The Vergecast is the flagship podcast from The Verge about small gadgets, Big Tech, and everything in between. Every Friday, hosts Nilay Patel, David Pierce, and Alex Cranz hang out and make sense of the week’s most important technology news. And every Wednesday, David leads a selection of The Verge’s expert staffers in an exploration of how gadgets and software affect our lives – and which ones you should bring into yours.

Let get this out of the way: Nilay and Dieter are not on the show this week. But really we’ve got a great show hosted by Verge podcast professionals Lauren Goode and Casey Newton. Oh and Paul is still here too! So what are we talking about on the show today? Well a lot. Lauren Casey and Paul analyze the news that was at the top of the site this week including a glitch that left American Airlines without pilots during the week of Christmas; a rundown of the new trivia app HQ; and the reveal of the man who deactivated Trump’s Twitter account briefly a few weeks ago. Also Lauren gives us a closer look into the newest episode of her video series Next Level which deals with solar panels that turn air into drinking water. There’s a whole lot in between that like Paul’s weekly segment “Whiskey pods? No.” So listen to it all and you know what? You’ll get it all. 02:56 - Google might merge back with Nest to make more smart home products 10:23 - The man who deactivated Trump’s Twitter account has revealed himself 17:35 - HQ 25:35 - Facebook uses selfies as login authentication for suspicious activity 29:02 - Verge holiday book recommendations 32:00 - ‘Only a few hundred’ American Airlines flights still lack pilots after massive computer glitch 34:27 - Inside the decade-long fight to expose Morgan Marquis-Boire 38:53 - Next Level season 2 episode 3 52:07 - Paul’s weekly segment “Whiskey pods? No.” 55:56 - Amazon unveils $250 AI camera and machine learning tools for businesses 1:04:50 - Is now a good time to buy a new phone / laptop / TV? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

HQ selfie authentication and solar panels turning air into water

The Vergecast