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Americans Can't Have Audi's Super Capable Self-Driving System May 15, 2018

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Between Silicon Valley’s disruption-happy tech giants and Detroit’s suddenly totally on board automakers, it’s easy to think of America as the center of the self-driving universe. And so it seems a bit backwards that Audi has decided to release the world’s most capable semiautonomous driving feature in … Europe.

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The Vehicle of the Future Has Two Wheels, Handlebars, and Is a Bike May 15, 2018

Show notes

What’s the shiniest, most exciting new technology for transportation? Well, there are plenty of candidates! We’ve got the self-driving car and drones big enough to carry people. Elon Musk is getting ready to bore hyperloop tunnels. When it comes to moving humans around, the future looks to be merging with sci-fi. But from where I stand, the most exciting form of transportation technology is more than 100 years old—and it’s probably sitting in your garage.

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'Westworld' Is Turning Into Lost—for Better or for Worse May 14, 2018

Show notes

I never should have started watching Westworld. Not because I didn’t think it’d be good. An HBO show based on a Michael Crichton idea starring Evan Rachel Wood with all kinds of artificial intelligence? Sign me up! The problem wasn’t that Westworld wouldn’t be enjoyable, it was that it’s the kind of show that invites obsession. The kind that presents Big Questions—that never get answered. I worried, essentially, that it was going to be the next Lost.

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HTC Vive Pro Review: An Expensive VR Upgrade May 14, 2018

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The first time I wore the HTC Vive, it was like putting on a century-old metal diving suit. It was a heavy, hideous-looking 3D-printed early unit with a thick bundle of cords streaming out the back. It was so delicate that one of the developers had to hold the cables them so I could walk around without breaking it (or myself). Looks aren’t everything, though. That prototype Vive sent me down to the bottom of the ocean to walk around for the first time and let me stare a blue whale in the eye.

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Is Amazon Prime Still Worth It? May 11, 2018

Show notes

On Friday, for the first time in four years, Amazon has raised the price of its Prime benefits program. What once cost $99 annually now costs $119 for new members; existing Prime subscriptions will get bumped whenever they renew, starting June 16. But while nobody likes a 20 percent hike, it's a good reminder that Amazon Prime is as worth it as you want it to be. If past is prologue, the price change won’t inspire many people to cancel their Prime accounts.

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The Complex Engineering of Aston Martin's DB11 Volante May 11, 2018

Show notes

If you were asked to name the craziest thing that ever happened to an Aston Martin inside a laboratory, you’d likely invoke some witty repartee between James Bond and Q. But that’s only because you don’t know how Aston’s engineering department developed the roof for the 2018 DB11 Volante.

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Inside the Arena Where Drones Battle a Wall of 1,300 Computer Fans May 10, 2018

Show notes

Wind is the worst. It messes up hair, it blows stuff in eyes, and most famously and rudely of all, one time it made a bridge in Washington twist and undulate until it exploded. Alright, maybe that was the fault of the engineers, not the wind. But still, strong gusts have the potential to threaten many technologies, including a new one: drones. If you’ve ever taken a quadcopter out on a windy day, you know the struggle.

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Childish Gambino's 'This Is America' and the New Shape of Protest Music May 10, 2018

Show notes

In 2014, a Rolling Stone poll declared Bob Dylan’s "Masters of War" the best protest song of our time. Recorded in April of 1963, during that fierce spell of racial and economic tumult, Dylan, in his folksy pragmatism, rages against the Cold War and the military industrial complex. "You play with my world/ Like it’s your little toy," he sings.

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AI Isn’t a Crystal Ball, But It Might Be a Mirror May 09, 2018

Show notes

Everyone from the ACLU to the Koch brothers wants to reduce the number of people in prison and in jail. Liberals view mass incarceration as an unjust result of a racist system. Conservatives view the criminal justice system as an inefficient system in dire need of reform. But both sides agree: Reducing the number of people behind bars is an all-around good idea.

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A Robotics Startup Perishes, and It’s Got Tales to Tell May 09, 2018

Show notes

TickTock has run out of time. Don’t fret if you don’t know what that is—after all, the startup launched just a year ago. But in that time the company cycled through four different consumer robot concepts in the hopes of shaping the future of the home, moving beyond simpleton Roombas to truly intelligent machines. After TickTock's collapse, though, co-founder and ex-Googler Ryan Hickman is talking candidly about what it’s like to build an unwanted robot.

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