Marketplace Tech

This week we’re bringing you our favorite episodes of the year.

Americans spend 293 hours driving each year, according to AAA. That’s more than 12 days worth of data on where we go, what we listen to, and where we stop for lunch. Make no mistake, our cars are “watching” us. John Ellis, a former global technologist with Ford and author of a new book called “The Zero Dollar Car,” imagines that we’ll be able to trade in that data for cars one day. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood talked with Ellis about the value of car data.

The holidays are a time of year where lots of things are the same as they always have been. The turkey. The songs. Maybe even the jokes people make. But as technology advances, the way we create those things changes. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood thinks ahead to the holidays in the year 2030. She looks at the food — will we have smart ovens ... and even smart toilets that calculate whether we’re making healthy choices? And using artificial intelligence, could we create holograms of deceased relatives to join us around the dinner table?  (And even if we could, should we?) This special episode of Marketplace Tech helps us walk the line between the ease that technology offers and the pleasures of holiday work ... and encourages us to dream about the tech that’s yet to come.

Apple announced this week that it intentionally slows down the speed of older phones in order to preserve their batteries. It’s something people had suspected for years, and it made us wonder: Why doesn’t Apple just make it easier to replace the battery in your phone? As part of a new segment called Quality Assurance, Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood talks about it with Ina Fried, chief technology correspondent at the digital news site Axios.

Andrew Ng was the founder of the artificial intelligence research project Google Brain., and his latest company is called Landing.AI. The startup has partnered with the electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn, as well as other companies in Japan, Taiwan and mainland China to bring more AI to the factory floor. He spoke about the future of AI in manufacturing with Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood.

Under its new commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, the Food and Drug Administration is collaborating more with companies that make consumer tech that could also become health tech.  Think of an Apple Watch that could also tell if your heart rate is dangerously high. So the FDA is working directly with companies like Apple, Fitbit and Samsung to streamline the process for approving health and medical software. Gottlieb is a physician, but he was also a venture capitalist before he took over the FDA in May. He spoke with Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood about his plans for the agency.

Social Capital is a venture capital fund founded by Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook executive and professional poker player. He believes more venture capitalists need to use their own money when investing, and not rely on institutional partners such as universities and pension funds. He talks with Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood about what should change in startup investing.

Some pretty astonishing technology is being developed and used on battlefields today. There are laser weapons that can beam death to enemies and autonomous lethal weapons that can decide when and who to shoot. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood talks with Robert Latiff, a former Air Force major general, and a professor at George Mason University, about the future of war.

As expected, the Federal Communications Commission voted yesterday to overturn net neutrality, the Obama-era rule that says internet service providers have to treat all content equally on their networks. So what happens next? Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood talks with Tom Merritt, host of the "Daily Tech News Show" podcast, about what this means for the internet and how long it will be before we see changes.

Los Angeles is in its second week of trying to contain the Thomas fire that has spread through two counties. Millions of acres have burned across the U.S. this year, and one fire killed 44 people and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses in California wine country in October. What role is technology playing in preventing harm from wildfires? Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood talks with Brandon Collins, a research scientist at UC Berkeley’s Center for Fire Research and Outreach, about fire prevention technology – and its limits.

Tomorrow, the Federal Communications Commission will vote on whether to eliminate net neutrality rules. Those regulations were created under the Obama administration, and prevent internet service providers like Verizon or Comcast from favoring certain content over others. The current FCC says companies should be able to do what they like, as long as they are transparent about it. This is controversial, and the public comment system on the FCC’s proposed rules was overtaken by spam and fake accounts. Democrats, consumer groups, and even a few Republicans have called for the vote to be postponed. But FCC chairman Ajit Pai is leading this charge—and plans to go ahead.