Shows / For Tech’s Sake
For Tech’s Sake
Join Elaine Burke and Kelly Earley for a weekly edition of the people’s tech podcast, where they demystify the news and help you decode your digital life.
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Episodes
- For Tech’s Sake
Tech Treehouse of Horror II
We’re back with another Halloween-themed episode, this time sharing stories of the tech that scares us, like the terror of going viral, the shock of Sims…
- For Tech’s Sake
I know what you did last summit
Elaine went to a week of AI summits and events and found the best conversations were happening outside of the sanitised headline event in Dublin, which felt…
- For Tech’s Sake
Panopticontent
The modern-day panopticon is not a circular prison with a central guard tower, it’s a network of connected devices capturing and tracking our every waking…
- For Tech’s Sake
What have data centres ever done for us? (with Patrick Bresnihan and Patrick Brodie)
Are data centres central to the Irish economy? Or is that just some inflated bluster from the government on behalf of Big Tech? A recent report from Maynooth…
- For Tech’s Sake
How easy is it to scam a bot?
This week, Kelly and Elaine are talking about the emergence of the ‘AI shelf’, where products are marketed specifically at large language models (LLMs) so that…
- For Tech’s Sake
AI’s doomer cult
This week we dust off our corkboard and thread to connect the dots between problematic Silicon Valley ideologies and the doomsday AI talking points that have…
- For Tech’s Sake
Game over for discs
With the impending release of GTA VI looming large over the video games industry, Kelly and Elaine discuss how the trend towards disc-less gaming represents a…
- For Tech’s Sake
Back to school!
We’re back, and the kids are back in school, so we are packing your lunchbox with some food for thought on tech in schools. We’re weighing up screen-free…
- For Tech’s Sake
What social media bans get wrong
The UK’s upcoming social media ban for under 16s has been labelled an insufficient “political band-aid” that prioritises business as usual over online safety…
- For Tech’s Sake
Are data centres a drain? (with Prof Hannah Daly)
In this episode, Elaine is joined by energy researcher Prof Hannah Daly to discuss the energy strain data centres represent for Ireland, the greenwashing that…
- For Tech’s Sake
Is technology making us lonely? (with Dr Colman Noctor)
Are we in danger of becoming a contactless society? That’s the concern of psychotherapist Dr Colman Noctor, who joined Elaine to explain why we need to push…
- For Tech’s Sake
Get your clips out (with Aoife Barry)
This week, Kelly has lost her voice! So Elaine is joined by cultural commentator, previous guest, and co-host of Get Around to It, Aoife Barry, to discuss why…
- For Tech’s Sake
Do we like prediction markets? Yes/No
Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi are rocketing in popularity and raking it in as users bet on everything from the day’s weather to major political…
- For Tech’s Sake
Hitting the AI kill switch
This week, Kelly and Elaine have a chat about how all the AI hype and hate is pushing people to switch off. It’s a frank conversation about opting out of AI…
- For Tech’s Sake
Wikiphilia (with Amy O’Riordan)
This week Kelly and Elaine are sharing their love for Wikipedia – its endless interesting links, dedication to niche topics, and, of course, the ‘Personal…
- For Tech’s Sake
AI Ready… or not! (with Laura Grehan)
This episode features an appearance from Elaine’s mam, who helped her review the new AI Ready platform from the Irish government (AIReady.ie) – and it did not…
- For Tech’s Sake
Instagram’s end to encryption
Pretty soon your private messages on Instagram will no longer be end-to-end encrypted. But you may not have even known they could be encrypted to begin with…
- For Tech’s Sake
AI for good? (LIVE! with Dr Abeba Birhane)
To celebrate our 100th episode, we invited our listeners to watch us in action live, with the return of special guest Dr Abeba Birhane, founder of the…
- For Tech’s Sake
The internet is coiled spaghetti (with Jane Ruffino)
In this episode, Elaine tries to turn Kelly into a subsea cables stan with the help of Jane Ruffino, a PhD candidate who recently visited a ship in the midst…
- For Tech’s Sake
Access to AT (with Patrick Fitzgerald and Sarah Boland)
This week, Kelly and Elaine are talking about AT, assistive technology, and how we can all have nicer digital experiences because of it. Our expert guides to…
- For Tech’s Sake
Pokémon Go to train an AI
Pokémon Go collected 30 billion street-level image scans from its players, and now its creators are using that data to help train delivery robots. This…
- For Tech’s Sake
We need to talk about how we talk about AI (with Prof Aphra Kerr)
Today’s episode is a lesson in AI literacy, busting some myths and revealing the strings behind the magic trick (with a smattering of Irish for Seachtain na…
- For Tech’s Sake
Dubai influencers
We’re back with an all-new season of For Tech’s Sake, just in time for a digital media literacy lesson on the Dubai influencer economy and how this shapes the…
- For Tech’s Sake
Prophecy girls
In this final episode of 2025, Elaine and Kelly wonder if being on the naughty list could be a way for tech billionaires to hoard coal resources, and also…
- For Tech’s Sake
Slop ’til you drop
’Tis the season of shopping and scams, so arm yourself with knowledge from the For Tech’s Sake buyer’s guide to what you need to know about online shopping in…
- For Tech’s Sake
Say sorry, be nice, stand up for workers’ rights
This week, Kelly and Elaine discuss why a delay in the release of Grand Theft Auto VI to late 2026 might be the least of Rockstar Games’ problems as protests…
- For Tech’s Sake
Ryanair’s app trap
This episode may contain a rude word or two when Elaine and Kelly start going off on Ryanair’s decision to force app downloads under the guise of ‘paperless’…
- For Tech’s Sake
The good guy of tech
There’s been some Wikipedia drama this week as Jimmy Wales has been doing the rounds on a press tour promoting a book that bills him as ‘the good guy of tech’…
- For Tech’s Sake
Tech Treehouse of Horror
In this very special Halloween episode, Elaine and Kelly are communing with the digital after life and sharing (barely) spooky stories about data from beyond…
- For Tech’s Sake
Tech will fail and you will die
Well, our maxim has finally caught up with us. We’re always saying the only certainties in life are that tech will fail and you will die and – while Elaine and…
- For Tech’s Sake
Return of the dead
It’s no coincidence that the launch of endless feeds of AI-generated video from Meta’s Vibes and OpenAI’s Sora have coincided with a marked increase in video…
- For Tech’s Sake
On the campaign ad trail
Tech and democracy expert Liz Carolan joins Kelly and Elaine to explain some new regulations on political advertising hitting the EU this week, right in the…
- For Tech’s Sake
Sims, sEMG and soft robotics
Mark Zuckerberg’s live demo of gesture controls for his Meta glasses may have failed, but the underlying technology in the wrist-worn Neural Band, known as…
- For Tech’s Sake
Terms of abuse
Platforms are really stretching the bounds of privacy rights with their terms of use these days. With recent changes to terms at Spotify, LinkedIn and…
- For Tech’s Sake
TrumpTok
In this episode of For Tech’s Sake, Elaine and Kelly discuss TikTok’s potential takeover by a consortium of Donald Trump allies, and the uptick of fake online…
- For Tech’s Sake
Chat control chaos
Joining Elaine this week are two special guests on two very different topics. Cybersecurity expert Brian Honan fills us in on what’s going on with the EU’s…
- For Tech’s Sake
Should we banish AI from work?
We have things to say about another survey, this time all about AI in the workplace. We look at what some other research is telling us about AI adoption and…
- For Tech’s Sake
Femtech for all
Find out about the deep-tech side of femtech from our special guest Dr Tanya Mulcahy, director of Health Innovation Hub Ireland and founder of FemTech Ireland…
- For Tech’s Sake
Looking back in anger
Today is gonna be the day that Kelly and Elaine are gonna throw a look back on a bleak week of tech news, from some shocking revelations over at Meta AI to…
- For Tech’s Sake
Digital sexual literacy
We are delighted to be joined in this episode by Benji Foley, a PhD researcher at DCU's Institute for Research on Genders and Sexualities, who explains the…
- For Tech’s Sake
The bloody stream
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s investments in AI military technologies are turning off musicians and listeners. Kelly Earley and Elaine Burke discuss the many ethical…
- For Tech’s Sake
Palestine: A testing ground for digital rights oppression
Elaine Burke speaks to Riham Al Faqih, development and outreach director with MIFTAH, a civil society organisation based in Palestine, about digital rights…
- For Tech’s Sake
What's my age again?
Kicking off a new season of For Tech’s Sake, hosts Elaine Burke and Kelly Earley discuss recent developments in age verification for social media and online…
- For Tech’s Sake
New host, who this?
For Tech’s Sake is back with an all-new series, a brand new co-host and lots more tech stories to talk about. Join Elaine Burke and Kelly Earley as they look…
For Tech’s SakeFTS x CONNECT: The secret to a good password
Cybersecurity researcher Dr Hazel Murray has developed a knack for guessing Irish people’s passwords. But is it really our fault that our passwords have become…
For Tech’s SakeFTS x CONNECT: Quantumania
Are you confused by quantum? You’re not alone! 100 years on and even the science hasn’t settled on quantum mechanics and how they can be applied to…
For Tech’s SakeFTS x CONNECT: Blowing off some STEAM
From cross-stitching your research proposals to diagramming the quantum internet, there are many ways that art and science can intersect – and it’s when…
For Tech’s SakeFTS x CONNECT: Passports to slow fashion
You know we love sustainability so we were very excited to learn about plans for digital product passports, which could slow down fast fashion, boost our right…
For Tech’s SakeFTS x CONNECT: The road to driverless cars
Jenny and Elaine are back in studio and catching up after Elaine was zooming around San Francisco in a driverless taxi. But how close are we to seeing fully…
For Tech’s SakeIntroducing FTS x CONNECT
For Tech’s Sake is back with a very special mini-series in partnership with the CONNECT Research Ireland Centre for Future Networks and Communications…
- For Tech’s Sake
The internet under the sea
Despite all our “wireless” connectivity and “cloud” computing, the internet we enjoy today relies on extensive cables that cross seas and oceans, and our…
- For Tech’s Sake
Don’t roll out updates on a Friday
CrowdStrike learned some valuable lessons in software deployment recently – lessons that it should have known already, arguably, as they would be concerned…
- For Tech’s Sake
Bot safe for work
In this episode, Elaine and Jenny look at the risks of working with robots – and it’s not just that they might steal your job. For this discussion, they are…
- For Tech’s Sake
Eventosterone and AI-generated hyperslop
This week we are celebrating Irish techin’ legends Réaltra and Dr Lisa Heffernan, for their roles in the ESA’s Ariane 6 rocket launch and LISA mission…
- For Tech’s Sake
You can’t mistake our cyberpsychology
We often look at the mental and emotional effects of technology on For Tech’s Sake, and this episode we have expert help in understanding it all in the form of…
- For Tech’s Sake
Ticking all the boxes
It’s a bold title for an episode in which Elaine didn’t come prepared, but thank god we have Jenny, who’s calling out Perplexity’s plagiarism and hailing the…
- For Tech’s Sake
Algorithms of life
Algorithms – they’re everywhere! But what the hell are they, how much influence do they wield and what makes them tick? This episode we’re joined by Megan…
- For Tech’s Sake
Elephant intelligence
We’ve got all the AI updates covered in this episode, from Apple Intelligence and elephant intelligence to user backlash and self-driving car crashes. And we…
- For Tech’s Sake
Matters of life and data
In this episode, we're looking at health data all the way from the cradle to the grave, and beyond! Helping us on this journey is Prof Ciara Heavin…
- For Tech’s Sake
Canva creates cringe
In this bonus episode from For Tech’s Sake, Elaine and Jenny weigh up whether Canva’s cringe-inducing rap announcement was junk or genius, and stick it to…