Can Tech Get Rid of Bad Trips? In this episode of, we talk about some of the latest drug trends and all the ways drugs are changing as they continue to be intertwined with tech. Whether it's teenagers reviving the Benadryl TikTok challenge or people signing up for an out-of-body experience program previously used by the CIA, some of us are chasing unconventional trips--bad trips, essentially. But these trends are happening at a time when AI companies are also looking to create a "cleaner" trip for users, and others are using AI chatbots to therapeutically guide their psychedelic trips. Host Michael Calore sits down with staff writer Boone Ashworth and senior editor Manisha Krishnan to discuss these trends--and the promises and limitations of relying on tech to avoid bad trips. Young People Are Tripping on Benadryl--and It's Always a Bad Time The CIA Used This Psychic Meditation Program. It's Never Been More Popular Please help us improve by filling out our listener survey . Write to us at uncannyvalley@wired.com . You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link . Hey, Mike, how are you? This is your first appearance on, is it not? It's really nice to be back in the studio.

Meta's new display-less smart glasses are quite good, but the vibes are off. All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Upgraded camera shoots 3K photos and slow-motion video. Ray-Bans sure do look slick.

The'Surge' of Troops May Not Come to San Francisco, but the City Is Ready Anyway San Francisco is preparing for federal law enforcement's invasion of the Bay Area, whether it happens or not. Citizens protesting the threat of federal troop deployments in the San Francisco Bay Area held a rally on Thursday at SF City Hall. After months of deployments by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the National Guard across American cities, federal agents have been preparing to descend into San Francisco . Local resistance groups have been coordinating with activists in other cities across the country that have been besieged by federal law enforcement. Thousands of volunteers, coordinating through Signal group chats, Zoom calls, and social media posts, planned protests and spread the word that federal troops are on their way to San Francisco.

The chatbot-enabled Friend necklace eavesdrops on your life and provides a running commentary that's snarky and unhelpful. Worse, it can also make the people around you uneasy. The AI-powered Friend pendant is now out in the world. If you live in the US or Canada, you can buy one for $129. The smooth plastic disc is just under 2 inches in diameter; it looks and feels a little like a beefy Apple AirTag. Inside are some LEDs and a Bluetooth radio that connects you (through your iPhone) to a chatbot in the cloud that's powered by Google's Gemini 2.5 model. You can tap on the disc to ask your Friend questions as it dangles around your neck, and it responds to your voice prompts by sending you text messages through the companion app.

Everybody wants to talk to their pet. Or to try to get them to listen, anyway. So it's no wonder that some startups think the way to break through the communication barrier between you and your pooch is with a nice big helping of technology. Welcome to a world with AI-enabled dog and cat collars that try to interpret a pet's needs and then share those wishes with their human. The only problem with these devices is that the pet won't actually be a part of the conversation, as the collar is just guessing at what the pet is thinking--but still doing all the talking anyway.

Apple executives used the keynote address of this week's annual WWDC developers conference to debut all of the artificial intelligence capabilities that are coming to iPhones, iPads, and Macs. The team showed off how generative tools will help users write emails, clean up iPhone photos, illustrate presentations, and make custom emoji characters. Adding AI to everything is par for the course in 2024, as all of the big tech companies have been loading up their software with similar generative features. But Apple is late to this particular party. The company has been perceived as being "behind" in generative AI, since OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and a whole bunch of startups have already made massive inroads.

Artificial intelligence continues to seep into every aspect of our lives: search results, chatbots, images on social media, viral videos, documentaries about dead celebrities. A new class of emerging AI-powered services can take audio clips from voice recordings and build models off them. Anything you type into a computer can be spit out as an impression of that person's voice. Proponents of AI voice cloning see these tools as a way to make life a little easier for content creators. The robovoices can be used to fix mistakes, read ads, or perform other mundane duties.