LEVY: That's right, and you know, it's interesting - the one really telling moment there was - he was talking about dropped calls. But he was reiterating that and essentially saying that we've looked into it, and it's overblown.įLATOW: And he was showing all these all these phones had problems with antennas. If you want to take it back, then you can use an inferior phone.įLATOW: Yeah, and he said he'll give you a 30-day money-back guarantee if you buy a new one. All right, we're going to give you a case, if you want a case. All smartphones have a problem like this. He basically said this thing is overblown. Steve Jobs' news conference basically said if you don't like your new iPhone, bring it back. Let's just move on to a quick question about the iPhone news conference today. Thank you very much(ph).įLATOW: Nice to have you back. STEVEN LEVY (Author, 'Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution'): Thank you. It's also available as an iPhone app.Īnd joining us now is the insanely great Steven Levy. His book, 'Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution,' has been reissued by O'Reilly(ph) this year. Joining me now to talk more about the book and who the new generation of hackers might be is Steven Levy, senior writer for Wired. I don't think Microsoft is giving very much away free these days, or any of the other big software companies.īut he is, Bill Gates, one of the personalities featured in the original book, along with Steve Wozniak, Richard Stallman and Steve Jobs. Free information probably isn't what comes to mind, though, when you think of what's going on in the world today. The information, the information wanted to be free. A hacker was a computer geek, someone who stayed up all night writing code, building machines, sharing information, helping people out with problems with their computers, extracting data if they got stuck in all different places.

Even the meaning of the word hackers has evolved.

Up next this hour: 'Hackers.' It's been 25 years since the book came out, and my, how things have changed.

You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR.

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