Marketplace Tech

Many people spent the pandemic binge-watching TV shows and movies. And if the streaming wars were heating up before, now they are white hot. Netflix got a head start and pretty much owned the streaming space for almost a decade. Now it’s fighting to hold on to that position. And the competition is real: Disney+, HBO, Apple TV. Will “Squid Game,” the breakout hit from South Korea, reassert Netflix as the leader in the streaming competition? Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams speaks with Julia Alexander, a senior strategy analyst for Parrot Analytics.

We talk a lot on this show about the unintended consequences of using technology, and who is harmed by that technology. Marketplace’s Marielle Segarra speaks with a scholar who thinks about this a lot: Safiya Noble. She’s an associate professor of gender studies and African American studies at UCLA. Noble is also the author of the book “Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism,” and a 2021 MacArthur fellow.

As you have probably heard, or maybe experienced, there is a global shortage of computer chips. And carmakers, in particular, have been feeling the pinch. Without chips, they can’t make cars, which means there have been fewer cars available on the lot, and the ones that are there may not be what people want. This week, the chief operating officer of Hyundai said his company is working on a way to develop its own chips. Not many automakers do that, so it’s a topic for “Quality Assurance,” where we take a second look at a big tech story. Marketplace’s Marielle Segarra speaks with Jessica Caldwell, executive director of insights at the car-shopping site Edmunds.

As you’ve probably noticed, your regular host Molly Wood is off the show. She has been creating a new Marketplace podcast called “How We Survive” about tech solutions to the climate crisis. This season is all about batteries. They’re key to getting us off fossil fuels. But most batteries in the world right now need lithium, a metal that’s only obtainable through mining. Marketplace’s Marielle Segarra speaks with Molly Wood about her visit to a lithium mining lab.

During the pandemic, a lot of school districts loaned laptops, tablets or other devices to students who didn’t have their own. And many of those schools installed software on the devices that can track what a student is searching for and looking at. School administrators say they need to monitor students this way so they can flag a kid who is in trouble. But do students and their parents actually know they’re being tracked and in what ways? Marketplace’s Marielle Segarra speaks with Elizabeth Laird, the director of the Center for Democracy & Technology’s Equity in Civic Technology Project, who has recently done research on this.

Last year, the holiday shopping season was kind of a disaster. With a lot more people shopping online because of the pandemic, millions of packages were delayed or delivered late. This year could be worse. There are shortages of materials, products, shipping containers and workers, and Deloitte estimates that online sales will jump by 11% to 15% this season. Retailers and shipping companies are trying out robots that can help them sort through items. Marketplace’s Marielle Segarra speaks with Ken Goldberg, a professor of industrial engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and a co-founder of Ambi Robotics.

Let’s talk about computer chips. We’ve told you that they’re in short supply — because of COVID and materials shortages and shipping problems, and because a lot more people have bought digital devices during the pandemic. Sometimes when there is low supply and high demand, lots of counterfeits appear on the market. These could be chips taken out of old electronics and resold as new. Some of the fake chips work, to a certain extent, and some don’t work at all. Marketplace’s Marielle Segarra speaks with Bill Cardoso, CEO of Creative Electron, a company that uses X-rays to inspect chips and see if they’re real.

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp went down on Monday for several hours. Then, on Tuesday, whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former product designer at the company, appeared before Congress, saying Facebook puts profit over safety and asking lawmakers to step in. CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a note on Tuesday night saying a lot of things, including the company does not put profit over safety. Let’s look ahead at how this week might change Facebook with Quality Assurance, where we take a second look at a big tech story. Marketplace’s Marielle Segarra speaks with Mike Isaac, a tech correspondent for The New York Times.

In this episode of “Marketplace Tech,” host Molly Wood introduces us to her new podcast: “How We Survive.” The new show is a deep dive into technological solutions to the climate crisis and the businesses behind them.

When Facebook went down for several hours this week, we got a sense of just how much people rely on the company and its apps. And not just because they’re addicted to scrolling and likes. These platforms are also used for commerce and banking, particularly WhatsApp, the messaging service. In many parts of the world, you can also use it to send money, like you would with Venmo, or to pay for a purchase. And in some countries, that’s a big deal because the banking and finance infrastructure is less developed. Marketplace’s Marielle Segarra speaks with Lisa Ellis, a partner with MoffettNathanson, about the effects of the outage.