Marketplace Tech

Science fiction author Neal Stephenson has a new book out called “Fall,” exploring how technology might mean the end of death. In the book, a billionaire who made his fortune in video games has his digital conscious uploaded after he dies. Stephenson says he was inspired in part by John Milton’s 17th century poem “Paradise Lost,”  about the afterlife and the forming of the world.

Author Neal Stephenson joins host Molly Wood to discuss his new book, “Fall,” and how he had previously underestimated the dark side of social media.

If a fourth round of tariffs is imposed on goods from China, tech companies will be targeted. That means the prices of our gadgets could go up.

Forced technology transfer is hard to track. For example, there’s usually no explicit request from a Chinese official to hand over a trade secret… or else. Instead, it’s murkier, perhaps a verbal request for sensitive information behind closed doors as part of the Chinese government’s licensing or approval process.

Facebook is planning to launch a cryptocurrency in 2020. It’s called Libra, and Facebook already has a bunch of high-profile partners lined up — Uber, Spotify and, notably, big players in the payment space, like Visa, Mastercard and Paypal. The partners will jointly manage the currency through a nonprofit association. And Facebook says there’ll be a firewall of sorts between users’ finances and the social network. It won’t use financial data to improve ad targeting on Facebook. So why create a new digital wallet? And why do it with a cryptocurrency? Lisa Ellis covers payments and cryptocurrencies at the research firm MoffettNathanson. She says Facebook wants to be a commerce platform.

Marketplace Tech has been covering how technology helps us adapt to climate change through the series “How We Survive.” To start, you have to understand the problem and create smart solutions. Host Molly Wood spoke with Jeffrey Allenby, director of conservation technology at the Chesapeake Conservancy, a grantee of Microsoft’s AI for Earth program, and Lucas Joppa, head of that initiative.

There’s a saying that you’re never in traffic, you are traffic. The early vision of companies like Uber and Lyft was that they’d help pull drivers away from using their own cars, but in today’s reminder of the power of unintended consequences, recent studies show ride-sharing services made traffic worse in San Francisco. There are other factors, too — the city has been booming recently, there are more people and more online shopping and food deliveries.

Cable companies are some of the new players in the cellphone business. Since 2017, Comcast has offered cellphone service with Xfinity Mobile. Charter Communications offers Spectrum Mobile and Altice will soon be offering cellphone service as well. The service is cheaper than standard cellphone services, with about $45 being the maximum cost per month. However, you can’t necessarily use any phone you want.