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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.
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."
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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