Bad Voltage

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which encryption backdoors rear their ugly heads (party like it’s 1999!), Minority Report is not a manual, and: [00:00:00] Intro [00:01:19] The UK government demands that Apple put a back door in their end to end encryption. Apple are not prepared to do this, […]

Jono Bacon and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which Jeremy is sadly unwell (get well soon Jezza!) and so we in theory look at the latest news but actually spend three quarters of the show on one topic! This is what happens when there’s no Jeremy to keep us on track. Including: [00:00:00] Intro […]

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we are back, back again, Bad Voltage is back, tell a friend, and we look back a little at the big things that happened in 2024’s tech world: [00:00:00] Intro [00:02:19] Social Media 2024 [00:26:19] Drones in NY [00:30:28] The UK is over […]

Jono Bacon and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which there is a particularly excellent shirt, a particularly absent salting of the conversation with, y’know, actual facts and that from Jeremy, and: [00:00:00] Intro [00:02:19] CrowdStrike: how half the computers in the world went down (with thanks to abadidea for research) [00:28:41] Reddit might paywall […]

Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we return after an unplanned hiatus, there is a squirrel in your car (not a euphemism), and: [00:00:00] Intro [00:04:16] The US government demands that Bytedance sell TikTok, or do they? There’s lots going on in this case, and it leads into lots […]

Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we look to the year ahead (well, the 10 months ahead) and predict what will happen in the tech industry and the world in 2024. 2024’s predictions: [00:00:00] Intro [00:02:49] Jeremy: Sundar Pichai will not be CEO by end of 2024 [00:06:55] Jeremy: […]

Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which in traditional Christmas style we look back on our predictions for 2024 and Jono whines about half points. More successfully than usual this year, admittedly. Have a happy holiday season! We’ll be back in the new year. [00:00:00] Intro [00:01:44] Jeremy: Tiktok gets […]

Jono Bacon and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which Jeremy is temporarily not present, website hosting issues are acknowledged and briefly discussed, and: [00:00:00] Intro [00:01:16] New York intends to have air taxis by 2025, including bonus London Illustrated News content [00:10:23] Microsoft Teams announce upcoming 3D meetings in VR, including a Lex Friedman/Mark […]

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we do a bit of a deep dive into the (semi-)recent trend of finding new ways for creators to get paid. Patreon’s been around for a long time (but could be doing better), and the idea of making a thing and getting paid […]

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we revisit an old friend, Room 101, the place where all the things we hate should be banished. At least according to each of us: whether the other two can be so convinced is another thing entirely… [00:04:07] Jono: All videoconferencing except Zoom […]

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which multiple minutes of pre-show work are awkwardly wasted, we haven’t got a sign on the roof, and: [00:01:39] GPTBot is launched to crawl your websites and add their technological distinctiveness to its own model, and there is discussion of robots.txt changes [00:11:08] MDN, […]

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we discuss ad-supported services and the (potential?) rise of subscriptions. Have ads gone away, or started to? Are social media networks being supported by ads now pivoting to something else? And are Patreon and sponsorships mostly a boon for small creators, or a […]

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which there is unsceptical intensity, we are all eaten by a T-1000, and we have collected a list of concerns about Large Language Model-based AI, which we’re going to dive into! [00:00:00] Introduction [00:04:30] The “free software” concern: it normalises inhaling information for free […]

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which there’s more smoky back rooms than usual, everyone’s on Orkut, and: [00:01:14] Who likes Microsoft Teams? Microsoft promises it’s made Teams less confusing and resource hungry, while Teams surprisingly now has 270m users to Slack’s 20m. [00:08:21] An “open letter” from tech pioneers […]

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we spend a show inventing topics which need a whole other show to talk about, we reminisce about Google Plus, and: [00:01:36] Twitter Blue, Meta Verified: the social networks go premium. Is it going to work? [00:35:45] The FBI recommend that everyone uses […]

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we look, as has been threatened a bunch recently, at Mastodon. What’s it all about? Is Mastodon the new Twitter, and is it trying to be? And how far have we got into it? Also, we’re now on Mastodon! @badvoltage@mastodon.social! Come chat with […]

Jeremy Garcia, Jono Bacon, and Stuart Langridge present Bad Voltage, in which we create predictions for 2023! What will happen over the next twelve months in the world of tech? Here’s what we think… Stuart: the Texas HB20 social media law will come before the US Supreme Court, and the US Supreme Court will uphold […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage for the last time in 2022, in which we take a look back at our predictions for this year and review how we did. Surprisingly… not as badly as last year. Although as you may expect there is shameless jockeying for extra points. How did […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we are not necessarily “extremely hardcore”, we aren’t verified (or are we?), we aren’t fleeing the country with a load of money that isn’t ours, and: [00:00:00] Intro [00:02:37] Twitter and Musk: much change is afoot in the world of Twitter, as Elon […]

Jono Bacon, Stuart Langridge, and special guest Adam Lorimer present Bad Voltage, in which reality is virtual, metas are connected, and: Meta, nee Facebook, had their Meta Connect conference where they announced their upcoming plans, recent hardware and software releases, and the like. We have some interest in VR generally, as evidenced by Jono always […]

Jono Bacon, Jeremy Garcia, and special guest Erica Brescia present Bad Voltage, in which a generation of hypochondriacs is created, we are made to do research, and: [00:01:51] VC/WeWork/Flow [00:20:28] AI wins state fair art contest, annoys humans [00:28:14] New smart watches [00:38:22] Notkia [00:39:52] OSTP Issues Guidance to Make Federally Funded Research Freely Available […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which the roflcopter is created, Soli is forgotten, and: [00:00:00] Intro [00:02:04] Chorizo space prank [00:04:04] Floppotron 3.0 [00:10:47] Doom running on $15 smart lamp, and in Doom [00:16:22] SCaLE 19X [00:19:59] Who's liable for AI-generated lies? [00:28:48] Amazon Slashing Private-Label Selection [00:31:29] Amazon […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which everyone’s middle name is Elaine, there is discussion of the nature of business in the modern age, and: [00:02:45] We look at Brave, a privacy-focused web browser. They’ve got some interesting technical choices, but more importantly we want to look at the question […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which Victorian Tumblr is a thing, you should probably check out Lethality, Jono’s band’s latest, and: [00:00:00] Intro [00:04:11] USB Type-C EVERYTHING [00:17:33] Firefox and Google are arguing about extension APIs that ad blockers use [00:34:00] Spotify comes for audiobooks [00:57:15] Outro Come chat […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and special guest star Jorge Castro present Bad Voltage, in which those of the team not currently having fun on a beach in Spain dig into the latest tech news, including (but not limited to): [00:08:26] Github start requiring two-factor authentication for contributors [00:16:21] This show was edited live on Twitch […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which Times Square is a much better example, it is Stuart’s turn to seemingly sound like he recorded this at the bottom of a coal mine (sorry about that), and: [00:01:50] Elon Musk is buying Twitter. We have thoughts, and quite a few of […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and special guest star Alan Pope present Bad Voltage, in which intelligence is artificial, snaps are un-ned, and art is what you make it: [00:04:00] popey’s latest tool is unsnap, which helps you “quickly and easily migrate from using snap for applications to flatpak”, and we’ll get into how it works […]

Stuart Langridge, Jeremy Garcia, and special guest star Jorge Castro present Bad Voltage, in which we in theory want to talk about loads of news but actually we spend all our discussion time on one topic: [00:02:00] Jorge is into Flatpak. And there’s quite a lot to talk about here. This is very much about […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia return, after a couple of months of trials and tribulations, to reveal our predictions for (the rest of) 2022! Prepare to find out What Comes Next in our roles as Cassandras: [00:06:20] Jono: VR bonanza: Apple will release their VR headset this year, and PSVR2 will be released, […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia are in your ears for the last time in 2021, as we look back on what we thought this year would be back in January, and then how it’s actually been now that we’ve lived through it. Yes, it’s prediction review time! Did you do better than us? […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia hold these rights to be self-evident: [00:02:17] Adele gets Spotify to remove shuffle button [00:09:20] Apple announces self repair program [00:26:25] Meta has a new VR glove [00:35:11] Ubuntu Accomplishments rides again [00:39:03] FTC says “click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal [00:49:16] Cryptobros try to buy […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia claim to do research, run conferences, encourage people to hire Marius, and: Meta. Facebook rebranded to Meta and have gone all in on the “metaverse”, which they call “a hybrid of today’s online social experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world”. VR and […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and special guest Jorge Castro present Bad Voltage, in which Stuart honestly thought for one second that the Americans have a very worryingly-titled show called “Poor Patrol” before realising that he misheard, and: [00:02:33] The return of the legendary Bacommunity app! Made by friend of the show Roger Light, who has […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which whistles are blown, audio is twitched, and: [00:02:18] A whole show on one topic: Facebook and content moderation. Since Frances Haugen left Facebook for the life of a whistleblower, filing complaints with federal law enforcement that Facebook knows that it amplifies hate, misinformation […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we discuss the mysterious arrival of boxes, how to play CDs, and: [00:02:18] We review the 8Sleep Pod Pro Cover, an internet-connected mattress, which Jono claims is actually useful. There is, not surprisingly, some scepticism about this claim, but equally: sleep is important […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which [00:02:50] Online trolls are assholes offline too, at least according to a new survey [00:17:20] Facebook Workrooms seem to be the long-promised “Facebook Spaces”, much to Jono’s intemperate joy [00:29:50] Excellently detailed albeit mildly depressing summary of Google’s myriad messaging apps which is […]

Stuart Langridge and Jono Bacon present Bad Voltage, in which Jeremy is away, there used to be a star and now there isn’t, and we devote the whole show to a discussion of Apple’s recent announcement that your iPhone will now scan some of your photos and report them if they’re child porn. This has […]

Stuart Langridge and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which Jono is away, you too are not an astronaut, and: [00:02:00] Shares slide after China brands online games “electronic drugs” [00:03:50] The US FAA changes the definition of “astronaut” after Bezos and Branson go into space, LOL [00:06:25] Machine learning sucks at covid [00:12:15] Sinclair […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which God is not our co-pilot. Instead, Github Copilot is. What’s the deal with this thing? Copilot is “an AI pair programmer that helps you write better code”, according to Github themselves. “GitHub Copilot draws context from the code you’re working on, suggesting whole […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which there is much news from all over the tech industry, including: [00:02:15] Anom app from FBI yanked in a huge amount of criminals [00:08:45] FaceTime is coming to Android and Windows via the web, plus: how Apple’s rise to be the richest company […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which it is all the news all the time, including: [00:03:30] The results of our (flagrantly biased) Room 101 polls from the last episode! [00:10:29] The biggest GDPR fines so far [00:16:45] Charlie Bit My Finger becomes an NFT [00:31:50] Tesla (arguably) throttle older […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we emulate the old British talk/game show Room 101 by nominating our pet hates and consigning those hates to oblivion in Room 101, the ultimate destination for all rubbish things. Assuming, that is, that our explanations convince our colleagues, which is not as […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which the subject of artificial intelligence is discussed. We’ve walked around the outside of this topic a few times on the show, and now it’s time to dig in; is AI actually real, or are the jokes about reclassifying a Python script as “AI” […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which horrible neologisms are proposed, things are both funny and also sad, and there is ooh gosh loads of news: [00:04:10] The BBC’s coverage of the life and death of Prince Philip breaks the UK TV complaints record, and the National Rail make their […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which flock is more than wallpaper, we say the word “cohort” about fifty billion times, and: [00:02:15] FLoC, the “federated learning of cohorts”, is a proposal from Google as part of their Privacy Sandbox initiative to replace third-party advertising cookies but still enable targeted […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we invite special guest star Augustus de Morgan to comment, there is an intemperate argument about jeans, and: [00:01:30] NFTs. “Non-fungible tokens“; a way to record ownership of some digital asset on a blockchain, something like a collectible or a trading card. Suddenly […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and special guest star Alan Pope present Bad Voltage, in which we are large and in charge, there is ancient history about electricians and phones, and: [00:02:55] Rooster kills man in illegal cockfight [00:05:40] What are Twitter Spaces? iOS only, invite-only to create them, and not Facebook Spaces so no prediction […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which Facebook aren’t watching our webinars and this is not nuanced, and: [00:02:50] Advertising. Apple’s new IDFA moves prompt a larger conversation about targeted advertising and whether it works, some examples of how we’ve actually tried using it, and then the bigger picture. Is […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we take what Jono calls an avant-garde and everyone else calls a ridiculous improvised approach to the set list. [00:01:10] Flash, aaargh. It saved every one of us. [Flash is now dead](https://www.adobe.com/uk/products/flashplayer/end-of-life.html). We take a look back over the history of the web […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which Bad Voltage is on Spotify! Also, we have great content, you should review us on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere, and: [00:05:55] We review the Remarkable 2 e-ink writing pad, with reference to our previous show on using paper instead of tech and Alan […]

Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and Jeremy Garcia present Bad Voltage, in which we present our predictions for 2021! Stuart: [00:11:11] Remote work starts to hollow out cities and as a result, three major cities see population drops (or the populations drop more than they already were) [00:17:20] Social media sites band together to avoid fake […]