Technology

Lauren Bacall probably does have the most famous line about smoking in all of cinema. But there are other good ones too. "What are you gonna do? Charge me with smoking?" "Smoke if ya got 'em." And many more.

Cigarettes have been such an integral part of movies for so long that one big concern in the lead up to Disney and Fox's planned merger is -- seriously -- all the smoking in Fox movies.

From its humble, South Korean origins in the early 2000s to its current place as an international, cultural phenomenon, esports is certainly on the rise. Huge venues including Madison Square Garden, the Staples Center and others are routinely selling out to diehard fans of these competitive video gaming tournaments

When Alexis de Tocqueville toured America in the early 1830's to gather observations that he would later put on the pages of Democracy in America, he was impressed with the efficiency of our American Postal Service.

Joe Biden is seriously thinking about running for president in 2020. He's got a wealth of political experience and institutional knowledge. He's vibrant and in good health.  He's also seventy-five-years-old. Many of us are quietly wondering if he's too old for the job.

Rapidly advancing technology is changing the way we do a lot of things... including policing.

This hour: police drones are coming to Hartford. Are they an invasion of privacy or a helpful tool for law enforcement? And how are lawmakers debating this new technology? What do you think about police using drones? Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.

Wes Anderson is a... particular sort of filmmaker. With his typewriters and his pipe smoking. With his monochrome sets and props and costumes. With his perfectly symmetrical compositions. The one place where Anderson's tweeness is maybe softened a bit is in his old-school, stop-motion, animal-centric animated films. There was Fantastic Mr. Fox. And now there's Isle of Dogs. Dogs isn't without its own problems, though. The Nose weighs in.

The November midterms are fast-approaching -- raising concerns about election security and the safeguarding of local voter identity.

This hour, we look at how Connecticut is responding with Secretary of the State Denise Merrill.

Plus: a Middletown-based prison program gives incarcerated adults the opportunity to work towards an Associate degree behind bars.

We learn about the Wesleyan Center for Prison Education and its recent degree-granting collaboration with Middlesex Community College.

And finally: Have recent weather reports left you feeling underwhelmed? Don’t be upset with your local forecaster, says Quinnipiac University professor Ben Bogardus.

Coming up, Bogardus joins us along with NBC Connecticut Chief Meteorologist Ryan Hanrahan. And we want to hear from you. 

Cambridge Analytica, a data company backed by Republican donor Robert Mercer and headed by Steve Bannon, harvested private information from almost 50 million Facebook users without their permission to develop and exploit psychological profiles in the 2016 U.S. election.

Are you constantly pulling out your phone to check that notification from Instagram or Facebook? If so, you’re not alone—nearly seven in ten American adults are on social media, according to a recent Pew survey.

This hour: social media has made our world smaller, but do virtual networks make us feel more connected? A recent study found that those who spend more time on social media actually tend to feel more socially isolated. We ask researchers and a psychiatrist why.

In this week's Ridiculous Moments in Late-Stage Capitalism: Pizza Hut's new shoes -- because there are Pizza Hut shoes, apparently; they're, of course, called "Pie Tops" -- will pause live TV when your pizza delivery arrives. Amazon's Echo devices have started spontaneously laughing at people, which might really be scarier than it is funny. And, to celebrate International Women's Day, KFC is introducing the world to Colonel Sanders's wife, Mrs. Claudia Sanders.

And: Netflix's Seven Seconds is not, it turns out, the prequel to a Luke Perry vehicle, rodeo movie it sounds like. It is instead "the contrived, misery-riddled show" that you maybe won't be able to stop watching. And it is also maybe the coldest Netflix show.

They may not look like R2D2 or BB8, but in 2018, robots are an important part of our world.

This hour we talk about ​automation—new advances in “smart” technology during a period of time that’s been dubbed the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

Consciousness has been an elusive enigma for philosophers and scientists alike for about as long as there've been philosophers and scientists.

And, while it's long been thought that artificial intelligence would bring us the next big breakthroughs in our understanding of consciousness, A.I. authority David Gelernter has a different idea entirely.

He looks for answers to these fundamental questions in, instead... literature.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made history in February when his Falcon Heavy rocket launched a red Tesla convertible into outer space. In the driver seat is a dummy astronaut dubbed “Starman” who’s now flying through space, orbiting the sun.

What happens when a river fills with ice?

Predictions of a paperless future go back to the 1800's. And since then, as technology has advanced, such predictions  have only increased. Today, despite a dizzying array of technological alternatives to paper, those prediction have not come true.

Connecticut and several other states are asking a federal appeals court to overturn a recent vote by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC rolled back net neutrality regulations -- potentially paving the way for internet service providers to selectively favor online content.

They may not look like R2D2 or BB8, but in 2018, robots are an important part of our world.

This hour we talk about ​automation—new advances in “smart” technology during a period of time that’s been dubbed the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

Siri, Alexa, Cortana, Google Assistant, etc. These are just the beginning of what experts believe will be a future filled with verbally interactive, digital and robotic assistants. And as we become more accustomed to interacting with machines, the machines are becoming more life-like.