Spark Plus from CBC Radio

We're discontinuing the Spark Plus Podcast, but never fear, you can now get bonus Spark content on our regular Spark podcast. Host Nora Young explains the change.

Nora Young speaks with Oliver Carsten, about his research into distracted driving. He's a professor of Transport Safety at the Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds.

There's no need to flip a coin to see who does the driving on your next road trip, just let the car drive itself! It's closer than you think - automated cars are currently in the works at nearly every major car manufacturer. Clifford Nass talks about the psychological issues that arise when we begin to accept being driven around by our own cars.

Nora Young speaks with Andrew Blum, author of "Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet" all about the physical structure of the internet.

Nora Young speaks with Mills Kelly, a history professor at George Mason University. He teaches a course called "Lying About the Past" where students create a hoax and "turn it loose on the internet."

How about a little Robot sand this summer? You know, the kind that can morph into just about any object it touches? It sounds like something from the Terminator, but it's actually technology that's being developed in Kyle Gilpin's lab at MIT. Gilpin and his post-doc supervisor Daniela Rus have developed robot pebbles that can communicate, self-assemble, and sculpt replicas of the object they surround. Whoa.

Nora Young speaks with Bryan Pearson, CEO of LoyaltyOne, the people behind Air Miles. He's the author of "The Loyalty Leap" which looks at the collection of customer data and the challenges companies face in figuring out how to use that info in ways that are relevant and not creepy.

We've talked a lot about whether or not learning computer programming language is as essential a skill as learning to read or write. A lot of people think so, including Carlos Bueno. He's a Software Engineer at Facebook and the author of "Lauren Ipsum" a book that introduces coding to kids by using metaphor.

Roel Vertegaal is an associate professor of Human Computer Interaction at Queens University and is the director of The Human Media Lab. He designs attentive user interfaces designed to support our ability to focus by reacting accordingly instead of interrupting us.

Nora Young speaks with Justin Cranshaw, a PhD student at Carnegie Mellon, about Livehoods. It's a site that uses social networking data to understand neighbourhoods.

Nora talks to Steve Matteson about the challenges in designing fonts for mobile devices. He's the Creative Type Director at Monotype Imaging.

David Fewer of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic talks to Nora about new developments with Bill C-11. C-11 is a bill to amend Canada's copyright act.

Nora Young speaks with Sanjay Arora. He's behind MillionShort.com, a new search engine which knocks the top one million most popular websites off your search results.

Nora speaks with Heather Knight, a social roboticist. Through Data, a robot that tells jokes, she's exploring how robots might be able to pick up on human social cues, so they can respond more appropriately.

Nora Young speaks with Chris Parker, a human-robot interaction researcher at UBC.