The tale of the Fire Phone, Amazon’s very strange smartphone
The tale of the Fire Phone, Amazon's very strange smartphone When Jeff Bezos decided Amazon needed to get in the smartphone game, he went all in. And the resulting device, the Fire Phone, wound up more densely packed with big ideas than just about any gadget you’ll find anywhere. There was just one tiny problem: […]
Bring back the iBook, you cowards
Bring back the iBook, you cowards Apple is reportedly working on a low-cost laptop powered by an iPhone chip. This could be a small deal, a decision made by supply chain economics and the fact that the M1 MacBook Air continues to sell well at Walmart. Or it could be huge, a return to form […]
How AI is fueling an existential crisis in education
How AI is fueling an existential crisis in education Here on Decoder, we’ve talked a lot about generative AI, which is a very big idea that is causing quite a few problems. One thing we keep hearing about over and over again is that generative AI is causing a lot of problems in schools. A […]
Your smart home questions, answered
Your smart home questions, answered There are a couple of universal truths about the smart home. Yes, you will come to treat your robot vacuum like a member of the family, and no, you cannot escape the fact that there will always be one light that doesn’t turn on even though there’s simply no reason […]
Why the Zune never killed the iPod
Why the Zune never killed the iPod The Microsoft Zune is mostly just a footnote in tech history. Microsoft spent years – and vast sums of money – trying to create a true competitor to Apple’s iPod, without ever coming close to actually pulling it off. The Zune was simply too little, too late. You […]
God will be declared by a panel of experts
God will be declared by a panel of experts What is AGI? We know it stands for Artificial General Intelligence. That’s a good start. But what does AGI mean, really? And how do we know when we’ve achieved it? For that matter, who decides we’ve achieved it? Does the AGI decide? This week, as OpenAI […]
How Silicon Valley enshittified the internet
How Silicon Valley enshittified the internet Hello, and welcome to Decoder. This is Sarah Jeong, features editor at The Verge. I’m standing in for Nilay for one final Thursday episode here as he settles back into full-time hosting duties. Today, we’ve got a fun one. I’m talking to Cory Doctorow, prolific author, internet activist, and […]
GM isn’t ready to rip off the CarPlay/Android Auto band-aid quite yet
GM isn't ready to rip off the CarPlay/Android Auto band-aid quite yet Last week, General Motors CEO Mary Barra caused a stir when she said that the company would eventually kill Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in all of its gas cars. The company had already successfully removed phone mirroring capabilities from most of its […]
LexisNexis CEO says the AI law era is already here
LexisNexis CEO says the AI law era is already here Today, I’m talking with Sean Fitzpatrick, the CEO of LexisNexis, one of the most important companies in the entire legal system. For years — including when I was in law school — LexisNexis was basically the library. It’s where you went to look up case […]
Why GM will give you Gemini — but not CarPlay
Why GM will give you Gemini — but not CarPlay We’ve got a special episode of Decoder today. I’m talking to General Motors CEO Mary Barra and new GM Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson about a lot of big news the company just announced. That includes a Google Gemini-powered AI assistant that’s coming to new […]