What's Tech?

This Sunday the WWE will host the Super Bowl of professional wrestling. Wrestlemania will takeover the AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas, which has a maximum capacity of 105,000. If things go as the WWE plans, the show will be the biggest pro wrestling event in history. That's only partly why you should tune in. After decades of ups-and-downs, pro wrestling is expanding beyond the ring, becoming a superhero-like universe of comedy shows, gaming streams, and reality programs...

In 2013, billionaire eccentric inventor Elon Musk announced an idea called the Hyperloop: a super-fast, low-friction transportation system that looked like the prom photo for a subway tunnel and a bullet-train. Musk made the Hyperloop an open-sourced project, inviting thinkers, scientists, and fellow inventors — no matter their age — to help make the potentially revolutionary concept into a reality...

A $3 million vide game tournament is happening right now in Shanghai, China, pitting 16 of the best Dota 2 teams against each other. But what, pray tell, does any of that mean? Dota 2 is an immensely popular video game that mixes elements of many genres, from sports simulation to role-playing epics to twitch-reaction shooters, and yet is unique in its own right. To its millions of adherents, Dota is closer to a lifestyle than a pastime...

My colleague Adi Robertson, I recently learned, is a fan of oddball transportation. On our work trip to the Sundance Film Festival, she gleefully introduced me to the funicular, a small and nicely furnished box that travels up and down a cliffside on a steel track, like a rollercoaster pushing through molasses. The funicular, she told me with the confidence of an expert in these things, was cool, but not nearly as cool as the PRT...

Normally we publish What's Tech on Tuesday morning, but we couldn't hold next week's episode until then. A federal court has requested Apple help the FBI gain access to the contents of an iPhone that belonged to one of the San Bernardino shooters. Apple has refused. For some, the issue appears, at first glance, quite cut and dry: Apple should do everything in its power to help the FBI...

Coverage of SpaceX and Blue Origin, the two private companies pursuing the reusable rocket, is near inescapable. Maybe you watched a launch on our site, or saw one of the not-quite-landings in a Facebook video. Space news has become so ubiquitous in tech culture, that it's easy to scroll right past, maybe leaving a Like in your wake, taking for granted the creative and financial cost that goes into sending an object into space — and attempting to bring it back to repeat that journey...

I am perpetually envious of my friend and colleague Sam Byford. He lives in Tokyo, and has access to new Hatsune Miku vinyls, Nintendo 3DS limited editions, and Sega arcades. His is the technological life I wish I could live. There's one gadget, however, Sam says I can and should buy today in the States: a traditional film camera. I invited Sam to What's Tech? to defend this suspicious claim, and I admit, his love for the classic camera is contagious...

Super Bowl 50 approaches with the reliability of the morning sun, and yet, you still have so many questions. There are the obvious questions, which I can answer here. What teams are in the Super Bowl? The Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers. What time is the Super Bowl? Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30PM ET on CBS, but it's safe to add another five minutes of ceremonial buffer time. What dish should I bring? Homemade fried mac and cheese balls, an easy, unexpected hit...

I've used Spotify for a few years, but I'm curious if I should make a switch to one of the dozen and change alternate music streaming services. Apple Music has free concerts, I'm told, and Tidal has better audio quality. But every time I consider shifting my subscription, I feel overwhelmed by the details. I invited The Verge's Micah Singleton onto today's episode to share the history of music streaming services, and direct me on where to spend my money...

[Apologies, the original file uploaded incorrectly. This is the complete episode.] My options at the movies this week include a 1980s Dublin-set rock musical, a dark comedy that hinges on a lap dog, a thriller involving the moon landing conspiracy, a Werner Herzog doc about the internets profound mark on our lives, and dozens of other offbeat films, TV shows, documentaries, and visual experiments...