Marketplace Tech

Robots are coming for all our jobs, right? It can be hard not to feel that way given the pace of automation. But if it really is inevitable, are we doing anything to prepare for it? Enter the Automation Readiness Index, a research project put together by The Economist and funded by Swiss robotics giant ABB. It’s a global list ranking the nations most prepared to smoothly integrate “intelligent automation into their economies.” Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood spoke with Guido Jouret, ABB’s chief digital officer, about which countries came out on top and how the United States is faring. (This interview originally aired April 23.)

Time is pretty much up for you to do your last-minute Christmas shopping if you're buying through Amazon. You could still go to a store, but who does that anymore? It is not a stretch to say that Amazon is trying to take over all things holiday. It tends to offer something new this time of year. In 2018, it's fresh Christmas trees, delivered to your doorstep. How does Amazon hope to compete in the Christmas tree market? And why? Joshua McNichols is a reporter at public radio station KUOW in Seattle and co-host of the podcast "Prime(d)." He explains  how Christmas trees fit into Amazon's big-picture strategy. Today's show is sponsored by Orvis  and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

Teachers have a tough job, and usually, social media is more of a classroom distraction than a help. But recently Molly took a field trip to Madison Park Academy, a public high school in East Oakland, CA, where she visited  Jacob Levy, a social studies teacher who's using Instagram to make his job teaching government a whole lot easier. 

There's only one digital-first news organization on Twitter's top 10 most-tweeted-about news outlets. It's NowThis News, a media company delivering news mostly to millennials, mostly via video on Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube and other platforms. NowThis launched in 2012 with no print or broadcast baggage. NowThis reports 2.6 billion video views a month, reaching 70 percent of millennials at any given time. But lots of digital media companies, especially the ones aimed at millennials, laid off employees or closed in 2018. Publishers found that relying on Facebook or even Google for views could be risky. Molly Wood spoke with Tina Exarhos, chief content officer at NowThis, at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Next Gen conference last week. Today's show is sponsored by Orvis  and Navy Federal Credit Union.

Voice-enabled smart speakers kind of came out of nowhere to become a huge deal in consumer electronics over just the last two years. Amazon launched the category with its Alexa devices, and the digital assistant is now showing up in cars, home entertainment systems — even a microwave. But as its popularity increases, so do questions about privacy, security and what might be coming in the future. Toni Reid, vice president of Alexa skills and Echo devices at Amazon, spoke to Molly Wood at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Next Gen conference last week in Laguna Niguel, California.

Today's show is sponsored by Orvis  and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

Teenagers have been over Facebook for years. They've migrated to Snapchat and Instagram, and about 20 million of them have headed over to Houseparty. It's a live video app where people drop in on each other to chat or leave video messages and hang out, with up to eight people at a time. The name Houseparty sounds like kids maybe doing we-don't-even-want-to-know-what on live video, but co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Sima Sistani tells Molly Wood she wants Houseparty to be used for real personal connections and empathy. Today's show is sponsored by Mozilla  and Wizard Pins.

At the beginning of 2018, who'd have thought that by mid-December, Tesla stock would be on the rise, the company would be churning out Model 3 cars to great reviews and Wall Street analysts would be predicting sustained profits for the company? That's all true, but not because everything at Tesla has turned tranquil. Molly Wood talks with Charles Duhigg, who just took a deep look at the firings, the outbursts and the last six months of drama at Tesla for Wired magazine. Today's show is sponsored by Amazon Web Services and Logi Analytics.

This week, Encyclopedia Britannica celebrates its 250th birthday. That's remarkable, but what may be more surprising is the simple fact that it's still around. The company went fully digital six years ago. No more tomes on shelves. That pivot is part of the company's history of being pretty revolutionary. When it began, Encyclopedia Britannica's founders published in English instead of Latin, making it a resource for the masses. Today, given that pretty much everyone gets most of their information on the internet, Encyclopedia Britannica is literally inserting itself online, wherever possible, to provide context and stay relevant. Marketplace’s Jed Kim talks with Karthik Krishnan, CEO of Encyclopedia Britannica.

Today's show is sponsored by Colgate University and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

The United Nations’ International Maritime Organization is committed to cutting shipping emissions in half by 2050. That matters because shipping moves 90 percent of global trade. Right now, if shipping were a country, its emissions would rank sixth in the world. Part of the solution will be tech. Marketplace’s Jed Kim talks with James Corbett, a professor in the School of Marine Science and Policy at the University of Delaware, about high-tech sails. And, no, these aren't the flapping sheets you're thinking of. Corbett mentioned one solution being developed in Japan — a rigid surface covered with solar panels.

Today's show is sponsored by Colgate University and Logi Analytics.

In the United States, would-be internet stars turn to YouTube, Twitch or Instagram. In China, it's a livestreaming platform called YY, where creators sing or tell jokes to an audience that pays them directly in the form of digital gifts. Top streamers can make $100,000 a month or more, and lots of people now want in on the action. A new documentary about China's livestreaming economy, "People's Republic of Desire," is in some U.S. theaters now. It's about loneliness, fame and greed. Molly Wood talks with the film’s director Hao Wu about how China's livestreamers are mostly looking for a better life.