What's Tech?

Tumblr was the first social media platform to feel irrelevant. I'm young enough to have blogged my way through high school, but old enough for my blogging to be unusual. I used Xanga, and then LiveJournal. When Facebook launched, I traded both platforms, and decided I'd communicate my goings-on by updating my favorite movies and TV shows...

The Verge's Dieter Bohn shares the history of the Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, which is taking place this week in Las Vegas, Nevada. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Verge tested Lexus' hoverboard in August. Thanks to science and a considerable promotional budget, the car maker's hoverboard actually hovered above the earth — as its name suggested. The experience was the culmination of a shared pop culture dream dating back to Michael J. Fox's faithful special effects-aided ride in Back to the Future Part II. It felt perversely historic...

Last week, I wrote about Microsoft's plan to bring Xbox One and Windows 10 closer together. I've been wondering what this future might look like. I know a good deal about Microsoft's video game consoles, but Windows remains a bit of a mystery. I switched to Apple laptops in high school, and only recently welcomed a Windows PC into my home exclusively for gaming. But more and more, I'm tempted to switch back to Windows for my work computer...

When I joined The Verge, many of my peers from the video games press congratulated me on a lifetime of writing about internet routers. I laughed at their silly joke. How much, I thought, is there to really say about an internet router? If only my naive self of 2014 had known the truth, that routers evoke a passion among the citizens of the internet like few pieces of technology. I thought people cared about console wars, then I witnessed a debate about the benefits of Netgear's Nighthawk line...

On a recent Sunday afternoon, you may have noticed Brutus — Fox's NFL mascot — wearing a new set of protective armor. This costume wasn't promoting a nonprofit initiative meant to distract from professional football's abundance of PR debacles, nor was it celebrating Thanksgiving or Christmas. It was an ad for a video game: Fallout 4...

I remember my first meme. I was in my grade school computer lab — this was a time when computers were still novel, not mandatory. My fifth grade teacher was explaining email to our classroom, and how she could use it to talk with a friend in another country about what happened on this week's episode of Friends. Presumably Friends didn't air in said country...

I have tried various health trackers, and they always wind up buried in the bottom drawer of my dresser. I should love the pursuit of a quantified self. I like data; I want to be healthier; I enjoy new technology, even when it's fussy and doesn't really work. But for whatever reason, trackers just leave me feeling guilty at best and competitive with friends and family at worse...

More recently, discussions of extraterrestrial life have become mainstream. Brilliant minds like Stephen Hawking and Neil deGrasse Tyson have made headlines with their thoughts on how humans should or shouldn't make contact. This week, I invited my friend and colleague Loren Grush to explain how science thinks about alien life. It's a bit spooky, like a Halloween-ish episode, airing just a few days late for the horror holiday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week Microsoft released Halo 5, the latest installment of its most iconic exclusive for Xbox consoles. The adventures of Master Chief and his console cohorts, however, pale beneath the popularity of the stories created by players in the universe of Minecraft...