Marketplace Tech

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.

YouTube announced Thursday that it has turned off the comments feature on tens of millions of videos that feature young children. This is after a bunch of advertisers pulled out of YouTube because of pedophiles flooding the comments sections on videos featuring young children. On that front, this is a very welcome move. But it's also complicated. Creators on YouTube rely on comments to create their communities. It can make us nervous when platforms that rely on user-generated content show how much control they really have. Host Molly Wood talks with Kelly McBride, senior vice president with The Poynter Institute for Media Studies. McBride says tools used to scan for certain types of content don't always work. Today's show is sponsored by Pitney Bowes, Kronos and WellFrame.

On Monday the RSA cybersecurity conference kicks off in San Francisco. Lots of security vendors will be there offering solutions for keeping businesses safe from hacking. The number of huge security breaches in recent years might make it seem like that's impossible. In fact, this year the theme of the RSA conference is simply "Better."  Yikes. Molly Wood talks with Kim Zetter, a cybersecurity journalist and author of the book "Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon." Zetter said in the world of cybersecurity, some things are better while others are not. Today's show is sponsored by Evident and Oregon State University.

Ride-sharing platforms Lyft and Uber are speeding toward initial public offerings this year. Both companies offer rides and increasingly bike and scooter rentals, but there are some big differences. Uber has all kinds of other spinoffs, like Uber Eats, a freight business and international expansion. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has described it as "the Amazon of transportation." And Lyft is still focused on rides. Jack Stewart, the new transportation reporter at Marketplace, visited Uber this week and said one thing that struck him is that Uber knows a lot about us. Today's show is sponsored by Topo Athletic and Brother Printers.

A group of Microsoft employees have published an open letter to that company's leaders titled “HoloLens for Good, Not War.” HoloLens is Microsoft's augmented reality headset. The company has signed a nearly $500 million contract with the U.S. Army to use the headset to train service members. Google and Amazon have also faced employee backlashes over military contracts. Molly Wood talked with Robert Latiff, a former U.S. Air Force major general and author of the book "Future War: Preparing for the New Global Battlefield" about how he makes sense of the employee responses.

Today's show is sponsored by Ultimate Software, Nulab and Evident.

When it comes to tech, companies, investors and entrepreneurs mostly talk about what it can do instead of what it should do. For example, should health and wellness apps funnel detailed personal information about their users directly to Facebook without people knowing or giving permission? The Wall Street Journal reported that on Friday, and it's only the most recent example of tech companies doing something that makes you think, "Didn't anyone ever ask if this might be a bad idea?" Caterina Fake is the co-founder of Flickr, a venture capitalist and host of the new podcast "Should This Exist?" She told Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood that investors are slowly starting to ask those questions. Today's show is sponsored by WellFrame and Lenovo for Small Business.

The big telecom show Mobile World Congress kicks off in Barcelona this week. Expect a lot of talk about phones and the things you can do with them. After reports last week that Apple and Goldman Sachs might launch a credit card potentially tied to the iPhone's digital wallet, there will probably be plenty of talk about mobile payments. But weren't we supposed to be paying for everything with our phones by now? Host Molly Wood talks with Lisa Ellis, who covers payment services at the research firm MoffettNathanson. She says when we moved to chip-based credit cards a few years back, we kind of missed the mobile boat.

Today's show is sponsored by Kronos and Topo Athletic.

 

Earlier this month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed that perhaps tech companies that make lots of money collecting and monetizing our personal information should share that wealth. He said that people who live in California should get paid a data dividend. Host Molly Wood talks with Owen Thomas, the business editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, who recently wrote that the data dividend idea is overly simplistic and has been tried before. Today's show is sponsored by Evident, Brother Printers and Indeed.

If you need a ride somewhere, Uber or Lyft will match you up with a car and a driver. If you're a landlord renting a house, you post it on Zillow and renters can find you. Tech has made it really easy for most of us to get matched up with what we need with just a few clicks. But like so much technology, this convenience is not evenly distributed. A new platform called Lease Up is tackling that problem by better matching homeless people with housing in Los Angeles. The website makes it easier for landlords to list affordable housing units and for nonprofits to find those homes for clients. Today's show is sponsored by Pitney Bowes and Indeed.

You know how there's this sense that if Amazon gets into your line of work, you're in trouble? Well, hello, digital advertising. Amazon has been slowly building up its ad business, letting brands target ads to people on Amazon.com and its other sites, like the live-streaming platform Twitch, IMDB, Zappos and all across the web. Its pitch is simple: Amazon is telling advertisers that the best predictor of what you, the consumer, are going to buy is what you've already bought. A report out today from research firm eMarketer says Amazon has been a distant third behind Facebook and Google and is starting to look like a dangerous third. Host Molly Wood talks about it with Monica Peart, senior forecasting director for eMarketer. Today's show is sponsored by Topo Athletic, Evident and Indeed.