Gadget Lab: Weekly Tech News from WIRED WIRED

For a lot of people, riding a bike through a crowded city—or even on suburban avenues—might feel daunting. Should you get an electric or acoustic bicycle? What gear do you need while you ride? How do you avoid getting hit by the great big gas guzzlers that take up most of the road? These are valid questions, and we've got answers. May is national bike month here in the US, and Gadget Lab is ready to get you rolling.
This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior associate reviews editor Adrienne So joins us as we cycle through all things bikes: How to start riding more, what to look for in an ebike, and what's the best frame color for your grocery-getter.
Show Notes: 
Read more about Adrienne’s guide to the best ebikes. Here’s our roundup of our favorite bike accessories.
Recommendations: 
Adrienne recommends the book A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit. Mike recommends the Lil Guy hip bag from Road Runner Bags. Lauren recommends Adrienne So’s WIRED story “A Letter to My Fellow Asian Mothers From the Multiverse.”
Adrienne So can be found on Twitter @adriennemso. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.
This show originally aired May 19, 2022. Here's a full transcript.
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The weather is warming up in our part of the world, which means people are starting to think a little more about getting outside and being active, and maybe doing so in a little less clothing than usual. So we’re dedicating this week’s Gadget Lab episode to fitness. Our guest is the author Casey Johnston, who writes about weightlifting, nutrition, and fitness trends in her newsletter, She’s a Beast, and her book, Liftoff: Couch to Barbell.
We talk to Casey about her own fitness journey, and how to navigate all the high-tech and low-tech solutions for achieving better health, from fitness trackers and online videos to finding a workout regimen that meets your goals.
Show Notes:
Subscribe to Casey’s newsletter. Check out her ebook about weightlifting. 
Recommendations:
Casey recommends the game Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Mike recommends saving your pickle brine and using it in other recipes instead of just dumping it out. Lauren recommends the podcast Wiser Than Me, hosted by Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Casey Johnston can be found on Twitter @caseyjohnston. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.
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Google would like you to know that it has been at the forefront of machine intelligence for decades, actually. Never mind that it was beaten to the generative AI hype party by the likes of OpenAI and Microsoft Bing, because Google has big plans. At its I/O developer conference this week, in addition to announcing some new hardware (including a folding phone), Google turned on the firehose of AI. During a two-hour presentation, the company showed how it’s busily building generative technologies into nearly everything it does. Chatbots, text generators, and content creation tools will soon be embedded in Google’s devices, search pages, Android apps, and Google's Workspace suite of productivity apps like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets.
This week on Gadget Lab, we talk about the big news from Google’s I/O event and why the company is so dead set on sticking AI in absolutely everything.
Show Notes:
Read all of WIRED’s coverage from Google I/O, including everything the company announced, how Google is adding AI to search and Android, and the details of the new Pixel Fold (and why Google might not really care if you buy it.)
Recommendations:
Julian recommends going on vacation and also the new Legend of Zelda game. Lauren recommends Janet Malcom’s book Still Pictures. Mike recommends the JBL Reflect Aero earbuds.
Julian Chokkattu can be found on Twitter @JulianChokkattu. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.
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In the months since Elon Musk took over Twitter and started making all kinds of unpopular changes, people have been looking for other places online where they can hang out instead.
Of all the Twitter-like social platforms to emerge as safe havens for the hordes—Mastodon, T2, Post, Notes—the one with the most buzz is Bluesky. It’s popular because ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is one of the people behind it, but also because it’s still in beta and sign-ups are invitation-only. Scarcity breeds demand. The cool people and internet insiders are already on Bluesky, and they are reporting that the new social network looks an awful lot like Twitter. Also, it’s actually … fun.
This week, we look at Bluesky’s rise and discuss its growing pains. We also ask if any of these fledgeling social networks can ever hope to captivate us the way Twitter has.
Show Notes:
Here’s Kate on why Bluesky is fun. The platform also has a nudes problem. Vittoria Elliott catalogs the current surge in hate speech and propaganda on Twitter. Relatedly, read about how Reddit has dealt with moderation of hate speech and misinformation.
Recommendations:
Kate recommends Middlemarch, the novel by George Eliot. Lauren recommends Baby J, John Mulaney’s latest Netflix special. Mike recommends the album Under the Pink by Tori Amos.
Kate Knibbs can be found on Twitter @Knibbs and does not have any Bluesky invites. Neither does Lauren Goode, who is @LaurenGoode on Twitter. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.
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The most successful industries out there are the ones that play to consumers' insecurities. Many self-care companies prey on people’s anxieties about how they look and smell, offering products that purport to make the wearer more appealing to romantic prospects and the rest of society by making them more attractive and less smelly. For much of the modern era, these products have been aimed at women, reinforcing dominant beauty standards and making bucket loads of money as sales have soared. Recently, that strategy has grown to reach a previously untapped market: men and people with penises. A slew of companies now offer all sorts of sprays, balms, and supplements for men’s nether regions. While convincing men to invest in full body hygiene, they are also changing modern ideas about masculinity.
This week on Gadget Lab, we invite WIRED’s head of research Zak Jason to describe his descent into the weird world of testicle sprays, bag balms, and men’s wellness products.
Show Notes:
Read Zak’s story about his balls-out exploration of the nascent men’s beauty products industry. Read Ashley Lauretta’s investigation into why we stay up late even though we know it’s bad for us. Find our conversation about voicemails and audio messages in episode 590.
Recommendations:
Zak recommends leaving your friends voicemails in the middle of the day. Mike recommends the podcast Bad Dates with Jameela Jamil. Lauren recommends going to bed earlier.
Zak Jason can be found on Twitter @zakjason. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.
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If you’ve committed any internet crimes lately, you probably shouldn’t have paid for them with Bitcoin. While many crypto-evangelists have long thought of digital currency as a means of buying legal and illicit goods on the web with total anonymity, the fact is that nearly all cryptocurrency transactions leave a digital trail behind them that can point to your true identity. No matter how hard you try to hide, a dedicated sleuth with the right resources can find you.
This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior cybersecurity writer and author of the book Tracers in the Dark digs into all the ways investigators, government agents, and hackers can track down criminals online by “following the money” exchanged in cryptocurrency transactions.
Show Notes:
Andy’s book is Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency. You can read two excerpts from the book on WIRED.com: the six-part AlphaBay saga and the feature about the takedown of a website for sharing child sex abuse materials.
Recommendations:
Andy recommends the deliberately frustrating game Getting Over It. Lauren recommends Andy’s WIRED story about the animal activists whose spy cams revealed the grim realities of pork slaughterhouses. Mike recommends the book Art Is Life by the art critic Jerry Saltz.
Andy can be found on Twitter @a_greenberg. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.
This show originally aired on February 9, 2023. Here's the full transcript.
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