What's New - TopPodcast.com

Latest Episodes:

How Pharma Hides Data About Farm Antibiotic Use Jun 12, 2018

Show notes

On Wednesday last week, the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council revealed that pig herds in the United States receive almost as many antibiotics as people in this country do. That’s bad news, especially since most of the pigs receiving antibiotics aren’t sick, but instead are getting the drugs to prevent infections in intensive farming.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A Single Drone Helped Mexican Police Drop Crime 10 Percent Jun 11, 2018

Show notes

In Ensenada, a Mexican city about two hours south of Tijuana, a new crime fighter has taken to the skies. It’s not a bird, or a plane, or Superman. It’s a drone. And over a few months on patrol, it’s had quite the impact. The city’s police department claims the solitary DJI Inspire 1 Quadcopter led to more than 500 arrests and a 10 percent drop in overall crime rates, with a 30 percent drop in home robberies.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Inside the Arctic Circle, Golden Hour Has Nothing on Golden Day Jun 11, 2018

Show notes

This self-portrait depicts Wu standing before one of the domes at the Svalbard Satellite Station. A fogbow arcs above the dome, and Wu's headlamp casts an eerie pink light on the ground. A fogbow appears above the road on the way to the Svalbard Satellite Station. The station sits above the Arctic Circle at 78 degrees north. When Wu visited Svalbard in October, the sun moved in a shallow arc, kissing the horizon most of the day. The city of Longyearbyen glows in the distance.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

12 Killer Deals on Google Devices, Amazon Echo, and Headphones We Love Jun 08, 2018

Show notes

Most of the best Memorial Day tech sales have slowly trickled to an end, but with summer in full swing and new products coming out all the time, there are a surprising number of killer deals this week, including a rare sale on some excellent Google gadgets. With the help of our friends at TechBargains, below are some of our favorite deals going on this week. Google discounts some of its products now and then, but this week four of them have had their prices slashed.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lyft Redesigns Its App—and Strategy—for the Age of Sharing Jun 08, 2018

Show notes

Before Lyft was Lyft, it was a struggling California startup called Zimride. Cofounder and CEO Logan Green launched it in 2007 (the name was an ode to Zimbabwe’s carpooling culture), aiming to connect college kids who needed rides with those who had cars. John Zimmer, now Lyft’s president, signed on with the idea that putting more people into existing cars could help cities fight emissions and traffic, all at once. In 2012, Zimride spawned Lyft, after Green and Co.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Dawn of Mobile Convenience Stores—and (Maybe) Free Car Rides Jun 07, 2018

Show notes

Six years after a startup called Uber made it easier than ever for anyone to make money driving their car, a startup called Cargo is making it easier than ever for anyone who makes money driving their car to also make money running a convenience store.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Star Wars and the Battle of the Ever-More Toxic Fan Culture Jun 07, 2018

Show notes

So, I was at Comic-Con International in San Diego in 2008, the year of Twilight and True Blood. I’d never heard of either then—a blind spot, I admit—but that year something changed. Women have always attended SDCC, of course, but this year the lines switchbacking outside Hall H, the high altar of the annual nerd pilgrimage, were majority female for the first time I'd ever seen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How Apple Programmer Sal Soghoian Got Apps Talking to Each Other Jun 06, 2018

Show notes

Just six months after joining Apple, Sal Soghoian's job was already on the line. In July of 1997, then-CEO Gil Amelio had just been ousted and the company's stock was plummeting. To right the ship, Apple brought Steve Jobs back as the company's interim CEO. When Jobs took over, he went on a campaign to salvage Apple's remaining resources by hacking and slashing under-performing departments. The problem, Jobs said, was that Apple had lost its focus.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elon Musk and the Unnerving Influence of Twitter's Power Users Jun 06, 2018

Show notes

Elon Musk is tweeting up a storm, and he’s loving every minute of it. With 21 million followers, Musk has emerged as one of the defining Twitter voices of 2018, someone who will happily and democratically engage with anybody who @s him. Like other gazillionaires before him—Rupert Murdoch, Marc Andreessen—he’s found in Twitter a fun and unfiltered platform for self-expression. Unlike Murdoch and Andreessen, however, he’s still at it. And he needs to be stopped.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bringing on Self-Driving Cars Means Knowing How Humans Ride Jun 05, 2018

Show notes

What do you look like when you’re excited? How about a little nervous? Bored? Full-on freaked out? If you happen to hop on one of the two very special shuttles that are now running one-mile loops around the University of Michigan’s North Campus, a bunch of people with fancy degrees may very soon find out. Those shuttles, you see, will drive themselves.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices