Technology Podcasts

You open a map to find somewhere for lunch and get a recommendation you didn’t ask for. You install an update and discover that a familiar button has moved. A technology podcast can follow those small irritations back to the decisions behind them. At their best, these shows make the machinery understandable while keeping the person using it in view.

The choice now is partly about your appetite for AI. Wanting fewer conversations about it and wanting tougher questions about it are different needs. So are wanting to hear a founder explain an ambition and wanting a reporter to test it. Listeners and critics are arguing about where access becomes accommodation, whether product coverage can leave politics outside, and how much confidence a demonstration deserves. A useful listening queue leaves room for enthusiasm and scrutiny, with something more durable than another prediction.

News: understand what changed

Daily Tech News Show separates an announcement from what it might mean in The US AI Framework Is a Press Release - DTNS WEEKEND. Tom Merritt starts by establishing that the framework is a suggestion to Congress. The conversation then examines missing enforcement and funding provisions, with Merritt pushing back on his guest’s interpretation of how states might respond. At 19 minutes, it offers a bounded argument rather than an afternoon’s immersion.

Hard Fork gives disagreement more room, and more jokes. In The Future of Addictive Design + Going Deep at DeepMind + HatGPT, Kevin Roose and Casey Newton debate whether harmful platform design can be separated from the content that makes a service compelling. Roose brings up his own attachment to instant messaging; Newton questions the comparison. For this intersection of products and public life, continue into the Tech Culture hub.

Explainers: follow the mechanism

In The Reasoning Show’s Understanding RAG Systems, the discussion turns retrieval-augmented generation into a sequence: find relevant information, put it into the model’s working context, then generate an answer. A broken toaster supplies the practical test. Before retrieving a replacement policy, the system should establish which toaster you own and when you bought it. The Artificial Intelligence hub offers a route onward.

Security Now (Audio) takes a longer road. In The FCC Bans New Consumer Routers - LinkedIn's JavaScript Bombshell, Steve Gibson goes back to the original tracking pixel: a tiny image whose retrieval makes a browser contact another server. That groundwork gives listeners a way to understand the more elaborate tracking he discusses. The 172-minute commitment matters; this is a show for sustained attention.

Energy Gang brings the same explanatory job to physical infrastructure. In Inside the largest power market in the US: How PJM is navigating the collision of data centres, decarbonization, and affordability., Ed Crooks checks his understanding of paying generators to be available when needed. Guest Asim Haq explains the arrangement, then discusses proposed ways of managing data-centre demand. Crooks presses him on what is a requirement and what is encouragement. Follow that question into the Energy Technology hub.

Interviews: hear how decisions get made

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups approaches materials research through the people building a business around it. In AI for Atoms: How Periodic Labs is Revolutionizing Materials Engineering with Co-Founder Liam Fedus, the hosts ask whether advances depend on existing experimental data and how far knowledge transfers between scientific domains. Fedus describes stronger progress where his company has abundant data, while acknowledging that modelling quantum-mechanical systems does little for fluid dynamics. His expectations remain a founder’s assessment.

Empire’s How To Make DeFi Great Again | Adrian Cachinero Vasiljevic & Luca Prosperi subjects ambition to a different pressure: why accept the risks of decentralized lending for a modest return? The guests disagree about how to price those risks and distinguish between lending arrangements. It rewards financial vocabulary and patience. Choose it to understand an argument inside the industry, then continue into the Blockchain & Cryptocurrency hub.

Investigations and histories: stay with the consequences

Darknet Diaries reconstructs an insider extortion case in Ubiquiti, following a ransom demand through to the investigation. Jack Rhysider explains why a VPN could conceal traffic without concealing which device used a home router. He also leaves an uncertainty intact: the account does not establish exactly why the attacker’s real internet address was logged.

Click Here’s Your data, commodified follows stolen personal information through a criminal business and a Secret Service operation. Dina Temple-Raston makes room for the perpetrator’s remorse, while the discussion also includes the continuing costs borne by people whose data was taken. It is a route into the Cybersecurity hub for listeners interested in consequences as much as intrusion.

The Missing Cryptoqueen changes the time scale. In 15. Pac-Man, a property trail leads through offshore ownership and efforts to recover victims’ money. Jen McAdam’s memories of her friend Eileen interrupt the accounting with the life they had hoped their investment would buy. Expect bereavement as well as fraud. This is a numbered instalment in an ongoing investigation, so it asks more of a newcomer than a standalone case.

Consumer technology: decide what belongs in your life

Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast opens You're Using Tabs Wrong with a complaint about a flashlight control: the larger target opens settings when the speaker wants a simple switch. The ensuing argument about browser tabs and screen space makes preferences visible rather than pretending there is one correct setup. Its 117 minutes include substantial conversational wandering; choose it when the company is part of the appeal. The Consumer Electronics hub is the next stop for hardware curiosity.

Mac Power Users works closer to the desk. In Life After iPadOS 26, the hosts describe setting preferred apps for opening files and using Focus modes to arrange different working environments. Their question is whether an iPad can serve as a portable companion to another computer. Continue into the Software & Apps hub.

Builder conversations: examine the trade-offs

Software Engineering Daily’s SmartBear and Multi-Agent QA gets into how separate AI agents explore an application, run tests and ask a coordinating agent for help. Then the interviewer asks about hard restrictions on what those agents can access. The guest says some proposed controls are not supported yet. Continue into AI & ML Engineering or Software Engineering with AI.

Talk Python To Me broadens the responsibility in OWASP Top 10 (2025 List) for Python Devs. Guest Tanya explains why the security data available to the project can reflect what vendors’ tools detect rather than the whole pattern of incidents. The conversation then treats developers’ browsers and build tools as parts of the software supply chain. It suits listeners already writing code; Application & Cloud Security is a natural continuation.

Launched by RevenueCat supplies a memorable counterweight to effortless creation. In 83: NaadSadhana – Sandeep Ranade, Ranade recalls implementing a tuning algorithm without fully understanding it and seeing his phone’s battery life collapse from about two days to 20 minutes. Getting it running began the work of understanding it. That is a good reason to visit the Software Engineering hub.

Where to start

• For a short policy argument: Daily Tech News Show — The US AI Framework Is a Press Release - DTNS WEEKEND. Allow 19 minutes to hear a proposal separated from the machinery needed to enforce it.
• For an AI explanation you can follow: The Reasoning Show — Understanding RAG Systems. Its 29 minutes connect information retrieval to the questions a customer-service system should ask.
• For a complete security story: Darknet Diaries — Ubiquiti. In 36 minutes, the insider case gives technical details a narrative purpose without requiring a tour of the archive.
• For the tablet sitting in a drawer: Mac Power Users — Life After iPadOS 26. Set aside 76 minutes and listen with one task of your own in mind.
• For engineers evaluating agents: Software Engineering Daily — SmartBear and Multi-Agent QA. The 55-minute conversation rewards attention to permissions and coordination, including what the product cannot yet do.

After one episode, ask whether you can explain a decision more clearly, or make a better one yourself. That is a useful standard for the next hour you give a show.

Featured shows below are part of the PlayNext catalog. Updated weekly.