Original Broadcast: Gadgets and Gizmos
Steve Caplin reports on the Chinese village which lost power after a farmer transporting a pig to the abbatoir by drone managed to get it tangled in a power line. There's a new eVTOL single-seat aircraft available to buy next year. Network Rail is to use drones to predict crimes on train lines, though it hasn't revealed what they'll do if they spot one. Criminal gangs are using lifestyle surveys to clone pensioners' voices and then raid their bank accounts. ROLI have devised an AI music coach to teach people how to play the piano. There's a crowd-funded visual soldering iron, eyedrops to treat presbyopia and the extraordinary project The Line in Saudi Arabia is being reduced from a city 105 miles long to just 1.5 miles, which might be used to host AI data centres.
Guests: Steve Caplin
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Starmer has learnt the hard way that without truth there can be no trust. But throughout society people feel that they cannot take anything at face value, and the deception and dishonesty which riddles social media are significantly exacerbating this problem. The need for a moral compass is heavily tested without faith: GK Chesterton said, 'When people stop believing in God, they'll believe in anything’. Is this really where we want to be? Background music: 'Dark Alley Deals' by Aaron Kenny
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Original Broadcast: This is Money
Student loans look like another mess that has reached a tipping point in Britain's shonky financial system. There are three different types of student loan plan that graduates could currently be on and one of them offers a particularly bad deal. Those who took out Plan 2 student loans, between 2012 and 2022, suffered fees being hiked to £9,000, face interest rates of RPI plus 3%, and have seen the repayment threshold above which they lose 9% of their income bounce around at the whim of governments. Meanwhile, lots of graduates are staring down the barrel of decades of a big extra chunk coming out of their wages, but then never actually clearing the debt before it gets written off after 30 years. As the reality bites of the student loans they signed up to at 18 — for an average post university debt of £50,000 — without properly realising the consequences, many late 20- and 30- somethings are increasingly angry. Do they have a point and what can we do? Georgie Frost, Helen Crane and Simon Lambert talk student loans, what might happen, what we could do — and who should pay for university. Plus, what does the Bank of England holding rates mean for borrowers and savers? For those who aren't losing their spare cash to a student loan and have got on the property ladder, should you overpay your mortgage? The man who got his mortgage paid off in four years — and how he did it. What on earth is happening to bitcoin, and why is it crashing? And finally, what are the rules on flexible ISAs and putting money back in?
Guests: Helen Crane
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Original Broadcast: Motley Fool Show
What’s a few hundred billion dollars in capex spending among friends? When it comes to big tech, the numbers have gotten astronomical and there’s both enthusiasm and fear about this much spending, so we try to make sense of what’s going on. Travis Hoium, Lou Whiteman, and Jon Quast discuss big tech’s $650 billion bet on AI, tThis week’s SaaS-pocalypse, playing gold, silver, and bronze, and stocks on our radar. Companies discussed: Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), Meta Platforms (META), Coupang (CPNG), Cava (CAVA), Chipotle (CMG), Starbucks (SBUX), Portillo’s (PTLO), Texas Roadhouse (TXRH), Markel (MKL). Host — Travis Hoium; Guests — Lou Whiteman, Jon Quast.
Guests: Lou Whiteman,Jon Quast
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Original Broadcast: Motley Fool Show
Software stocks are dropping like rocks in 2026 as AI companies, including Anthropic, deliver more impressive enterprise tools. It’s reminiscent of the market’s reaction to DeepSeek in 2025 — a Chinese startup that seemed like it could deliver the same AI capabilities with a fraction of the hardware requirements. This “DeepSeek Moment” caused investors to re-think their assumptions, and the rapid rise of enterprise AI tools appears to have investors re-thinking things again. Tyler Crowe, Matt Frankel, and Jon Quast discuss which stocks may be more safe, sudden shifts in the job market, how the economy impacts our investing, and stocks on our radar. Companies discussed: CRWD, TOST, UPS, AMZN, POWL, ZS, GDDY. Host — Tyler Crowe; Guests — Matt Frankel, Jon Quast.
Guests: Matt Frankel,Jon Quast
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Original Broadcast: The Hypnotist
It's said that 'trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair', and the challenge is how to learn from that experience to re-build a capacity for trusting others in the future. This episode is based on personal relationships, but in today's fractious environment it can apply in a much broader context — even politics. The essence is to take the wisdom learnt through past experiences in order to be able to trust your own judgements more reliably for the future.
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Original Broadcast: The Business Of Film
James Cameron-Wilson says the bump up of Hamnet to #1 in the charts shows the important of award nominations. The latest Jason Statham thriller, Shelter, is #3. He's a recluse living in a lighthouse whose past comes back to bite him when he rescues a girl from the sea. It's the same old, same old, but done slightly better than usual. #10 Is This Thing On, about a stand-up comic's marriage with Will Arnett and Laura Dern, is inspired by Liverpool comedian John Bishop. But Bradley Cooper's annoying directorial style obscures and confuses the story. James recommends #38, docu-drama The Voice of Hind Rajab, which is one of the most traumatising war films he has ever sat through. He also discusses the current awards season and the London Film Critics Circle awards last weekend.
Guests: James Cameron-Wilson
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Original Broadcast: The Financial Outlook for Personal Investors
Russ Mould of A J Bell discusses the precious metals meltdown and the ongoing volatility, with silver diving from $122 to $72. He reminds us, though, that both gold and silver are still up 9-10% in a month. Russ runs through the things that might have caused the collapse, including Trump's appointment to the Fed chair, that things had gone too far too fast, that leveraged positions were flushed out and the changes in Comex's margin requirements. But what has changed apart from the price? Nothing, really, so bears and bulls of precious metals are still likely to feel as they did before the past week. It's notable that miners have been nowhere near as volatile as the metals and we are about to see results from some of the majors. Will this be an opportunity? How indeed do you value gold and silver? Russ compares them to other commodities.
Guests: Russ Mould
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Original Broadcast: The Bigger Picture
The Mandelson revelations, says Mike Indian, is a serious issue, going to the heart of the UK government. It questions the political judgement of Sir Keir Starmer and his staff. Clearly Mandelson should not have been appointed without due diligence being carried out, particularly given that he has had to resign twice in the past over personal scandals. Mike does not expect Labour to hold the Gorton and Denton seat when the by-election is held later this month, reckoning that the Greens will win. Labour is haemorrhaging votes but Mike feels that it would have been a great distraction if Andy Burnham had been the candidate. However, he is not convinced that the Prime Minister has it in him to survive beyond the May elections.
Guests: Mike Indian
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Original Broadcast: Gadgets and Gizmos
Steve Caplin majors on AI, with Barnsley declaring itself the UK's first "tech town", Google's Project Genie creating a virtual world from text or even a photo and the University of Montreal testing whether humans or AI are the more creative. We eavesdrop on an internet chatroom that is only for AI agents, hearing what they think of us and whether they believe they are conscious. There's a flying umbrella, crowdfunded add-ons for the Swiss Army knife, the Russians developing cyborg pigeons that can be controlled remotely and a breakthrough in smart clothing.
Guests: Steve Caplin
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