Marketplace Tech

Labor Day is the perfect day for the last installment of our summer entertainment series. The movie "Demolition Man" is set in 2032. It portrays a utopian society with no crime or bad thoughts. Sandra Bullock plays a rookie future cop. Wesley Snipes is a supervillain on the loose. And Sylvester Stallone is the old-school violent cop brought out of cryostasis to hunt him down. Its 1993 tech predictions were solid. It had self-driving cars, video conferencing, voice-activated technology and even touch-screen tablets. Amy Webb is a futurist and professor of strategic foresight at New York University's Stern School of Business. And she also consults on future tech for movies and TV. Molly Wood asked her how well "Demolition Man" did at predicting the future. (09/03/18)

Back in June, California passed the strictest online privacy law in the country, set to go into effect in 2020. The law would, among other things, require companies to be more transparent about what data they collect and why, tell people whom they're sharing it with and let consumers delete personal information. The United States has no federal online privacy laws. But some tech companies are so worried about the effects of California's law that they're now asking for nationwide rules. Molly Wood talks with New York Times technology reporter Cecilia Kang, who's been covering the topic, for a deeper take. (08/31/18)

This week's shooting in Jacksonville, Florida, was broadcast live on Twitch, the streaming platform acquired by Amazon for a billion dollars in 2016. Two people were killed while they were competing in a Madden NFL video game tournament. The shooter later killed himself. Twitch has removed video of the shooting from its site (although it's still available elsewhere online) and announced increased security for its annual TwitchCon gathering in October. Electronic Arts, maker of the Madden video game, said it's canceling three upcoming esports events. The entire business model of esports is built on live streaming competitive video game playing. So how might Twitch respond? We talk with Dmitri Williams from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism about the responsibility streaming services have over what goes out on their platforms. (08/30/18)

Facebook is one of the only sources of news in Myanmar, where the government has engaged in serious human rights abuses against its minority Rohingya population, according to the United Nations. Politicians and activists have been warning Facebook that hate speech and misinformation on its platform have helped spread violence against the Rohingya. In 2014, for example, false messages helped create a riot that killed two people. This week, Facebook did finally ban some people and groups, including the country's commander in chief. Zeynep Tufekci, who studies the impact of technology on society and politics, tells Molly Wood that Facebook went into Myanmar with just tech in mind, not the impact it might have on societies around the world. (08/29/18)

It is officially new iPhone season for techies. Apple usually announces its new phones in early September, and rumors about the gadgets are already flying. But earlier this month, the Chinese phone maker Huawei became the second-largest phone manufacturer in the world by market share. Samsung is No. 1. That's a big deal because Apple needs to sell lots of high-end phones in China where Huawei dominates and because Huawei got to No. 2 in the world without even selling phones in America. Most Chinese-made phones are unofficially banned because of government security concerns. Ryan Reith keeps track of the mobile phone industry at research firm IDC. He said Chinese phone makers are getting increasingly powerful. (08/28/18)

Fake news is enemy No. 1 right now. Companies and governments are trying to figure out who should be in charge of spotting misinformation and getting rid of it. MIT researcher Sinan Aral has found that the not-true stuff, what he calls “false news,” is not only hard to stop, but also really effective. A study published last spring found that false news travels way more efficiently and much farther than the truth. In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, Aral said misinformation can come at a real cost. (08/27/18)

This week, the European Commission said it's drafting new rules to get companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter to take any terrorist content off their platforms within an hour. And while this plan has a long way to go to become law, it's part of a broader move to increase tech regulation in Europe, where many countries have strict hate-speech laws. Politico’s chief technology correspondent Mark Scott says taking down terrorist threats is actually the easiest part when it comes to regulating speech online. (08/24/18)

The hailing options for Uber aren't just sedan, SUV and pool. The company has a trucking business as well called Uber Freight. Instead of pairing riders with cars, Uber has built a separate platform to pair shipments with trucks that can deliver them. Deborah Lockridge, editor-in-chief of Heavy Duty Trucking and Truckinginfo.com, says Uber sees opportunity in what is called the "spot freight" market, linking shippers and truckers, typically for one-off shipments. (08/23/18)

The classic IT advice is to back up anything that's valuable, just in case. With computerized voting, the preferred backup is good old-fashioned paper records. And yet, 14 states have systems that either lack paper backups completely or are only partially backed up by paper. So if something goes wrong with the state's voting system on election day — hacking or some malfunction — that means there won't be a foolproof way to make sure votes aren't lost. We talk with J. Alex Halderman, an election security expert at the University of Michigan, about how vulnerable our midterm elections are and why we’re not ready for an all-electronic voting system. (08/22/18)

Girl Scouts CEO Sylvia Acevedo worked at NASA and IBM before she took the top job at Girl Scout headquarters. Under her leadership, the organization has unveiled a round of STEM merit badges, including new ones for cybersecurity, robotics and mechanical engineering. These come at a time when the Girl Scouts face a shrinking membership. Guest host Lizzie O'Leary talks to Acevedo about whether the badges make the Girl Scouts more relevant and if they'll help girls gain marketable skills. (08/21/18)