wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Gavin Andersen, lead developer of Bitcoin, an experimental digital currency launched in 2009, and Dennis England, who owns Sugar Wedding Cakes and accepts Bitcoin, discuss how it works, the history of digital currencies, and how it compares to traditional currencies.

Business journalist Robert Levine looks at how the move to digital technology by the newspaper, music, and film industries has led to a significant drop in profits. In Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back, he examines how the idea that, on the Internet, “information wants to be free” has shaped the online business model and is now driving the media companies on whom the digital industry feeds out of business.

Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at Harvard, recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and author of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed: Educating for the Virtues in the Twenty-First Century, talks about how to reframe classic virtues in the digital age.

The first digital camera came on the market in 1986. In only a quarter century, the technology has fundamentally revolutionized the way we conceive of and take pictures. From camera phones to the latest digital SLR technology, the plethora of digital cameras on the market has made taking a picture both easier and more complicated than ever. David Pogue, tech columnist for the New York Times, and Katrin Eismann, chair of the Digital Photography Department at the School of Visual Arts, look into the history of digital photography, explain how digital photography works, and tell us which cameras are the best on the market. Katrin Eismann's latest book is Real World Digital Photography and David Pogue is the author of David Pogue's Digital Photography: The Missing Manual.

Atlantic correspondent Robert S. Boynton looks at the citizen-journalists inside North Korea who, aided by a half-dozen outside media organizations, are able to smuggle facts into and out of the country, risking mprisonment and even execution to do so. His article, “North Korea’s Digital Underground,” examines this dangerous—and increasingly successful—operation. It appears in the April issue of the The Atlantic.

Video game designer Jane McGonigal talks about ways we can use video games to solve real-world problems and improve global happiness. Her book Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World looks at the growing interest in gaming, and examines how videogames can fulfill human needs.

Douglas Rushkoff, media theorist and author of Life Inc. discusses his book, Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age.

In the world of instant news sites, there is immense pressure on reporters to break the story—even by just seconds. Sree Sreenivasan, dean of student affairs and digital media professor at the Columbia Journalism School and contributing editor to dnainfo.com, joins us along with Helena Andrews, a former Politico reporter adn author of Bitch Is the New Black, and Remy Stern, editor-in-chief of Gawker.com, discuss the pressures on online journalists, and how tools like "hit counters" and other instant feedback shapes their coverage.

William Powers, former staff writer for The Washington Post, presents a new approach to the digital age by drawing on some of history's most brilliant thinkers, from Plato to Shakespeare to Thoreau, showing that digital connectedness is best balanced disconnectedness. Hamlet’s Blackberry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age is part intellectual journey and part memoir, and it sets out to solve the conundrum of connectedness.

How do you deal with constant connectedness and information overload? Let us know by leaving a comment!

This week, New York techies are going offline and trying to meet up in real life. Takeaway digital editor Jim Colgan attended the third annual Internet Week festival, where companies like Meet Up and FourSquare were showcasing tools that get people talking to each other. Meetup's new tool, "Meetup Everywhere," helps any organization to get its members get to know each other. It's what Meet Up's founder, Scott Heifernan, says is "using the internet to get off the internet." To make his point, he smashed an iPad on stage. Click through for video.

Washington Post Enterprise Editor Marc Fisher and reporter Mike Rosenwald discuss what happened when Fisher asked his reporters to do the unthinkable: unplug. His staff agreed not to use e-mail, Internet or texts for one week.

Facebook users have become wary of the privacy settings on the social networking site, and now lawmakers may also be taking a closer look at the company and whether the public has enough protections on the website. Takeaway digital editor, Jim Colgan, explains how users' privacy has become less of a priority on the site since its inception, and what lawmakers can do.

A cyber attack could wreak havoc on our national security.

Today’s Topic: Is Microsoft getting cool again?