Kylie actually break down the modern AI boom as it exists today: The companies you need to know, the most important news of the last few months, and what it’s actually like to be fully immersed in this industry every single day.
Links:
Google defends AI search results after they told us to put glue on pizza | The Verge
Apple is putting ChatGPT in Siri for free later this year | The Verge
AI will make money sooner than you’d think, says Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez | Decoder
Humane is looking for a buyer after the AI Pin’s underwhelming debut | The Verge
2024 is a year of reckoning for AI | The Verge
OpenAI researcher who resigned over safety concerns joins Anthropic | The Verge
Hugging Face is sharing $10M worth of compute to beat big AI companies | The Verge
The AI drama is heating up | Command Line
Google and OpenAI are racing to rewire the internet | Command Line
Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6 billion to fund its race against ChatGPT | The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Why Tubi CEO Anjali Sud thinks free TV can win again
17 juni 2024 · 1 uur 7 min
Tubi is a free and very rapidly growing streaming TV platform — according to Nielsen, it had an average of a million viewers watching every minute in May 2024, beating out Disney Plus, Max, Peacock, and basically everything else, save Netflix and YouTube. All those streaming service price hikes are driving people to free options, and Tubi is right there to catch them. Lees meer
CEO Anjali Sud joins Decoder to explain why she thinks Tubi's model "could be" profitable, and how Tubi competes not only against the premium streamers, but also against the big competitors for viewers' time: TikTok and Youtube.
Links:
As streaming becomes more expensive, Tubi cashes in on the value of free | Los Angeles Times
Tubi’s new redesign wants to push you down the rabbit hole | The Verge
Tubi Rabbit AI: ChatGPT can give you better movie recommendations | The Verge
The future of streaming is free ad-supported TV and movies | The Verge
It’s true: people like leaving their TVs on in the background | The Verge
Stubios is the new name of Tubi’s fan-fueled studio program | The Verge
Comcast has a Netflix, Peacock, and Apple TV Plus bundle coming | The Verge
A Disney, Hulu, and Max streaming bundle is on the way | The Verge
Transcript:
https://www.theverge.com/e/23942621Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Remix: How private equity took over everything
13 juni 2024 · 39 min
Private equity is a simple concept — a PE firm uses some combination of money and debt to buy a company, then makes a profit — but the reality of what happens to the companies that get acquired is anything but. It's everywhere, and it's not going away. In this summer remix, we're talking with Brendan Ballou, author of Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America, about how we got here and what happens next. Lees meer
Links:
Private equity bought out your doctor and bankrupted Toys“R”Us — here’s why that matters | The Verge
Private equity and mismanagement: Here's what really killed Red Lobster | Fast Company
Sony and Apollo send letter expressing interest in $26 billion Paramount buyout | NBC News
Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America | Brendan Ballou
Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco | Bryan Borrough & John Helyar
Barnes & Noble is going back to its indie roots to compete with Amazon | The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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AI will make money sooner than you think, says Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez
10 juni 2024 · 1 uur 10 min
Cohere is one of the buzziest AI startups around right now. It's not making consumer products; it's focused on the enterprise market and making AI products for big companies. And there's a huge tension there: up until recently, computers have been deterministic. If you give computers a certain input, you usually know exactly what output you’re going to get. There’s a logic to it. But if we all start talking to computers with human language and getting human language back, well, human language is messy. And that makes the entire process of knowing what to put in and what exactly we’re going to get out of our computers different than it ever has been before. Lees meer
Links:
Attention is all you need
On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots
Introducing the AI Mirror Test, which very smart people keep failing | The Verge
AI isn’t close to becoming sentient | The Conversation
These are Microsoft’s Bing AI secret rules and why it says it’s named Sydney | The Verge
‘Godfather of AI’ quits Google with regrets and fears about his life’s work | The Verge
Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott on Bing’s quest to beat Google | The Verge
Top AI researchers and CEOs warn against ‘risk of extinction’ | The Verge
Google Zero is here — now what? | The Verge
Cara grew from 40k to 650k in a week because artists are fed up with Meta’s AI policies | TechCrunch
How AI copyright lawsuits could make the whole industry go extinct | The Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23937899
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Why the video game industry is such a mess
6 juni 2024 · 38 min
The art of video game design is flourishing, but it feels like a really grim time to be in the business of making and distributing games. Huge global publishers and tiny indie studios alike are facing huge financial pressures, and it doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon. Lees meer
So where did this enormous pressure come from, if consumer interest is high and sales are great? Verge video game reporter Ash Parrish joins Decoder to explain.
Links:
Global games market expected to grow to $189bn in 2024 | GamesIndustry.biz
Why the video game industry is seeing so many layoffs | Polygon
The tech industry’s layoffs and hiring freezes: all of the news | The Verge
Fortnite made more than $9 billion in revenue in its first two years | The Verge
Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2 Swings Past 10 Million Sold | IGN
The future of Netflix games could look like reality TV | The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan wants AI clones in meetings
3 juni 2024 · 1 uur 1 min
Today, I’m talking with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan — and let me tell you, this conversation is nothing like what I expected. It turns out Eric wants Zoom to be much, much more than just a videoconferencing platform. Zoom wants to take on Microsoft and Google and now has a big investment in AI – and Eric’s visions for what that AI will do are pretty wild. Lees meer
See, Eric really wants you to stop having to attend Zoom meetings yourself. You’ll hear him describe how he thinks one of the big benefits of AI at work will be letting us all create something he calls a “digital twin," essentially a deepfake of yourself that can go attend meetings on your behalf and even make decisions for you. I’ll just warn you: I tried to ask a bunch of the usual Decoder questions during this conversation, but once we got to digital twins going to Zoom meetings for people, well, I had a lot of followup questions.
Links:
Zoom gets its first major overhaul in 10 years, powered by generative AI | ZDNet
An interview with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan | Stratechery / Ben Thompson
Zoom is cutting about 150 jobs, or close to 2% of its workforce | CNBC
Zoom meetings are about to get weirder thanks to the Vision Pro | The Verge
Zoom Docs launches in 2024 with built-in AI collaboration features | The Verge
Zoom rewrites its policies to make clear that your videos aren’t used to train AI tools | The Verge
Zoom says its new AI tools aren’t stealing ownership of your content | The Verge
Zoom adds “post-quantum” end-to-end encryption | Zoom
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23932774
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Google Zero is here. Now what?
30 mei 2024 · 28 min
For nearly 20 years now, the web has been Google’s platform; we’ve all just lived on it. I think of Decoder as a show for people trying to build things, and a lot of people have built their things on that platform. For a lot of small businesses and content creators, that’s suddenly not stable anymore. The number one question I have for anyone building things on someone else’s platform is: What are you going to do when that platform changes the rules? Lees meer
Links:
How Google is killing independent sites like ours | HouseFresh
HouseFresh has virtually disappeared from Google Search results. Now what? | HouseFresh
Google Is Killing Retro Dodo & Other Independent Sites | Retro Dodo
Google CEO Sundar Pichai on AI-powered search and the future of the web | The Verge
Will A.I. Break the Internet? Or Save It? | The New York Times
Google confirms the leaked Search documents are real |The Verge
An Anonymous Source Shared Thousands of Leaked Google Search API Documents with Me; Everyone in SEO Should See Them | SparkToro
Mountain Weekly News
Telly Visions
E-ride Hero
That Fit Friend
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
How the FBI built its own smartphone company to hack the criminal underworld
23 mei 2024 · 42 min
Today, I’m talking with Joseph Cox, one of the best cybersecurity reporters around and a co-founder of the new media site 404 Media. Joseph has a new book coming out in June called Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever, and I can’t recommend it enough. It’s basically a caper, but with the FBI running a phone network. For real. Lees meer
Joseph walks us through the fascinating world of underground criminal phone networks, and how secure messaging, a tech product beloved by drug traffickers, evolved from the days of BlackBerry Messenger to Signal. Along the way, the FBI got involved with its very own startup, ANOM, as part of one of the most effective trojan horse operations in the history of cybersecurity. Joseph’s book is a great read, but it also touches on a lot of things we talk about a lot here on Decoder. So this conversation was a fun one.
Links:
Dark Wire by Joseph Cox | Hachette Book Group
How Vice became ‘a fucking clown show’ | The Verge
Cyber Official Speaks Out, Reveals Mobile Network Attacks in US | 404 Media
Revealed: The Country that Secretly Wiretapped the World for the FBI | 404 Media
How Secure Phones for Criminals Are Sold on Instagram | Motherboard
A Peek Inside the Phone Company Secretly Used in an FBI Honeypot | Motherboard
The FBI secretly launched an encrypted messaging system for criminals | The Verge
Canadian police have had master key to BlackBerry's encryption since 2010 | The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Google's Sundar Pichai on AI-powered search and the future of the web
20 mei 2024 · 45 min
Today, I’m talking to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who joined the show the day after the big Google I/O developer conference. Google’s focus during the conference was on how it’s building AI into virtually all of its products. If you’re a Decoder listener, you’ve heard me talk about this idea a lot over the past year: I call it “Google Zero,” and I’ve been asking a lot of web and media CEOs what would happen to their businesses if their Google traffic were to go to zero. In a world where AI powers search with overviews and summaries, that’s a real possibility. What then happens to the web? Lees meer
I’ve talked to Sundar quite a bit over the past few years, and this was the most fired up I’ve ever seen him. I think you can really tell that there is a deep tension between the vision Google has for the future — where AI magically makes us smarter, more productive, more artistic — and the very real fears and anxieties creators and website owners are feeling right now about how search has changed and how AI might swallow the internet forever, and that he’s wrestling with that tension.
Links:
Google and OpenAI are racing to rewire the internet — Command Line
Google I/O 2024: everything announced — The Verge
Google is redesigning its search engine, and it’s AI all the way down — The Verge
Project Astra is the future of AI at Google — The Verge
Did SEO experts ruin the internet or did Google? — The Verge
YouTube is going to start cracking down on AI clones of musicians — The Verge
AI is killing the old web, and the new web struggles to be born — The Verge
How Google is killing independent sites like ours — HouseFresh
Inside the First 'SEO Heist' of the AI Era — Business Insider
Google’s Sundar Pichai talks Search, AI, and dancing with Microsoft — Decoder
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23922415
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie W… -
TikTok's big bet to fight the ban bill
16 mei 2024 · 47 min
Last week, TikTok filed a lawsuit against the US government claiming the divest-or-ban law is unconstitutional — a case it needs to win in order to keep operating under Bytedance’s ownership. There’s a lot of back and forth between the facts and the law here: Some of the legal claims are complex and sit in tension with a long history of prior attempts to regulate speech and the internet, while the simple facts of what TikTok has already promised to do around the world contradict some its arguments. Verge editors Sarah Jeong and Alex Heath join me to explain what it all means. Lees meer
Links:
TikTok and Bytedance v Merrick Garland (PDF)
TikTok sues the US government over ban | The Verge
Senate passes TikTok ban bill, sending it to President Biden’s desk | The Verge
The legal challenges that lie ahead for TikTok — in both the US and China | The Verge
Why the TikTok ban won’t solve the US’s online privacy problems. | Decoder
Biden signs TikTok ‘ban’ bill into law, starting the clock for ByteDance to divest it | The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Why Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen is confident we'll all adapt to AI
13 mei 2024 · 1 uur 1 min
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen has been at the top of my list of people I’ve wanted to talk to for the show since we first launched — he’s led Adobe for nearly 17 years now, but he doesn’t do too many wide-ranging interviews. I’ve always thought Adobe was an underappreciated company — its tools sit at the center of nearly every major creative workflow you can think of — and with generative AI poised to change the very nature of creative software, it seemed particularly important to talk with Shantanu now. Lees meer
Adobe sits right at the center of the whole web of tensions, especially as the company has evolved its business and business model over time. And now, AI really changes what it means to make and distribute creative work. Not many people are seeing revenue returns on it just yet and there are the fundamental philosophical challenges of adding AI to photo and video tools. What does it mean when a company like Adobe, which makes the tools so many people use to make their art, sees the creative process as a step in a marketing chain, instead of a goal in and of itself?
Links:
How Adobe is managing the AI copyright dilemma, with general counsel Dana Rao
Adobe Launches Creative Cloud (2012)
What was Photoshop like in 1994?
Photoshop’s Generative Fill tool turns vacation photos into nightmares - The Verge
New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, and others sue OpenAI and Microsoft - The Verge
The FAIR Act: A New Right to Protect Artists in the Age of AI | Adobe Blog
Adobe’s Firefly generative AI tools are now generally available - The Verge
This Wacom AI debacle has certainly taken a turn. - The Verge
Transcript:
https://www.theverge.com/e/23917997Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Why the tech industry can’t crack the smart home
9 mei 2024 · 41 min
Today, we’re going to talk about the smart home — one of the oldest, most important, and most challenging dreams in the history of the tech industry. The idea of your house responding to you and your family, and generally being as automated and as smart as your phone or your laptop, has inspired generations of technologists. But after decades of promises, it’s all still pretty messy. Because the big problem with the smart home has been blindingly obvious for a very long time: interoperability. Lees meer
Yet there are some promising developments out there that might make it a little better. To help sort it all out, I invited Verge smart home reviewer Jen Tuohy, who is one of the most influential reporters on the smart home beat today. Jen and I break down how Matter, the open source standard, is trying to fix these issues, but there is still a lot of work to do.
Links:
Matter is now racing ahead, but the platforms are holding it back — The Verge
2023 in the smart home: Matter’s broken promises — The Verge
Smart home hubs: what they are and why you need one — The Verge
My smart kitchen: the good, the bad, and the future — The Verge
How bad business broke the smart home — The Verge
The smart home is finally getting out of your phone and into your home — The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath on life after Volvo and weathering the EV slowdown
6 mei 2024 · 1 uur 4 min
Today, I’m talking with Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath, whom I first interviewed on the show back in 2021. Those were heady days — especially for upstart EV companies like Polestar, which all seemed poised to capture what felt like infinite demand for electric cars. Now, in 2024, the market looks a lot different, and so does Polestar, which is no longer majority-owned by Volvo. Instead, Volvo is now a more independent sister company, and both Volvo and Polestar fall under Chinese parent company Geely. Lees meer
You know I love a structure shuffle, so Thomas and I really got into it: what does it mean for Volvo to have stepped back, and how much can Polestar take from Geely’s various platforms while still remaining distinct from the other brands in the portfolio? We also talked about the upcoming Polestar 3 SUV and Polestar 4 crossover, and I asked Thomas what he thinks of the Cybertruck.
Links:
Can Polestar design a new kind of car company? — Decoder
The Polestar 3 isn’t out yet, and it’s already getting a big price cut — The Verge
The Polestar 4 gets an official price ahead of its debut — The Verge
Polestar makes the rear window obsolete with its new crossover coupe — The Verge
Volvo and Polestar drift a little farther apart — The Verge
Polestar gets a nearly $1 billion lifeline — The Verge
Car-tech breakup fever is heating up — The Verge
Polestar is working on its own smartphone to sync with its EVs — The Verge
Polestar’s electric future looks high-performing, and promising — The Verge
Electric car maker Polestar to cut around 450 jobs globally — Reuters
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23912151
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Understanding the chaos at Tesla
2 mei 2024 · 40 min
Today, Verge transportation editor Andy Hawkins and I are going to try and figure out Tesla. I said try — I did not say succeed. But we’re going to try. That’s because Tesla has been on a real rollercoaster these past two weeks, in terms of its stock price, its basic financials, and well, its vibes. Lees meer
If you’ve been following the company, you know that that gap between what the business is and how its valued has been getting bigger and bigger for years now – and lately, with Elon Musk saying he’s going all-in on autonomy and announcing a robotaxi event in August, it seems like we’re getting closer to a make or break moment, especially as competition in the broader EV market heats up.
Links:
Tesla reaches deals in China on self-driving cars — NYT
Elon Musk goes ‘absolutely hard core’ in another round of Tesla layoffs — The Verge
Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving linked to dozens of deaths — The Verge
Elon Musk says Tesla will reveal its robotaxi on August 8th — The Verge
A cheaper Tesla is back on the menu — The Verge
Tesla’s profits sink as the company struggles with cooling demand — The Verge
Tesla lays off ‘more than 10 percent’ of its workforce, loses top executives — The Verge
Tesla recalls all 3,878 Cybertrucks over faulty accelerator pedal — The Verge
Elon Musk says it’s “time to reorganize” Tesla — The Verge
Elon Musk lost Democrats on Tesla when he needed them most — WSJ
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius explains why EVs are still the future — but Apple's next-gen CarPlay isn't
29 april 2024 · 1 uur 8 min
A lot has changed since the last time Ola was on Decoder. Back then, he said Mercedes would have an all-EV lineup by 2030 — a promise a whole lot of car companies, including Mercedes, have now had to soften or walk back. But he doesn't see that as a setback at all, and he and Mercedes are both still committed to phasing out gas in the long run. Lees meer
We also spent some time talking about what's happening both on the outside of cars — Mercedes' classic look and its EV look aren't necessarily quite in the same place — and on the inside of them, as infotainment becomes a huge point of competition and design.
Links:
How Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius is refocusing for an electric future - The Verge
Mercedes-Benz opens its first 400kW EV charging station in the US - The Verge
Mercedes-Benz is the first German automaker to adopt Tesla’s EV charging connector - The Verge
Is the metaverse going to suck? A conversation with Matthew Ball - The Verge
The Mercedes G-Wagen, the ultimate off-road status symbol, goes electric - The Verge
Mercedes workers file federal charges with NLRB to stop union busting - The Alabama Political Reporter
The MBUX Hyperscreen - Mercedes-Benz USA
Transcript:
https://www.theverge.com/e/23904592Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Why the TikTok ban won't solve the US's online privacy problems
25 april 2024 · 48 min
Today, we’re talking about the brand-new TikTok ban — and how years of Congressional inaction on a federal privacy law helped lead us to this moment of apparent national panic about algorithmic social media. Lees meer
This is a thorny discussion, and to help break it all down, I invited Verge senior policy reporter Lauren Feiner on the show. Lauren has been closely covering efforts to ban TikTok for years now, and she’s also watched Congress fail to pass meaningful privacy regulation for even longer. We’ll go over how we got here, what this means for both TikTok and efforts to pass new privacy legislation, and what might happen next.
Links:
Biden signs TikTok ‘ban’ bill into law — The Verge
TikTok ban: all the news on attempts to ban the video platform — The Verge
Anyone want to buy TikTok? — Vergecast
Congress takes on TikTok, privacy, and AI — Vergecast
Tiktok vows to fight 'unconstitutional' US ban — BBC
‘Thunder Run’: Behind lawmakers’ secretive push to pass the TikTok bill — NYT
On TikTok, resignation and frustration after potential ban of app — NYT
Lawmakers unveil new bipartisan digital privacy bill after years of impasse — The Verge
A real privacy law? House lawmakers are optimistic this time — The Verge
Congress is trying to stop discriminatory algorithms again — The Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Discord CEO Jason Citron makes the case for a smaller, more private internet
22 april 2024 · 59 min
Today, I’m talking to Jason Citron, the co-founder and CEO of Discord, the gaming-focused voice and chat app. You might think Discord is just something Slack for gamers, but over time, it has become much more important than that. For a growing mix of mostly young, very online users steeped in gaming culture, fandom, and other niche communities, Discord is fast becoming the hub to their entire online lives. A lot of what we think of as internet culture is happening on Discord. Lees meer
In many ways Discord represents a significant shift away from what we now consider traditional social platforms. As you’ll hear Jason describe it, Discord is a place where you talk and hangout with your friends over shared common interests, whether that’s video games, the AI bot Midjourney, or maybe your favorite anime series. It is a very different kind of interface for the internet, but that comes with serious challenges, especially around child safety and moderation.
Links:Discord opens up to games and apps embedded in its chat app — The Verge
Discord is nuking Nintendo Switch emulator devs and their entire servers — The Verge
Inside Discord’s reform movement for banned users — The Verge
Discord ends deal talks with Microsoft — WSJ
Discord cuts 17% of workers in latest tech layoffs — NYT
Discord to start showing ads for gamers to boost revenue — WSJ
Discord says it intentionally does not encrypt user messages — CNN
How Discord became a social hub for young people — NYT
‘Problematic pockets’: How Discord became a home for extremists — WashPo
Discord CEO Jason Citron on AI, Midjourney — Bloomberg
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23898955
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.Today’s episode was produced by Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Disney just fought off a shareholder revolt — but the clock’s still ticking
18 april 2024 · 43 min
Today, we're talking about Disney, the massive activist investor revolt it just fought off, and what happens next in the world of streaming. Because what happens to Disney really tells us a lot about what's happening in the entire world of entertainment. Earlier this month, Disney survived an attempted board takeover from businessman Nelson Peltz. While investors ultimately sided with Disney and CEO Bob Iger, the boardroom showdown made something very clear: Disney needs to figure out streaming and get its creative direction back on track. Lees meer
To help me figure all this out, I brought on my friend Julia Alexander, who is VP of Strategy at Parrot Analytics, a Puck News contributor, and most importantly, a former Verge reporter. She's a leading expert on all things Disney, and I always learn something important about the state of the entertainment business when I talk to her.
Links:The Story of Disney+ — Puck News
Disney’s CEO drama explained, with Julia Alexander — Decoder
Is streaming just becoming cable again? Julia Alexander thinks so — Decoder
Disney Fends Off Activist Investor for Second Time in 2 Years — NYT
For Disney, streaming losses and TV’s decline are a one-two punch — NYT
Disney’s ABC, ESPN weakness adds pressure to make streaming profitable — WSJ
Disney reportedly wants to bring always-on channels to Disney Plus — The Verge
The Disney Plus-Hulu merger is way more than a streaming bundle — The Verge
Disney’s laying off 7,000 as streaming boom comes to an end — The Verge
The last few years really scared Disney — Screen Rant
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Dropbox CEO Drew Houston wants you to embrace AI and remote work
15 april 2024 · 1 uur 5 min
At the absolute most basic, Dropbox is cloud storage for your stuff — but that puts it at the nexus of a huge number of today’s biggest challenges in tech. As the company that helps you organize your stuff in the cloud itself goes all remote, how do we even deal with the concept of “your stuff?” Lees meer
Today I’m talking with Dropbox CEO Drew Houston about those big picture ideas — and why he thinks generative AI really will be transformative for everyone eventually, even if it isn’t yet now.
Links:
Dropbox AI and Dash make it easier to find your files from all over the web | The Verge
Kids who grew up with search engines could change STEM forever | The Verge
No, Dropbox's cafeteria didn't get a Michelin star | VentureBeat
It's official: San Francisco's office vacancy rate just set a record | San Francisco Examiner
Jeff Bezos: This is the 'smartest thing we ever did' at Amazon | CNBC
Dropbox is laying off 500 people and pivoting to AI | The Verge
Congress bans staff use of Microsoft's AI Copilot | Axios
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23892647
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
The rise and fall of Vice Media
11 april 2024 · 43 min
Today we’re talking about Vice, the media company: Where it came from, what it did, and, ultimately, why it collapsed into a much smaller, sadder version of itself. Lees meer
This is a lousy time for digital media, and it’s hard to make a profit from putting words on the internet right now. So when Verge senior reporter Liz Lopatto went to go report on what happened, she and I both assumed Vice had been done in by the brutal economics of digital advertising on the web. But the Vice story is more than that — in the word of one executive that talked to Liz, it was a “fucking clown show.”
Links:
How Vice became 'a fucking clown show' — The Verge
Vice is abandoning Vice.com and laying off hundreds — The Verge
Vice, decayed digital colossus, files for bankruptcy — NYT
Vice Is Basically Dead — New York Magazine
Shane Smith and the Final Collapse of Vice News — The Hollywood Reporter
At Vice, cutting-edge media and allegations of old-school sexual harassment — NYT
HBO cancels ‘Vice News Tonight,’ severing relationship with Vice Media — CNN
Shane Smith has a secret multimillion-dollar Vice deal — New York Magazine
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Why Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince is the internet’s unlikely defender
8 april 2024 · 1 uur 19 min
Cloudflare is an infrastructure provider basically protecting more than 20% of the entire web from bad actors. When everything is going well, you don't even have to know it exists. It's one of the only defenses — sometimes the only defense — standing between websites and the people who want to take them down. Lees meer
Protecting free speech on the internet around the world, across war zones and hundreds of different kinds of government, is no easy feat. That puts the company, and CEO Matthew Prince, right at the heart of some of Decoder's biggest challenges and themes.
Links:
A Cloudflare outage broke large swathes of the internet | The Verge
Why security company Cloudflare is protecting U.S. election sites for free | Fast Company
The Daily Stormer just lost the most important company defending it | The Verge (2017)
Cloudflare to revoke 8chan’s service, opening the fringe website up for DDoS attacks | The Verge (2019)
Cloudflare blocks Kiwi Farms due to an ‘immediate threat to human life’ | The Verge
Why Cloudflare Let an Extremist Stronghold Burn | Wired
Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince interview on Ukraine cybersecurity | Semafor
3 ways the ‘splinternet’ is damaging society | MIT Sloan
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23885440
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Why Nintendo sued a Switch emulator out of existence
4 april 2024 · 43 min
Hello, and welcome to Decoder. This is David Pierce, editor-at-large at The Verge and co-host of The Vergecast, subbing in for Nilay, who’s out on vacation. Regular Decoder programming returns next week. In the meantime, we have an exciting episode for you today all about video game emulation, which, as it turns out, is a whole lot more complicated than it seems. Lees meer
Gaming emulation made headlines recently because one of the most widely used programs for emulating the Nintendo Switch, a platform called Yuzu, was effectively sued out of existence. There’s a whole lot going on here, from the history of game emulation to the copyright precedents of emulators to how the threat of game piracy still looms large in the industry. To break down this topic, I brought Verge Senior Editor and resident emulation expert Sean Hollister on the show. Let’s get into it.
Links:
Nintendo sues Switch emulator Yuzu — The Verge
Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu will fold and pay $2.4M to settle its lawsuit — The Verge
Steve Jobs announcing a PlayStation emulator for the Mac — YouTube
Fans freak out as Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom leaks two weeks early — Kotaku
Tears of the Kingdom Was Pirated 1 Million Times, Nintendo Claims — Kotaku
The solid legal theory behind Nintendo’s new emulator takedown effort — Ars Technica
How Nintendo’s destruction of Yuzu is rocking the emulator world — The Verge
How strong is Nintendo’s legal case against Switch-emulator Yuzu? — Ars Technica
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices