Marketplace Tech

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Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood helps listeners understand the business behind the technology that's rewiring our lives. From how tech is changing the nature of work to the unknowns of venture capital to the economics of outer space, this weekday show breaks ideas, telling the stories of modern life through our digital economy. Marketplace Tech is part of the Marketplace portfolio of public radio programs broadcasting nationwide, which additionally includes Marketplace, Marketplace Morning Report and Marketplace Weekend. Listen every weekday on-air or online anytime at marketplace.org. From American Public Media. Twitter: @MarketplaceTech

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The next wave of driverless...

01.24.2020

This week, Cruise, the self-driving car subsidiary of GM, introduced Origin, a fully autonomous vehicle that has no driving controls whatsoever. It’s meant to be a rolling pod that carries passengers on demand, almost like a small bus or train ...

Marketplace Tech episodes:

01.24.2020 The next wave of driverless cars won’t have pedals or steering wheels. Is that allowed? This week, Cruise, the self-driving car subsidiary of GM, introduced Origin, a fully autonomous vehicle that has no driving controls whatsoever. It’s meant to be a rolling pod that carries passengers on demand, almost like a small bus or train ...
01.23.2020 Why nonprofits are wary about a private firm buying the dot-org domain Right now, registrations for websites that use dot-org — like Marketplace — are overseen by a nonprofit organization called the Internet Society. But in November, the Internet Society suddenly announced that it would sell control of those registrations to a ...
01.22.2020 In William Gibson’s new novel, AI is actually the good guy This week, Google/Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai argued that we need to regulate artificial intelligence and also suggested a temporary ban on facial recognition technology. Microsoft President Brad Smith, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, also said we ...
01.21.2020 Less, please! Google responds to pressure to eliminate cookies collecting our data Google recently announced some big privacy changes for its internet browser Chrome. It’s planning to make obsolete what are known as third-party cookies. Cookies are the trackers that advertisers plant so when you shop for shoes one time, you’ll then ...
01.20.2020 Can we count on tech to protect the online 2020 Census? This year’s census is going digital — the first one in history to be available to complete online, instead of on paper. That’s fitting in a world that’s much more connected, compared to 10 years ago, but our online lives ...
01.17.2020 Microsoft’s billion-dollar investment in carbon removal A lot of tech companies have pledged that their operations are — or will — become carbon neutral. But this week, Microsoft announced plans to become carbon negative in the next 10 years. That means it will invest $1 billion ...
01.16.2020 Qualcomm is at the center of 5G. We’re still, almost, there. When it comes to rolling out 5G, there are a lot of moving parts. At the heart of the 5G story sits Qualcomm, the company that makes wireless chips for your phone and develops and licenses other technology in the ...
01.15.2020 Delta’s CEO wants to use tech to make airports happier places This year at CES, the big electronics and tech show in Las Vegas held every January, the kickoff keynote presentation for the first time was by an airline CEO, Delta Air Lines’ Ed Bastian. He talked about how tech should ...
01.14.2020 Quibi spending more than a billion wading into streaming wars. Luring subscribers will be key. These days, we’ve all got a Las Vegas buffet of subscription streaming services to pick from. One new one called Quibi — short for quick bites — will launch in April and is only for your phone. Quibi was founded ...
01.13.2020 New California homes must have solar panels. Not everyone’s feeling so sunny about that. California’s home solar mandate, which says that newly constructed homes must have panels on the roofs, is now in effect. In a state known for its sunshine, that seems like a sensible idea, but it’s been a contentious path putting ...
01.10.2020 CES 2020: What happens in Vegas? More and more of the next big thing Your regular host, Molly Wood, has been in Las Vegas this week — at CES, to be more precise. So we’re going to check in with her and her big takeaways from the show this year. She called into our ...
01.09.2020 VR is always a coming attraction, but this movie deal might make it happen In the not-too-distant future, you could have your own Mystery Science Theater 3000-style experience — watch films with your friends and make all the sarcastic comments you want. But do it remotely. That’s the latest promise of virtual reality. Paramount ...
01.08.2020 How US businesses can prepare for an Iranian cyberattack Intelligence and security experts say there is a real risk of cyberattacks on American businesses as retaliation after a U.S. airstrike killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. It’s not exactly clear how this new front in warfare could play out. It ...
01.07.2020 Keep returning stuff for free, and ultimately it will cost us all a lot This season’s online holiday sales were worth some $138 billion to e-retailers, and nearly a third of that stuff is expected to be returned, according to new research from CBRE, a real estate research group. That’s actually typical for 30% ...
01.06.2020 CES 2020: Let’s see how tech envisions the new decade It is the start of a new year, and here in the land of tech and business, that means CES –– the massive consumer electronics show that dominates the tech industry for the week that it hits Las Vegas in ...
01.03.2020 Is there a way to use facial recognition that isn’t a dystopian nightmare? This week, we’re talking with Marketplace reporters about what tech topics they’re watching on their beats as we look ahead to 2020. One issue we can expect to see in the news a lot is facial recognition. In 2019, San ...
01.02.2020 Tech platforms, on the hook to clean up political advertising, take different approaches This week, we’ve been interviewing Marketplace reporters about what we should expect in tech in 2020. Today, we’re taking a look at one major event happening in 2020: the U.S. presidential election. It is no secret that there was a ...
01.01.2020 Congress isn’t going to let Facebook’s cryptocurrency happen without a fight This week, we’re talking to Marketplace reporters about what to expect from tech in the year ahead. Regulation is a big part of that conversation, and today we’re going to chat about cryptocurrencies, specifically Libra, the digital payments system and ...
12.31.2019 Some tech employees turned on their employers this year. Will 2020 bring more tensions? It’s prediction season. This week we’re asking our Marketplace beat reporters what to expect in tech in 2020. Today, we’re talking labor in the tech industry, specifically about the trend of workers protesting their own companies. In 2019, employees from ...
12.30.2019 EV sales might accelerate in 2020. Maybe. A new decade is almost upon us, which means this week we’re going to be talking about what to expect from the tech world in 2020. Today, let’s kick the tires — pun intended — on the transportation tech that ...
12.27.2019 When tech unicorns stumble, prices go up for everyone This holiday week, we’re taking a look back at some of our shows from 2019 that deal with topics we’ll be thinking about in the year ahead. That includes the way tech companies are valued and how it can affect ...
12.26.2019 A visit to X: The tech moonshot factory is working on climate change As we look ahead to 2020 and think about tackling giant problems, climate change is high on the list. So, we wanted to re-air an interview with the leader of a company that thrives on tackling giant problems. X, Formerly ...
12.25.2019 An app that pays you for your data? Yes, actually. This holiday week, we’re taking a look back at some of our shows from 2019 that touch on topics we’ll definitely be thinking about in the year ahead, and data is at the top of the list. When it comes ...
12.24.2019 VCs are leaving trillions on the table by bypassing diverse leaders, study says When we first aired this story earlier this year, I said to stop me if you’ve heard this before: 91% of venture capital investment goes to men, and almost 80% of those men are white. It’s probably because 90% of ...
12.23.2019 Lawyer argues product liability claims in Facebook suit over sex trafficking Of all the battles Facebook is fighting right now, it probably didn’t expect Annie McAdams of Houston, Texas. She’s a personal injury lawyer and is arguing on behalf of her clients that Facebook is legally liable for what it is ...
12.20.2019 Lawsuit says tech giants use child labor in cobalt mining Earlier this week, six U.S. tech companies were named in a lawsuit that accuses them of endangering the lives of child laborers in the mining of cobalt for their products. Several children have been maimed or killed in pursuit of ...
12.19.2019 Your kids’ data is already online. How much do you want to add to that? The author of a new book wants us to think before we post about our kids. She says that between social media, tech in education and the vast system of government, advertising and digital data collection that we live with ...
12.18.2019 Great interface design is often invisible. But maybe it shouldn’t be. When it comes to design — whether it’s for apps, websites, phones, TVs or computers — we throw around the term “user friendly” a lot. User-friendly design makes using a product easy and painless, which means we don’t notice it, ...
12.17.2019 California’s new privacy law will touch companies and protect consumers, if you ask California’s big consumer privacy law goes into effect on Jan. 1. It’s the first law in the U.S. that demands that companies give consumers more control over their information and more power over what they can do with that information ...
12.16.2019 Active wildfires are fast-moving disasters, and the fallout can be terrible, too NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory are launching flights to gather more data about the lingering pollutants from fires by flying straight into the smoke plumes. We can’t actually see these super tiny pollutants, but they’re big enough to affect ...
12.13.2019 The law that built the internet economy is going international Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act says tech platforms can’t be held liable for most things their users post on those platforms. The same section has been under attack recently from politicians and others who say it gives companies ...
12.12.2019 Do female CEOs get called out more often for creating a toxic work culture? Earlier this week, Steph Korey resigned as CEO of the trendy luggage company Away after a report on the company’s toxic workplace culture. Recently, there have been several negative stories about female CEOs, too. Sara Mauskopf, CEO and co-founder of ...
12.11.2019 Machines need to be funny if they want to sell stuff Chatbots are growing in importance as a way of bringing in revenue: Juniper Research estimates that by the year 2023, retail sales through chatbots will reach $112 billion. But those bots can lose customers if they can’t keep up with ...
12.10.2019 China wants to ban foreign computers and software from government offices A report this week in the Financial Times suggests that China might be moving to ban all foreign computer hardware and software from government agencies and public organizations within three years. The move could hurt American tech companies, but what’s ...
12.09.2019 Microsoft’s president reflects on a decade of antitrust investigations Microsoft is one of the world’s biggest tech companies, but it’s mostly been left out of controversies and investigations around privacy, data protection and antitrust. It’s ironic since the company spent about a decade fighting antitrust allegations in the 1990s. ...
12.06.2019 Voila! Trade war turns to Big Tech, wine and cheese
12.05.2019 Making clean water from sunshine and air This week, world leaders are meeting at the United Nations climate summit in Madrid, talking about how to keep global warming in check. One thing that’s going to become increasingly valuable in the future is drinking water. Droughts, storms and ...
12.04.2019 What “Blade Runner” got right — and wrong — about our 2019 tech The 1982 science fiction classic “Blade Runner” was set in November 2019 in Los Angeles. But the LA envisioned by director Ridley Scott is very different from the LA you’d recognize today. For one thing, it’s raining all the time, ...
12.03.2019 Happy? Holidays! Worker injuries spike at Amazon warehouses seasonally, data shows Amazon is by far the largest online retailer in the United States. Chances are you’ve clicked the buy button for holiday shopping or just some daily staples recently. Reporter Will Evans said he obtained records on injury rates from 23 ...
12.02.2019 Buying property is emotional. Tech can help people understand their home’s climate risk. We’re revisiting some of our stories looking at how technology can help us adapt to climate change. In this piece (which originally aired October 1), we look at the digital tools available to figure out a home’s flood risk.
11.29.2019 As climate change brings more fires, how do we keep the air clean? This week, we’re revisiting pieces on how technology can help us adapt to climate change, from our series “How We Survive.” This story (which originally aired August 5), looks at how technology can help us keep our indoor air clean ...
11.28.2019 Nature: the next big thing in climate adaptation technology? This week, we’re revisiting several stories on how technology can help us adapt to climate change as part of our series “How We Survive.” This piece (which was originally published on July 18) looks at how a unique levee in ...
11.27.2019 AI for Earth helps researchers get more granular with climate data This week, we’re revisiting several stories on how technology can help us adapt to climate change. In this piece, which originally aired June 18, we look at how using Microsoft’s AI computing power can help the environmental nonprofit Chesapeake Conservancy ...
11.26.2019 Don’t worry about robots taking your job — worry about AI Using new data, a new report from the Brookings Institution estimates that the higher you’re paid, the more your job may be at risk from artificial intelligence. We talk with Mark Muro, co-author of the report.
11.25.2019 Human biases are baked into algorithms. Now what? Recently, regulators began investigating the new Apple Card and Apple’s partner Goldman Sachs after several users reported that in married households, men received higher credit limits than women — even if the women had higher credit scores. Safiya Noble, an ...
11.22.2019 Amazon’s Ring doorbell camera is pretty much the Trojan horse of home privacy Doorbell security cameras are a hot item and hot topic when it comes to privacy and security. Amazon owns the Ring security camera company, and the company will give police camera footage with the customer’s permission. Andrew Ferguson, author of ...
11.21.2019 A Nobel Prize winner in economics uses AI to make poverty research go even further Esther Duflo is one of this year’s winners of the Nobel Prize in economics. She and her colleagues at MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab won for their unique approach to tackling poverty. They try to break up huge ...
11.20.2019 Can we trust Amazon with our health records? Amazon bought a couple of health care startups that range from prescription drug distribution to telemedicine. It setup Haven, a consulting group that wants to bring down the cost of health care. Its Echo devices can sync with Fitbit for ...
11.19.2019 Gen Zers bring retro looks back with an app Gen Zers, the generation after millennials, are wearing looks from the ’90s. And they’re not finding them at their local thrift shops — they’re shopping at a digital marketplace that specializes in vintage wear, the Depop app. It’s kind of ...
11.18.2019 The promise of renewables in remote Central Africa Less than half of the population of Africa can rely on flicking on a switch for light, heat or cooking, and that also limits technological advances in banking, education and health care. A recent International Energy Agency report says microgrids ...

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