The Secret Genius of Modern Life

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.

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.

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.

Hannah gains access to a top-secret site where anonymous staff and the latest tech work to make the British passport one of the most secure documents on the planet. She reveals the World War I spy craft hidden in the pages of every passport and takes a look into how modern ID checks were shaped by the hunt for a 19th-century French serial killer and 1970s psychedelic art.

With over six billion of them across the planet, smartphones have changed the modern world. With rare access to electronics giant Samsung, Hannah uncovers the technological game-changers that have made the smartphone a reality. She finds out how 1940s comic book hero Dick Tracy inspired the first mobile phone, discovers why the invention of the digital camera led to one of the biggest commercial blunders of all time, and reveals what a 2010 South Korean sausage frenzy can tell us about touchscreens.

Headphones: these marvels of miniaturisation are worn by 30 million people in the UK. Hannah Fry visits Bose to find out how the teeny earbud tech works and meets the human testers with ‘golden ears’.

Hannah takes a look at the air fryer – a device that is rapidly taking over peoples kitchens, cooking up everything from bread rolls to baked Alaska and almost making ovens obsolete.

Hanna uncovers the wild origins of the modern-day rollercoaster and gets the inside story on the UK’s newest, tallest and fastest coaster – Thorpe Parks Hyperia.

Hannah takes a drive to the National Highways control centre for the UK’s busiest motorway to meet the team that keep the motorways running 24/7.