Monday through Friday, Marketplace demystifies the digital economy in less than 10 minutes. We look past the hype and ask tough questions about an industry that's constantly changing.
Today on “Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week in Review,” we're looking at Apple's latest software and operating system updates. Also, there's a tentative labor deal between video game actors and studios. And we'll remember legendary Apple software engineer Bill Atkinson, who died at the age of 74. We begin with Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference which came and went this week with some mixed reactions. Marketplace’s Nova Safo spoke with Anita Ramaswamy, Columnist for The Information, to get...
Building work has started in the Finnish capital Helsinki on what’s expected to become the biggest startup campus in Europe. Finland’s government says it wants the small Nordic nation to offer the best startup ecosystem in Europe. The BBC’s Maddy Savage has this story.
There's a trial run taking place over a type of digital wallet for data. Consumers are in control, and they can sell their data to the highest bidder. This trial run is taking place in Brazil, the first country to try something like this on a national scale. Marketplace’s Nova Safo spoke with Sao Paolo-based journalist Gabriel Daros. He's been covering the story for the news site Rest of World.
The International Energy Agency projects the global market value of critical minerals could reach almost $800 billion by 2040. That's because we must have them for the electrified future. And right now, China is a dominant supplier. The Trump administration wants to find other sources, and it's looking to U.S. and international waters to mine minerals on the ocean floor. Marketplace contributor Daniel Ackerman has been reporting on the deep-sea mining companies that are working to figure out how...
There’s a lawsuit right now that’s testing the question of whether AI chatbots are protected by the First Amendment. And before we get into it, a warning that our story today includes discussion of suicide. Marketplace’s Nova Safo spoke with Jane Bambauer, law professor at the University of Florida, who’s been following this case.
Yoshua Bengio, one of the so-called godfathers of AI, wants it to be less human. Plus, a federal judge temporarily blocked a law in Florida that would ban kids under 14 from getting social media accounts. But first, Meta announced an energy deal with one of the country's biggest operators of nuclear reactors. Marketplace’s Nova Safo is joined by Jewel Burks Solomon, managing partner at the venture capital firm Collab Capital, to break down these tech stories from the week.
We've been looking at how technology is changing agriculture . Last month, we visited Central California where there's new investment in everything from electric tractors and leaf sensors to upskilling farmworkers . Today, Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams visits our neighbor to the north. Specifically, Canada's first fully-automated greenhouse. It's cost millions to set up, and it's just in time for a trade war....
AI-generated deepfakes are everywhere on social media. Now, you can take a test developed by Northwestern University to see how well you spot them. Marketplace’s Nova Safo took the test, sifting through a bunch of real and fake images. He got five out of six right, which is the average in a study Northwestern conducted. Lead researcher Matt Groh also helped develop a litmus test, a series of things to look for to spot deepfakes.
On this episode of “Marketplace Tech,” host Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Christopher Mims, a tech journalist at The Wall Street Journal, about the recent evolution of brain computer interfaces — technology that has enabled people with paralysis to move prosthetic limbs or type out communication using computer implants in their brains — and the neurotech startups trying to bring their implants to a larger market by making them less invasive.
Facial recognition systems use artificial intelligence to analyze patterns in faces, and they've come under increasing scrutiny, particularly in policing. There have been multiple instances of false positives leading to the arrest and detainment of innocent people. There's no federal regulation of this technology, but at least a dozen states have laws that limit its use. So, some law enforcement authorities have turned to a new system called Track, made by a company called Veritone. It doesn't a...
There's a provision tucked into the Big Beautiful Bill, among the tax cuts and Medicaid cuts, that would bar states from passing laws to regulate artificial intelligence for a decade. Plus, Meta is reshuffling its AI team again in an apparent attempt to catch up to the competition. But first, this week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a law requiring age verification for Apple and Google app stores. It also requires parental consent for app downloads and in-app purchases by minors. But it rais...
The New York City Administration for Children's Services, or ACS, has been using predictive artificial intelligence to flag some families for greater scrutiny, according to a recent investigation by The Markup. Colin Lecher reported the story and tells Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino, like all AI systems, it can encode historical biases.
In late April, details came to light about a covert experiment conducted by researchers from the University of Zurich on unsuspecting Reddit users on the debate forum known as r/changemyview. They used AI chatbots posing as real humans on the forum to test their powers of persuasion and invented backstories like a rape survivor or a Black man opposed to Black Lives Matter. What they didn't have was consent. The experiment violated Reddit Terms of Service, forum rules and, critics say, academic r...
Big Tech firms like Microsoft, Meta and Google are using stricter performance reviews to bring up productivity and weed out low performing workers. It’s a noticeable pivot away from the perks that defined Silicon Valley work culture a decade ago. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Alistair Barr, author of the Business Insider Tech Memo Newsletter, about their recent coverage of this latest shift.
Digital banking is often seen as a smoother, less costly way to deliver financial services. But where there’s tech, there are sometimes outages. Bank customers in the U.K. and other countries have seen an increasing number of banking interruptions, often with costly impacts.
On this week’s episode of Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week In Review, President Donald Trump signed the "Take It Down" Act, which requires internet publishers to take down intimate images like revenge porn or deepfakes within 48 hours of a complaint. Google unveiled a suite of new AI products, upgrades and projects at its annual I/O developers conference. And the game Fortnite finally returns to the Apple App Store after a long legal drama. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Paresh Dave,...
This week, we hit the road to check out California’s Central Valley, where the future of agricultural innovation is taking shape. We visited a farm that’s piloting next-gen tools and a university research center that’s helping develop that tech. Today, we’re at an AgTEC Workforce graduation, a community college program in this region that helps upskill farm workers.
This week, we’re heading to California’s Central Valley to see how technology is transforming this agricultural region. And we’re going straight to the innovation source: the University of California, Merced, where academics there are guiding students to research agtech innovations to potentially develop them for commercialization.
California is known for being home to Hollywood and Silicon Valley. But the Golden State also has millions of acres of farmland, and we’re exploring how technology is changing that landscape in a series this week about “Agtech Valley.” We visited HMC Farms with its farm manager Drew Ketelsen, who took us to an orchard of Lady Erin yellow peach trees trained to grow in narrow upright pillars rather than the usual rounded shape.
Having a baby in the era of apps, influencers, subreddits and Facebook groups, has its ups and downs. Journalist Amanda Hess thought she knew all about it as an internet culture writer for the New York Times, but found herself surprised when she was the one expecting. She writes about how pregnancy magnified her relationship with technology in a new memoir, “Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age.” It begins, actually before conception — with the period-tracking app, Flo Health....
President Donald Trump's visit to the Middle East has prompted a flurry of AI deals worth billions. We'll get into the details on today's “Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week in Review.” Stateside, the Trump administration has rolled back a Biden-era “AI Diffusion” rule. Companies involved in the semiconductor supply chain were critical of the rule, though it's still not entirely clear how Trump plans to revamp the regulation. Plus, what some might call the most obvious rebrand: Warner Bros brings back...
President Donald Trump talks a lot about wanting to build more stuff here in the U.S. But the future of manufacturing might not even be on earth, but in orbit. It might sound kind of out there — or way out there — but space manufacturing is already happening on a small scale. There's a mini boom of companies looking to do more of it, according to recent reporting in Wired by journalist Jonathan O'Callaghan. He says space has some unique qualities that make it attractive for manufacturing....
Emily Bender and Alex Hanna discuss their book, "The AI Con," exploring the hype surrounding AI and its potential harms. They critique the idea of artificial general intelligence, the environmental impact of AI, and the dangers of focusing on theoretical harms over real-world issues. They also highlight examples of ethical and community-controlled AI applications.
The remedy phase of one of the antitrust cases against Google wrapped up last week and the judge is expected to issue his decision by August on how the company must address its monopoly in search. One option suggested by the Justice Department: ban Google from paying browsers to make its search engine the default. But Mozilla, the developer of the independent Firefox browser, has opposed this remedy. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Laura Chambers, CEO of the Mozilla Corporation, a...
There was a time not so long ago when it seemed like the most consequential conversations in our society were happening on social media. But as the digital commons spawned mobs, performative posturing and rage-baiting, a lot of those conversations went private. That's one takeaway from the recent Semafor report on the private group chats between tech titans, business leaders and public intellectuals. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Amy Webb, founder and CEO of the Future Today Str...
On this week’s “Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week in Review,” OpenAI retreats from its pivot to profit after its plan to restructure the business hit some snags. Plus, we say goodbye to the old-school internet phone call platform - Skype. But first, the Department of Justice pushed for breaking up part of Google's advertising business by selling off two of its ad tech products, which Google says would be nearly impossible. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Joanna Stern, senior personal t...
Vibe coding is having a moment. The buzzy new phrase was coined earlier this year by OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy to describe his process of programming by prompting AI. It's been embraced by tech professionals and amateurs alike. Google , Microsoft and Apple have or are developing their own AI-assisted coding platforms while vibe coding startups like Cursor are raking in funding. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino recently spoke with Clarence Huang, vice president of technology at the fin...
E-commerce sites like Temu and Shein might not be quite as cheap as they were a week ago now that tariffs are kicking in on even small-dollar imports. But these platforms known for selling low-cost goods from China have also sought to cut costs on delivery. They contract in the U.S. with companies like UniUni, which promises to dispatch packages for $3 or less — well below the industry standard. How UniUni delivers on those low rates is the subject of a recent investigation by reporter Theo Wayt...
In an internal memo to his staff in April, Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman wrote that “AI is coming for your jobs. Heck, it's coming for my job too. This is a wake-up call. It does not matter if you are a programmer, designer, product manager, data scientist, lawyer, customer support rep, salesperson, or a finance person - AI is coming for you.” Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Kaufman, about his "radical candor" on the subject and how he wanted to spur them to think creatively about how ...
People are using chatbots in all kinds of ways — to search the web, get help with an online purchase, sometimes even for counseling. But there's a lot about this human-AI interaction we don't fully understand. Do these chatbots effectively combat loneliness or worsen social isolation? The answer — so far — is complicated, according to Cathy Fang, a second-year PhD student at MIT Media Lab who, along with researchers from OpenAI, studied how chatbot use affects human social and emotional wellbein...
