For Tech’s Sake

This bonus episode of For Tech’s Sake features our full, uncut interview with Dr Colman Noctor, child and adolescent psychotherapist, about kids and technology. It was a wide-ranging conversation that also touched on our own use of technology and the subject of regulation. If you want to jump to the parts that weren’t already covered in the main episode, head to about 18.55, and then 31.17. You ca...

Our online spaces are being taken over – by kids! Many children as young as eight have their own devices and social media accounts, and while efforts are made to make kid-safe spaces online, that's simply not going to have the pull of the major platforms. It's a challenging world to navigate for kids, parents, and all other adults alike, so we got some help from psychotherapist Dr Colman Noct...

In our latest episode we spoke to Dr David McKeown, one of the originators of Dublin Maker, a fantastic and free annual event that brings together makers of all kinds for a bit of show and tell. This year’s event takes place Saturday September 2nd in Richmond Barracks, Inchicore, and in this extended interview with David you’ll learn a little more about the passion that drives scientists and engin...

Dublin Maker is coming soon so we spoke to one of its founders, Dr David McKeown, to find out all about this year’s festival and discuss the importance of events like this in encouraging people to engage with science. This year’s Dublin Maker will be hosted in Richmond Barracks on Saturday, 2 September. It’s completely free and welcoming to the creative and the curious. You can find out more about...

In this bonus episode of For Tech’s Sake you get to hear our complete interview with Prof Gareth Jones because we simply couldn’t fit all his knowledge on search technologies and information retrieval into the main episode. In this extended interview, you’ll learn how search engine optimisation (SEO) can be used responsibly but also deployed like a dark art to manipulate search results. You’ll als...

How much do you know about a tech tool you use every day? Google is often the first port of call for many of us online, but how much do we understand the algorithms deciding the results of our search? And how are recommendations engines shaping our online experience? To discuss these things and more, we spoke to Prof Gareth Jones, an internationally recognised expert on information retrieval and s...

In our latest episode we spoke to Dr Patricia Scanlon, Ireland’s AI ambassador, about the kind of work that needs to be done to build better AI, and we wondered why that isn’t already the done thing. In this extended cut of the interview, you can also hear Patricia’s thoughts on how every start-up is an AI start-up now, and why “computer says no” just won’t cut it when it comes to explaining your...

Dr Patricia Scanlon is Ireland’s first AI ambassador, and she sees it as her duty to start a national conversation on AI and, especially, ethical AI. She joined us to talk about the kind of work that needs to be done to build better AI, and we wondered why that isn’t already the done thing. Patricia is also the founder of SoapBox Labs, which builds kid-focused speech recognition technology. Follow...

There’s so much to talk to when it comes to cybersecurity that we could only fit a fraction of our discussion with internationally recognised expert Brian Honan into our main episode. Lucky for you bonus listeners, we have the entire episode here for you to listen, learn and rethink your cyber-hygiene. This one is also packed with insights for business leaders and decision-makers when it comes to...

We are not the weakest link in the cybersecurity chain, at least that’s what expert Brian Honan says. Brian is internationally recognised for his expertise on cybersecurity and has advised Europol’s Cybercrime Centre along with several innovative security companies. He has even been inducted into the Infosecurity Europe Hall of Fame. And, according to Brian, it’s the tech-makers that need to take...

You may have already listened to our episode on online content and social media with journalist and author Aoife Barry, and we had so much more in this chat that we just couldn’t fit in the main feed. In this bonus episode, you can hear the full, uncut interview, going more in-depth on social media pile-ons, online toxicity, content moderation and being a journalist online. Aoife is the former ass...

Social media can connect us, divide us, entertain us and enrage us. We’d love if online spaces were made safer and better moderated to keep the nasty parts at bay, but in the end it often comes down to how we moderate ourselves, with some people understandably pulling back from their digital lives just to protect themselves. We spoke about the good, the bad and moderation of social media with jour...

If you already listened to our episode on how small start-ups become Big Tech behemoths and how that scaling cycle continues today, you might like to hear more from our expert guest, David Singleton, the chief technology officer at Stripe – especially if you are an entrepreneur, aspiring or otherwise, or a team leader looking for advice and guidance. Stripe is a fintech and payments company you ha...

We’re talking Big Tech, small start-ups and how they scale, disrupt and sometimes become one. Our special guest is Stripe CTO David Singleton, who we nabbed for an exclusive interview during his recent visit to Dublin.  David has been a fintech whizz ever since he built some invoicing software for his parents when he was a kid. But before he was the technical lead of a global financial servic...

This bonus episode from For Tech’s Sake features our complete interview with Dr Caroline West a sex educator and host of the Glow West podcast. Caroline has a master’s in sexuality studies and a PhD in feminism and pornography, and is the sex and relationship expert for Bumble Ireland and the UK. In our main episode, we talked about modern dating, cyberpsychology and...

If you ever wanted to hear two nerds talk to an expert about sex, you’re in luck! In this episode, we speak to Dr Caroline West, a sex educator with a master’s in sexuality studies and a PhD in feminism and pornography, and she teaches us a thing or two about sex and dating in the digital age, from digital intimacy to dick pics. For obvious reasons, this isn’t an episode we would recommend for you...

It’s the last bonus episode of the season and we are letting you in on an exclusive chat on what we have in mind for season two of For Tech’s Sake, including our dream guest list (Pedro Pascal, hello!) and tech topics not yet tackled. We also reflect on the first 10 episodes and what we learned from the experience so far. For Tech’s Sake also wants to hear from you, the listener, about what you’d...

Do you realise how much of the tech we rely on is maintained by volunteer coders? This isn't just Wikipedia. A plethora of everyday tech would collapse if not for the noble commitment of open source developers. And they are beginning to show their force in the form of protest, sabotaging their own code to send a message to the Big Tech corporations that profit from it. We brought in Dr Colin Keogh...

We follow up our For Tech’s Sake episode on tech waste with a closer look at what sustainability really means to tech companies, from explaining what a B Corp is to having a rant about the planned obsolescence of devices, which are designed to break down so that we just keep buying! You can also read more about B Corps here:  https://www.siliconrepublic.com/business/what-is-a-b-corp-company-b...

 In this episode of For Tech’s Sake, we dive into the landfill of digital waste to turn up some nuggets of information we hope you’ll re-use. Tech waste involves more than just devices getting dumped, too. We also lose the precious and finite materials these devices contain. And, though it’s not apparent to us, our digital detritus of messages, selfies and endless streams of data has a physic...

We follow up our For Tech’s Sake episode on dark patterns with our musings on the copycat patterns we see across the tech we use, where every app just steals – or buys – from other apps, and then inevitably makes it worse because of advertiser demands for engagement. This is why we can't have nice things! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘Dark patterns’ are design techniques used to weaponise user behaviour and manipulate us into delivering on a company’s goals. They have become so common that they are even namechecked in the EU’s new legislation to clamp down on nefarious user design in tech. Even though understanding them won’t make you impervious to their influence, we certainly think it’s best to know when your taking action f...

We follow up our For Tech’s Sake episode on the power behind our tech, with a teardown of the electric vehicle industry and, in particular, self-driving cars. We’re not saying driverless cars will never be on the roads, but it’s not likely to happen in our lifetime what with the current tech confusing yellow moonlight with traffic lights and suffering from a comical ‘Zoolander problem’. Hosted on...

We have an energy crisis, and it's not the one you think. To move to a more sustainable future we need to figure out how to power mass electrification, and source and store energy responsibly.   Scientists around the world are working on fascinating battery technologies to help, and Ireland is no exception. For example, Dr Valeria Nico is a postdoctoral research fellow in the area of ene...

Listeners, an update to the Microsoft Teams platform since the recording of this episode can only lead us to believe that Satya Nadella has bugged our podcast studio. Our prayers for a multiplicity of emoji reactions have been answered – they're still ugly though! Emojis are essential to communication across distributed workforces but – as we discuss in this episode – just because we have communic...