Hello! This is The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of The Verge... and your life. Every Friday, Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn make sense of the week's tech news with help from our wide-ranging staff. Join us every week for a fun, deeply nerdy, often off-the-rails conversation about what's happening now (and next) in technology and gadgets.
HQ, selfie authentication, and solar panels turning air into water
Let get this out of the way: Nilay and Dieter are not on the show this week. But really, we’ve got a great show hosted by Verge podcast professionals Lauren Goode and Casey Newton. Oh and Paul is still here, too! So what are we talking about on the show today? Well, a lot. Lauren, Casey, and Paul analyze the news that was at the top of the site this week, including a glitch that left American Airlines without pilots during the week of Christmas; a rundown of the new trivia app HQ; and the reveal of the man who deactivated Trump’s Twitter account briefly a few weeks ago. Also, Lauren gives us a closer look into the newest episode of her video series Next Level, which deals with solar panels that turn air into drinking water. There’s a whole lot in between that, like Paul’s weekly segment “Whiskey pods? No.” So, listen to it all, and you know what? You’ll get it all. 02:56 - Google might merge back with Nest to make more smart home products 10:23 - The man who deactivated Trump’s Twitter account has revealed himself 17:35 - HQ 25:35 - Facebook uses selfies as login authentication for suspicious activity 29:02 - Verge holiday book recommendations 32:00 - ‘Only a few hundred’ American Airlines flights still lack pilots after massive computer glitch 34:27 - Inside the decade-long fight to expose Morgan Marquis-Boire 38:53 - Next Level season 2 episode 3 52:07 - Paul’s weekly segment “Whiskey pods? No.” 55:56 - Amazon unveils $250 AI camera and machine learning tools for businesses 1:04:50 - Is now a good time to buy a new phone / laptop / TV?
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