Technology

Yeager broke the sound barrier flying the X-1 jet plane. The accomplishment not only helped revolutionize aviation; it put him in the public eye. He later appeared on the cover of Time Magazine and television commercials. His newly-published second memoir is called Press On!.

Language Commentator Geoffrey Nunberg explores the language and sounds of talking computers and how they handle the subtlety of vocal inflection. (Segment)

Television Critic David Bianculli talks about the effect video cassette recorders have had on the way his kids watch TV.

Computer animator Steven Segal. Segal does his programming on his home computer, unlike most computer animation which is composed on complex processors. His entry in a national computer animation festival is titled "Dance of the Stumblers."

Language Commentator Geoffrey Nunberg explores the language and sounds of talking computers and how they handle the subtlety of vocal inflection.

Video artist Bill Viola. His work draws on his extensive travel throughout Northern India, the Sahara, the American West and Europe and strives to establish video as an art independent of film and television. Viola has been working with video since 1970, including stints as an artist-in-residence at WNET's Artists' Television Laboratory, and as a Guggenheim Fellow.

Language Commentator Geoffrey Nunberg shares his thoughts on the peculiar grammatical logic of telephone answering machine recordings.

Jan Harold Brunvand will explore the urban legends that have sprung up around computer glitches, the so-called "mystery glitches."

Peter Wagg, Executive Producer and co-creator of the "Max Headroom" television series. He first developed the character of Max in 1985 as a host between rock video segments on Britain's Channel 4.

Language Commentator Geoffrey Nunberg will discuss the effects of Minitel, the computer distributed by the telephone system in France that has brought a word processor to every home with a phone.

Stewart Brand, founder of The Whole Earth Catalog and The Whole Earth Software Review. He's written a book on the Media Lab, MIT's state-of-the-art computer lab.

Fresh Air broadcasts a lecture by music critic and journalist Nat Hentoff. He worries that the accessibility of U.S. citizens' computerized data is leading to increased surveillance and a troubling, Orwellian practice of law enforcement.

Fresh Air broadcasts a lecture delivered by the legendary science fiction novelist. He opines on the role of technology in learning and the future progress of human civilization.