LR Extra: Halloween hijinks and gadget ghosts

It's the Halloween edition of the Light Reading extra podcast, where our editors and an esteemed guest walk through the digital cemetery looking for gadget zombies and technologies that still haunt us. Palm Pilots, Secret Senders, weird Wi-Fi phones and Slacker music are some things that creep up in this freewheeling conversation.

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Phil Harvey, Nicole Ferraroand 3 more

October 31, 2024

Happy Halloween!

Welcome to Light Reading Extra, a podcast where our editors go off-topic and talk about whatever we like. This week, we're revisiting the theme of long-dead gadgets and other electronics that became ghosts – some vaporizing even before they appeared on store shelves.

In this Halloween edition of the podcast, we are joined by special guest Mari Silbey, a former Light Reading editor, as we walk through the digital cemetery looking for gadget zombies and technologies that still haunt us.  

Phil covers the D-Link V-Click phone, a GSM phone with built-in Wi-Fi, and the Google Nexus Q, a product that never actually made it into customer's hands.

Kelsey puts on a show with her dancing skeleton decorations. She also muses about the Palm Pilot and the rise of the QR code. Jeff has some Palm Pilot opinions, too, as he reminds us of Integra5 and the classic Speak and Spell

Nicole yearns for her old iPod Shuffle and reminisces about the secret messages she used to send with Secret Sender. If you think texting in class was a Gen Z thing, you may have missed this commercial from 1994:

Later on the podcast, Mari cherishes her Chromecast widgets and fondly recalls Slacker, which Wired described as "an online music service with a hardware player that passively updates itself with new music via USB, Wi-Fi, or satellite with new music based on your taste." 

Related:LR Extra: Tri-fold phones, high-end audio, bear safety and spy earrings

Mari notes that, for a few years, small gadgets were easy Christmas gifts, but they've been mostly replaced by smartphone apps, making it tougher to shop for techies. She also reveals that she still plays a word game on an old phone without connectivity. The game and phone can't update, but it doesn't make the game any less fun. 

Thanks for checking out the podcast, no matter what device you use to listen or watch. We wish you a safe and happy Halloween. 

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About the Authors

Phil Harvey

Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading

Phil Harvey has been a Light Reading writer and editor for more than 18 years combined. He began his second tour as the site's chief editor in April 2020.

His interest in speed and scale means he often covers optical networking and the foundational technologies powering the modern Internet.

Harvey covered networking, Internet infrastructure and dot-com mania in the late 90s for Silicon Valley magazines like UPSIDE and Red Herring before joining Light Reading (for the first time) in late 2000.

After moving to the Republic of Texas, Harvey spent eight years as a contributing tech writer for D CEO magazine, producing columns about tech advances in everything from supercomputing to cellphone recycling.

Harvey is an avid photographer and camera collector – if you accept that compulsive shopping and "collecting" are the same.

Nicole Ferraro

Editor, host of 'The Divide' podcast, Light Reading

Nicole covers broadband, policy and the digital divide. She hosts The Divide on the Light Reading Podcast and tracks broadband builds in The Buildout column. Some* call her the Broadband Broad (*nobody).

Kelsey Ziser

Senior Editor, Light Reading

Kelsey is a senior editor at Light Reading, co-host of the Light Reading podcast, and host of the "What's the story?" podcast.

Her interest in the telecom world started with a PR position at Connect2 Communications, which led to a communications role at the FREEDM Systems Center, a smart grid research lab at N.C. State University. There, she orchestrated their webinar program across college campuses and covered research projects such as the center's smart solid-state transformer.

Kelsey enjoys reading four (or 12) books at once, watching movies about space travel, crafting and (hoarding) houseplants.

Kelsey is based in Raleigh, N.C.

Mari Silbey

Senior Editor, Cable/Video

Mari Silbey is a former Light Reading editor who covered broadband infrastructure, video delivery, smart cities, and all things cable. Before her time at Light Reading, she worked independently for nearly a decade, contributing to trade publications, authoring custom research reports and consulting for various corporate and association clients. She launched the corporate blog for Motorola's Home division way back in 2007, ran a content development program for Limelight Networks and did her best to entertain the video nerd masses as a long-time columnist for the media blog Zatz Not Funny. She is based in Washington, D.C. and is now a program director at US Ignite.

Jeff Baumgartner

Senior Editor, Light Reading

Jeff Baumgartner is a Senior Editor for Light Reading and is responsible for the day-to-day news coverage and analysis of the cable and video sectors. Follow him on X and LinkedIn.

Baumgartner also served as Site Editor for Light Reading Cable from 2007-2013. In between his two stints at Light Reading, he led tech coverage for Multichannel News and was a regular contributor to Broadcasting + Cable. Baumgartner was named to the 2018 class of the Cable TV Pioneers.

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