Harmony remote: Control freak
The Harmony Universal Remote was supposed to be the only controller you needed for all the devices in your life. So what happened? David Pierce is joined by The Verge’s Nilay Patel and John Higgins, a...
14 Jun 1h 15min
Western Electric 500: Monopoly phone
For years, even decades, virtually everyone in the United States had the same telephone. You didn't even think about it — it was just The Phone. Well, The Phone was called the Western Electric 500, an...
12 Apr 1h 16min
Amazon Echo: Always listening
For years, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos knew the computer he wanted to build. He wanted it to be cheap, accessible everywhere, and controlled entirely by voice. It took Amazon a number of years, a lot of fal...
5 Apr 1h 12min
Macintosh: All in one
The Macintosh wasn't a hit, at least not in its first incarnation. But it was still unquestionably one of the most iconic computers ever made — and it came with one of the most iconic ads ever made, t...
29 Mar 1h 19min
Vocoder: Magic mic
The vocoder was never meant to change the music business – it wasn’t meant for music at all. But the research that started a century ago as a way to cheaply move voices over telephone wires took on a ...
22 Mar 1h 20min
Clubhouse: Pivot to audio
If you were launching a new app in 2020, it was either the worst timing (see: Quibi) or the best timing (see: Clubhouse). Clubhouse was an initially invite-only, audio-based social network that worked...
15 Mar 1h 2min
Furby: Talk Furbish to me
In 1997, David Hampton and Caleb Chung took one look at a Tamagotchi and decided they could bring the virtual pet craze into the real world. Their robotic companion, Furby, packed a bunch of advanced ...
8 Mar 1h 14min
TiVo: Press pause
Best remote ever? Best remote ever. When TiVo first debuted, it felt like magic: You could pause live TV! You could rewind it! The concept immediately became a phenomenon — even though TiVo itself was...
11 Jan 1h 6min
