Foundering

We still don't know what Trump's presidency means for the broader tech industry, but one thing is clear: He loves Twitter. On the one hand, a president speaking directly with the people seems like a good thing. But will there be unintended consequences? This week, Bloomberg Technology's Brad Stone and Josh Brustein dig deep with two former Twitter employees, and also ask why a tool that's cemented its role in our public discourse is still struggling as a business.

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As cyber-spying gets ever more sophisticated, governments worldwide are rushing to get equipped with the most cutting-edge technology. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Jordan Robertson and Aki Ito take you into the heart of a multimillion-dollar deal to help a West African nation spy on its own people. But the deal goes south -- offering a rare glimpse into the shadowy world of the global cyber weapons industry.

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It's something that just about every technology company says it wants to address -- diversifying its workforce. So why is the industry so full of men, most of whom are white or Asian? Bloomberg Technology's Ellen Huet and Aki Ito follow Mitchell Lee, co-founder of a startup called Penny, as he tries to hire someone who doesn't look like your typical Silicon Valley programmer. The process raises some surprising challenges and poses plenty of uncomfortable questions.

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It's been a year full of surprising developments, from Brexit to the election of Donald Trump. This week we're bringing you our pessimist's guide to 2017: What might happen in the tech industry if it all goes horribly wrong? These are the most dire scenarios our team of reporters could come up with.

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A lot of people in the tech industry have a fascination with defying death. But only a few of them are actually working on ways to achieve it. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Ashlee Vance goes to Russia to meet one of the pioneers of the cryonics movement. We'll take a look at the technology he's developing, and see how close really he is to cracking the code to eternal life.

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Computer animated movies are everywhere these days. But in 1995 when Pixar was preparing to release Toy Story, the public had never seen a fully computer-animated movie before. Toy Story was years in the making and for Pixar everything was on the line. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Brad Stone and Pia Gadkari take us back to those final months, when CEO Steve Jobs, CFO Lawrence Levy and Pixar's other employees were racing to finish its first feature film, while also planning an all-important IPO.

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Coding boot camps are everywhere these days, promising to arm you with the most highly sought skill in the modern economy: computer programming. While many programs charge thousands of dollars for just a few months of instruction, one school, started in Paris by the French billionaire Xavier Niel, offers a three-year curriculum for free. This week Bloomberg Technology's Sarah McBride and Marie Mawad report on Ecole 42's newly-opened Silicon Valley branch, which is hoping to repeat the Paris school's success in training underprivileged youth. But things haven't quite turned out the way administrators were expecting.

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(Bloomberg) -- Now that the holidays are approaching, chances are you'll be doing at least some of your gift shopping on Amazon.com. But before you click "buy" on the first favorably-reviewed item you find, take a minute to learn about how you can avoid getting duped by the site's fake reviews and phony products. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Brad Stone and Spencer Soper report on the extreme tactics some vendors are using to get an edge on the competition, and what Amazon is doing to crack down on those people who are gaming the system. As we do more of our shopping on the internet, the stakes are only getting higher.

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On the night of the U.S. presidential elections, one of Facebook’s former product designers turned to Facebook to vent. His claim: The social media platform may have helped inaccurate and partisan news stories reach more voters, setting the stage for Donald Trump’s victory. Two weeks later, Facebook’s fake news problem has become one of the most hotly debated issues in America. This week, Bloomberg Technology’s Aki Ito and Sarah Frier speak to not only that former Facebook employee, but also two prominent investors in Silicon Valley as well as an editor of fact-checking site Snopes.com. Together, they grapple with the responsibilities that Facebook shoulders as a source of news for a growing portion of the world.

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Virtual assistants such as the iPhone's Siri are now everywhere, reading us the news, recommending restaurants and navigating a path to our jobs. But any casual user knows they're far from perfect. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Aki Ito and Alistair Barr visit Professor Terry Winograd, a pioneer in artificial intelligence who amazed the world with a precursor to these assistants half a century ago. Terry tests the assistants from Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon and explains why, despite all the hype, computer scientists are still far away from building machines that can outsmart humans.

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