Marketplace Tech

Most restaurants right now are open for delivery or pickup only, and that means a lot of them are relying on third-party delivery services like Grubhub, DoorDash or Uber Eats. Those services can charge significant fees to restaurants, and some restaurants complain those fees are unsustainable. Some cities have capped those fees and now the delivery companies say the caps are unsustainable. Host Molly Wood speaks with Venessa Wong, a senior reporter at BuzzFeed News.

Ventilators, dialysis machines and mechanical beds are more important than ever. That equipment, of course, breaks down. And some manufacturers restrict access to repair information, so hospital technicians can’t just fix things themselves. Molly Wood speaks with iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens, who just launched a public database of medical-equipment repair manuals.

Uber looking to buy Grubhub. Facebook buying Giphy. Apple nabbing NextVR.  Host Molly Wood speaks with Mark Lemley, who teaches antitrust and internet law at Stanford University, about whether regulators will take action against any of these deals. He says Facebook buying Giphy, for example, may not be any worse than its purchase of Instagram. But the combined weight of so many acquisitions could prompt regulators to wade in. 

The Chinese telecom manufacturer Huawei sells a lot of the complex hardware needed for 5G. But what if there were a way to build the networks that didn’t depend on Huawei? A group of 31 companies are pushing for devices that let software do most of the heavy lifting. Host Molly Wood speaks with Doug Brake, director of broadband and spectrum policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

The biggest instant homebuyers — Opendoor, Zillow, Offerpad and Redfin —  stopped making purchases in March, in some cases backing out of deals and forfeiting their deposits. Now, some iBuyers are coming back, but they’ll need to prove the model can survive a downturn. Marketplace’s Amy Scott speaks with Mike DelPrete, who watches iBuying closely. He’s a scholar-in-residence at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Host Molly Wood speaks with Marketplace correspondent Scott Tong about the increase in ransomware attacks against hospitals and other health-care facilities. Tong says places that are working on coronavirus testing and vaccines appear to be especially popular targets. And because these institutions are anxious to restore access to potentially lost patient information, they may ignore authorities’ advice and pay the ransoms.

Notarization has been around for centuries. It’s when an official of the state verifies a person’s identity so she can buy a house, adopt a child or draft a will. Lots of states allow online notarization, but the COVID-19 pandemic has forced others states to follow. On “Marketplace Tech” today, a look at how online notarization works, why it costs more and how secure the practice is.

Host Molly Wood speaks with Sarah Chavez, executive director of the nonprofit group The Order of the Good Death. Social distancing makes it hard to mourn together deaths from the pandemic or other causes. So people are turning to digital spaces to remember their loved ones. Chavez says some people are even creating digital altars in the video game Animal Crossing.

Host Molly Wood speaks with Renée DiResta, the technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory, about coronavirus disinformation campaigns. YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have been trying to chase the conspiracies off the internet, but DiResta says it’s not an accident these theories reach so many people. It’s an old playbook that’s even more effective in a time of fear and uncertainty. 

Host Molly Wood speaks with Ann Hornaday, a film critic at The Washington Post, about the future of films in the pandemic era. Since lots of people are working from home and using Zoom, she says it will eventually be a stylistic option for directors trying to convey what it was like living through 2020. It’s just a matter of time, she says, before the first Zoom movie.