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I'm off on my August holidays to eat vegetables, find out what the sun is, and recharge for the next half year of The Zip Files. I'll see you all again in September. Have a great few weeks until then!

Stay tuned for such learnings as Facebook crashing and burning in the stock market, Samsung releasing an unbreakable screen, facial recognition tech that has a serious problem with racial bias, and much much more.

Listen out for such scoops as Elon musk going totally bananas on Twitter and calling a bloke a pedo, Amazon.com crashing on one of the biggest shopping days of the year, WhatsApp trying to stop horribly violent mob lynchings in India and much much more.

Listen out for such intrigues as an Apple employee stealing trade secrets and trying to leg it to China, Elon Musk building a tiny submarine in an effort to be a good bloke, Twitter deleting millions of fake accounts and much much more. In the middle of all that goodness we’ve got a long listen on blockchain. Specifically, what on earth it is and how it works.

We’re talking about an artificial intelligence that is wicked at playing Quake, Tesla hitting its production goals, a new Russian data law that will help the Kremlin spy on its citizens, and much more. In between all of that we’ve got a long listen on the global housing crisis and how we might hope to put a bandage on it.

Listen out for Andreessen Horowitz’s new 300 million dollar crypto fund, Uber winning its license back in London, an AI healthcare startup named Babylon claiming its better than doctors, and much more! Edward Fernyhough has written an hilarious long listen documenting his opinion of exclusive dating up Raya. Stick around for giggles.

Stay plugged in for such scoops as Japan losing their only unicorn, digital crypto-cats lacking love and attention, an artificial intelligence that can spot cardiac arrest and much much more. In the center of the tech bonanza we’ve got a long listen on Universal Basic Income, what it is, where the concept came from, and whether it’s a good idea.

Keep your headphones in for such scoops as Tesla laying off 9% of its staff, Uber knowing when we are drunk, Apple locking down iPhones and much much more. In the middle of all that we have a long story on WeWork the co-working space startup worth 10s of billion of dollars, I’ll tell you all about how they started, where they are now, and if they’re headed for a fiery grave.

This week I’ll be spooning the top 10 most interesting world of tech news bits into your ears. We’re talking about illegal drugs on social media sites, Tesla wasting ridiculous sums of cash, Amazon Alexa teaching kids manners and much, much more. In between that we’ll have a long listen on big data and why it’s important we wrestle back control from the big guys.

Want to know how Instagram are tracking us in unsurprising ways, why China’s first ever cyber security law is a threat to multinationals and how Jeff Bezos plans on building a manufacturing plant on the moon? Then stay tuned and I’ll tell ya. Our long listen this week is about CRISPR, which sounds like any old boring acronym, but is totally awesome. It will grant us eternal youth, cause wings to sprout from our backs, and cure all disease, and this isn’t science fiction - the technology is already here.

Brace yourself for such revelations as Obama working for Netflix, Amazon Facial recognition tech getting lambasted for working with police departments, and Mr. Mark Zuckerberg being roasted in European parliament. Between those informative nuggets our long listen is on HQ trivia, the live smartphone based gameshow that is almost definitely run by humanoid lizards.

The usual feast of newsworthy news will have at its core a long listen on Quantum Computing. I’ll explain what on earth Quantum Computing is, why we need it, and how it will help us solve impossible problems.

This week you’ll need to be wearing a set of sturdy undergarments, because we’re going to war. Not the kind of war where guns get pulled, but one that is fought with information. You might “chuff” at the sound of that. Pfft. Information wars aren’t scary. Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never heart me blah blah blah. Well you’re wrong. This war has all the makings of run for the hills, paint yourself green, and pretend to be a plant. Stay tuned and you’ll see. Around that we’ll pepper you with all the interesting tech news of the week.

Lots of good stuff tech’d its way into last week. Richard Branson told us that high-speed pod travel will be a reality within 3 years, whilst Mark Zuckerberg - the internet sensation turned love guru - promised Facebook would release a dating service to help us humans find other humans. Not just for hookups though he hopes. Can you hear the flutter of his tin heart? Anyway, that’s just a taster of the veritable tech feast that we have for you this week. Our long listen explores GDPR, new EU legislation designed to help us take back our privacy from the greedy grasp of big tech. Around that we quick fire pepper you with all the interesting tech news of the week.      

This week's long listen considers the safety of Uber - the safety of getting into a stranger's car. Around that we quick fire pepper you with all the interesting tech news of the week.

It's easy to worry about artificially intelligent robots rising up and putting us to sleep (death) with laser-arm-guns, but what's more likely is that naughty humans will deliberately use AI in malevolent ways. This week our long listen focuses on China's growing use of AI tech to create a country under surveillance. Around that we quick fire pepper you with all the interesting tech news of the week.

Plastic is extremely useful. Like a prince in shining armour it can be pretty much whatever you want it to be - and at a low cost. However, plastic is bad for us and bad for the world. Bad for the planet on which we live. This week our ‘long listen’ focuses on plastic, how it came about, why it’s so popular, and how it’s killing stuff. Around that we quick fire pepper you with all the interesting tech news of the week.

Tesla is trying to revolutionise the car industry - to have us whizzing around in fully-electric vehicles. It has made impressive progress towards this vision, but have borrowed a hell of a lot of money to get this far. This week our ‘long listen’ explores how Tesla is on the precipice of ruin - again. Around that we quick fire pepper you with all the interesting tech news of the week.

Elon Musk wants to take us to Mars, to make us an interplanetary species. This week our ‘long listen’ explores what this future might look like. Around that we quick fire pepper you with all the interesting tech news of the week.

This week our main story is about how Facebook's love affair with innovation left our private data out in the cold. Around that we quick fire pepper you with all the interesting tech news of the week.