Privacy & Surveillance
Cameras, data, and who's watching.
46 minEp. 45 · July 16, 2026
Bison Attack, Flock Cameras, & Back at War with Iran
A 65-year-old grandpa got tossed by a bison at Yellowstone, and XO takes it as a reminder that nature is not a Pixar movie. Then: Flock cameras turning every petty theft into a surveillance case, the long shadow of the Patriot Act, and the U.S. somehow back at war with Iran.
57 minEp. 38 · May 1, 2026
UK Tobacco Ban & Chinese Sprinting Robots
XO doesn't usually care about the UK, but the UK keeps making that hard. The British tobacco ban, censorship, and arrests over social media posts, then China's sprinting robot "Lightning" running miles faster than any human, and why that's terrifying.
1 hr 0 minEp. 32 · April 12, 2026
$80 Million Eyes, Data Center Wars, & Refrigerator Ads
A Boston biotech raised $80 million to make your eyes younger, and XO is ready to stop squinting. Then Maine leads the war on data centers, and smart fridges start running ads, which XO takes all the way to a love story between a man and his refrigerator.
30 minEp. 27 · February 26, 2026
Smart glasses introduce facial recognition
Meta is adding facial recognition to its smart glasses, which means a stranger at a bar can look you up just by looking at you. XO asks what happened to the ethical concerns that shelved it in 2021, and why anyone still believes the "nothing to hide" argument.
1 hr 4 minEp. 25 · February 9, 2026
Google admits it's been recording us
Google paid $68 million to settle claims it listened through people's devices, without admitting anything. XO digs into the "my phone is listening to me" theory, social credit systems, how slowly we've been eased into accepting surveillance, and why you're the product.