Marketplace Tech

Elon Musk has unveiled Tesla's newest vehicle, the Model Y, essentially an SUV version of the Model 3. Marketplace's Jed Kim talks with Jack Stewart, Marketplace's transportation reporter, who was at the unveiling. Stewart says the Y is really similar to the 3. Today's show is sponsored by Lenovo for Small Business, Kronos and EquityZen.

The fatal crashes of two Boeing 737 Max 8s within the past six months have prompted a global grounding of the aircraft and questions about design. Demand for Boeing aircraft has put pressure on the Chicago-based aviation giant to churn out about 50 planes a month. How does the demand to deliver so many planes impact the design process and flight software development? Marketplace's Jed Kim talked with Alwyn Scott, manufacturing and technology correspondent at Reuters. He's been covering aviation for years and says making new planes entails a lot of oversight.

Today's show is sponsored by Pitney Bowes and Panopto.

Correction (March 15, 2019): Previous versions of this episode misidentified the location of Boeing's headquarters. It has been corrected.

Back in 2014, the virtual reality company Oculus was poised to revolutionize VR for gaming. The Oculus Rift headset was for gamers, by gamers. End of story. But then Facebook bought the company for about $2 billion. Facebook had a much bigger vision for virtual reality as the future of engagement: people hanging out in VR like they did on the news feed, having a good time and watching ads for hours. In 2019, that vision is still just a vision. In fact, the Oculus true believers never forgave the company. Host Molly Wood talks with Blake Harris, author of "The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality." Today's show is sponsored by WellFrame, Oregon State University and EquityZen.

Virtual reality is the technology that keeps on promising. Over the last decade, the promise kept seeming so much closer. Facebook even dropped $2 billion on the VR technology company Oculus in 2014. Blake Harris is the author of "The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality." Host Molly Wood talked with Harris about how Oculus and most virtual reality tech has kind of stalled. Today's show is sponsored by Pitney Bowes and EquityZen.

Training for tech jobs isn’t happening across all demographics. Today, women and people of color are entering tech fields at lower rates than in the 1990s. But N’Dera Muhammad, a 16-year-old in Baltimore, was determined to learn some 3D printing skills. After trying to teach herself to code, she found hands-on help at the Digital Harbor Foundation.

Today's show is sponsored by Lenovo for Small Business, Ultimate Software and Brother Printers.

Thirty years ago this month, computer scientist and engineer Tim Berners-Lee wrote a proposal for how to link lots of information across lots of computers. That proposal for a global network of information that made the world a better place eventually became the World Wide Web. But these days, the vision is looking a little ragged. Some believe the web is even on the verge of splintering into multiple internets, depending on where or how you get online. Host Molly Wood talked with Zeynep Tufekci, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina who studies emerging technology and society. Today's show is sponsored by Kronos, Oregon State University and Panopto.

On Wednesday, Democrats in Congress introduced a bill that would bring back the 2015 net neutrality rules that the Federal Communications Commission threw out in 2017. The rules prevented internet service providers from discriminating against certain types of online content. Lots of people think that legislation is the only way to settle the question of net neutrality long-term. That's because, right now, the FCC is in charge of either regulating internet service or deciding not to regulate it, and whether the FCC wants to regulate the internet depends almost entirely on which political party is in charge. But this new legislation doesn't really fix any of that. Host Molly Wood talked with Tom Merritt, host of the Daily Tech News Show podcast. He says this comes down to how internet service is legally defined. Today's show is sponsored by Evident and the University of San Francisco.

Whether it's Facebook or Google or smart speakers that may be overhearing every word you say, there are lots of companies that you know are a risk to your privacy. But then there are the hundreds of companies you haven't heard of making billions of dollars buying and selling incredibly detailed dossiers — about everybody. These are data brokers. Host Molly Wood talked about that business with Michelle Richardson, director of the Data and Privacy Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Today's show is sponsored by Pitney Bowes and the University of San Francisco.

All the bad press about Facebook might be catching up to the company. New numbers from Edison Research show an estimated 15 million fewer users in the United States compared to 2017. The biggest drop is in the very desirable 12- to 34-year-old group. Marketplace Tech got a first look at Edison's latest social media research. It revealed almost 80 percent of people in the U.S. are posting, tweeting or snapping, but fewer are going to Facebook. Marketplace's Kimberly Adams talks with Larry Rosin, president of Edison Research. He says while Facebook points to global growth, the U.S. numbers are a meaningful drop. Today's show is sponsored by Lenovo for Small Business and the University of San Francisco.

Smart homes full of connected devices aren't just for those who own their houses. And if you're a renter, you might get a smart apartment whether you want one or not. Back in January, security researcher and blogger Lesley Carhart got a letter from her landlord saying their building was getting internet-connected door locks. Her response was, "No, thank you." Host Molly Wood talked with Carhart about the big business of smart apartments. Today's show is sponsored by Nulab, Brother Printers and the University of San Francisco.