Boys of Tech

Boys of Tech is a New Zealand technology-news show built around Edwin Hermann and whoever is on the Skype line that week. Edwin sits in a Wellington studio. His co-hosts rotate: Brett King on some episodes, Ben or Kim on others, and sometimes two of them together. Most openings stamp the episode with its number and a date, and the episodes in this set run from September 2014 to December 2015. That matters to a new listener, because the headlines are pinned to their moment and these episodes work as a snapshot of that stretch of the industry. When there is small talk, it is thoroughly local. From Christchurch comes word of wind around 140 kilometres per hour, and talk of a wind-off between the two cities. In another episode, heavy rain had left Wellington effectively cut off for a day, badly enough that a vendor in Australia had heard about the flooding. Ben gives updates on a tower for his solar panels up the coast, down to a 120-watt panel feeding a 130 amp-hour battery. Then the news. In 'Boys of Tech 297: An iBrick', Edwin and Brett King set the Shellshock bug beside Heartbleed, reckoning that ordinary mum-and-dad internet users would not be touched by the newer one the way they were by Heartbleed. The same episode covers claims that Apple was warned about an iCloud vulnerability months before celebrity images were stolen, and mentions Auckland hosting Digital Nations for a second time. 'Boys of Tech 347: Twisters' returns to the Ashley Madison hack and turns on Windows 10, whose family accounts switch on activity monitoring by default and email parents a weekly report of apps used, time spent and websites visited. The verdict is blunt: a giant leap from parental controls into creepy monitoring, with a jab at the political catchphrase 'think of the children'. Amazon's first physical bookstore, opening in Seattle, gets a speculative going-over in 'Boys of Tech 358: A very pretty toilet', including a print-on-demand idea where a buyer comes back two hours later for a cheaper copy. Opinion is part of the arrangement. One co-host admits to loving a rant even when going purely on an ideal, and the reply is that different opinions are what make a podcast. The mood stays loose: a mangled 'innovative' is flagged as one for the bloopers, and a co-host signs off with 'sweet as bro'. For a first listen, 'Boys of Tech 297: An iBrick' is the pick for security talk, while 'Boys of Tech 354: A wind-off' shows the chattier, local side. Either way, the appeal is the same: big international tech stories talked over by people who also want to know how the wiring is going.