The Secret Genius of Modern Life

E1 · 59m

Bank Card

Hannah Fry takes a look at the bank card, the digital key to accessing cash, and finds out how its extraordinary innovations have some surprising and sinister origins.

E2 · 59m

Food Delivery App

Hannah Fry tucks into the tech behind food delivery apps, which are now used by 24 million people in the UK. Hannah finds out how pizza made us fall in love with the internet.

E3 · 59m

Virtual Assistant

Hannah Fry delves into the inner workings of virtual assistants, such as Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri, which are now found in almost half of all UK homes.

E4 · 59m

Electric Car

Hannah Fry discovers why innovations in meat packing almost derailed the electric car revolution and how a breakthrough in camcorder batteries led to Elon Musk’s electric empire, as well as demonstrating how not to drive a multimillion dollar prototype car of the future.

E5 · 59m

Fitness Tracker

Hannah Fry finds out how 1970s car crashes helped us to count our steps, why WWII dog-fights led to a crucial health monitor and how fitness trackers are even being used to catch killers.

E6 · 59m

Trainer

Hannah Fry visits Ebay’s authentication centre, where they are waging war against fake high-value trainers.