Marketplace Tech

Florida bars kids from social media, EV charging tips to make your money go farther and AI ambitions at Apple’s developer fest

In this week’s episode of Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week in Review, Lily Jamali chats with Joanna Stern, The Wall Street Journal’s senior personal tech columnist, who takes us on a road trip through New Jersey’s network of Tesla superchargers. Stern recently explored how drivers of non-Tesla electric vehicles can now use these stations via an adapter. It’s part of her larger look into the best ways to save money supercharging your EV. Also this week, we’ll get Stern’s take on what to expect at...

Government pressures tech behind the scenes, says former Facebook employee. It’s called jawboning.

It’s something government officials on both sides of the aisle are known to do: pressuring tech platforms to bend to their will, aka jawboning. But the line between persuasion and coercion, or even censorship, can get murky. Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments from two states alleging that the Joe Biden administration illegally coerced social media companies into blocking conservative content. Matt Perault, now with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Center on Techno...

What a privacy organization and Big Tech’s lead lobbying group think about internet regulation

When you look at the lawsuits aimed at blocking attempts to regulate tech, it’s usually not companies like Meta or Snap doing the suing. Oftentimes, it’s a group called NetChoice, which has emerged as Big Tech’s top lobbying force from Capitol Hill to the courts. Today, a conversation with NetChoice General Counsel Carl Szabo and Megan Iorio, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit focused on privacy. They occasionally agree, but very often they do not. Cas...

Africa’s gaming market is expected to top $1 billion in 2024

The number of gamers in Africa has doubled in recent years, but many gaming platforms require users to pay for subscriptions or make in-game purchases. That’s a problem for users who don’t have credit cards, but as the BBC’s Mo Allie reports, some fintech companies think they have a solution.  

Why crypto has made a comeback in the Philippines

Crypto is once again big in the Philippines. It first took off during COVID-19 lockdowns in 2021 with a now-defunct video game called Axie Infinity, where players earned money — often more than minimum wage — through non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. Of course, the crypto winter soon followed with the implosion of FTX in 2022, but now crypto is back in a big way on the island nation. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with reporter Eli Tan, who recently visited and wrote about the scene ...

Lawsuits, fines and the tech at the heart of it all

When a company pushes false claims about using artificial intelligence in its  business, that’s known informally as “AI washing.” It can feel like everybody’s doing it, but the Securities and Exchange Commission is cracking down on the practice. Plus, is the government’s communication with social media companies persuasion or coercion? The Supreme Court heard arguments this week in yet another case involving online speech. But first, the Department of Justice on Thursday announced that it’s ...

What it means for nations to have “AI sovereignty”

Imagine that you could walk into one of the world’s great libraries and leave with whatever you wanted — any book, map, photo or historical document — forever. No questions asked. There is an argument that something like that is happening to the digital data of nations. In a lot of places, anyone can come along and scrape the internet for the valuable data that’s the backbone of artificial intelligence. But what if raw data generated in a particular country could be used to benefit not outsi...

AI manipulation and the liar’s dividend

Marketplace’s Lily Jamali and Kimberly Adams discuss how deepfake images are leading people to second guess everything in the latest episode of our “Decoding Democracy” series.

What Redditors think about the Reddit IPO

More than two years after Reddit first announced plans to go public, a share offering is expected to hit the stock market this week. The social network boasts 260 million active weekly users and more than 100,000 active communities, according to its S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Yet in its nearly two-decade history, Reddit has never turned a profit. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke with Elizabeth Lopatto, senior writer at The Verge, who says not everyone is on board ...

Makers of electric roasters pitch carbon cutting in coffee making

Roasting coffee beans was a market worth over $1 billion globally in 2022, according to Grand View Research, which projects that figure could double by 2030. Traditional roasters, powered by the fossil fuel natural gas, still dominate the market. These machines are big and bulky and kind of look like part of a train. But the makers of more compact electric roasters are piling into the business. And they have an edge, touting themselves as high-tech alternatives that are more environmentally ...

TikTok faces the hammer, Sam Altman returns to OpenAI’s board, and Waymo’s driverless taxis come to Los Angeles

We’re at the end of the week, which means we’re serving up another episode of Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week in Review. Autonomous vehicle company Waymo has launched its driverless taxi service in Los Angeles. OpenAI has given CEO Sam Altman his board seat back. And a U.S. bill passed by the House of Representatives would force TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, to sell its stake in the U.S. version of the popular social media platform or be banned from app stores. Paresh Dave, senior writer ...

What a TikTok ban would mean for free speech and data privacy

On Wednesday, members of the House of Representatives proved they can agree on something. In a bipartisan vote, lawmakers passed a bill that would force TikTok to split from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, or face a nationwide ban — the first for a social media app in the U.S. President Biden has signaled he’d sign the bill into law if it passes the Senate. Advocates argue that the Chinese government could use the hugely popular app to collect Americans’ personal data and threaten U.S. securit...

The Biden administration hasn’t had a CTO. Why?

When President Barack Obama took office way back in 2009, he created a new role that promised to bring some tech know-how to his administration. Chief Technology Officer, or CTO, was, of course, a title borrowed from corporate America. Early on, the job focused on things like bringing broadband access to rural parts of the country and modernizing the way the federal government keeps records. President Donald Trump also had a CTO. Well, we are now deep into President Joe Biden’s current term ...

States and schools are learning how to manage AI in education

It’s been about a year and a half since ChatGPT hit the scene and changed the world of education, leaving teachers scrambling to adjust lesson plans and grading policies. Currently, only a handful of states are providing guidance on how AI should be used in the classroom. Just five have official policies, with about a dozen more in the works. Bree Dusseault at the Center on Reinventing Public Education at Arizona State University has been following all this.

AI can’t handle the truth when it comes to the law

Almost one in five lawyers are using AI, according to an American Bar Association survey. But there are a growing number of legal horror stories involving tools like ChatGPT, because chatbots have a tendency to make stuff up — such as legal precedents from cases that never happened. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Daniel Ho at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence about the group’s recent study on how frequently three of the most popular language mod...

EU fines Apple over competition, Change Healthcare cyberattack drags on, and Max will join the crackdown on password sharing

Late last month, Change Healthcare, a unit of UnitedHealth, came under attack by an infamous hacker group called BlackCat. $22 million in ransom later, reportedly paid in bitcoin, and the problem is far from solved. Also this week: Max, previously HBO Max, announces a crackdown on password sharing — maybe it’s time to dust off the old DVD player. But first, Apple on Monday got hit with a massive fine from regulators in Europe. They say the company used its app store dominance to box out musi...

San Francisco Federal Reserve chief says Silicon Valley is thriving, but “in transitional waters”

More than 260,000 people working in the tech industry were laid off last year, and some CEOs have put at least some of the blame on high interest rates. Policymakers at the Federal Reserve hiked rates at the fastest pace in modern history to beat back inflation. And when rates rise, borrowing money gets more expensive. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali sat down with Mary Daly, president and CEO of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, to discuss how the tech industry is navigating through this hig...

The San Francisco Fed chief says Silicon Valley is thriving, but “in transitional waters”

More than 260,000 people working in the tech industry were laid off last year, and some CEOs have put at least some of the blame on high interest rates. Policymakers at the Federal Reserve hiked rates at the fastest pace in modern history to beat back inflation. And when rates rise, borrowing money gets more expensive. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali sat down with Mary Daly, president and CEO of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, to discuss how the tech industry is navigating through this hig...

One year after “all hell broke loose” at Silicon Valley Bank

This week marks the first anniversary of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the largest bank failure in the United States since the 2008 financial crisis. Today, Marketplace’s Lily Jamali revisits the SVB collapse with Anat Admati, an economics professor at Stanford University and co-author of the book “The Banker’s New Clothes.”

Deepfakes and the 2024 election season

Audio deepfakes have become shockingly convincing in the last few years. A deepfake robocall impersonating President Joe Biden encouraging voters to stay home for the New Hampshire primary was one recent example of how far the technology has advanced. That’s why “Marketplace Tech” is launching a limited series called “Decoding Democracy.” Marketplace’s Lily Jamali will be joined by other Marketplace reporters, experts and researchers to discuss what election mis- and disinformation is out t...

Spotting tech-driven disinformation isn’t getting easier

“Misinformation” and “disinformation” are often lumped together. They’re not the same, but they are very much connected. Say you hear that Christmas falls on Dec. 23 this year. If someone told you that thinking it was true, it’s considered misinformation. But when it’s spread with the intent to deceive, that’s disinformation, which can easily be amplified unwittingly by the folks in the first group. Audio and video generated by artificial intelligence is everywhere in this election season. S...

A boost for data privacy policy, Nvidia’s chip shortage eases and Apple steers away from electric cars

It’s Friday, and that means it’s time to dig into some of this week’s tech headlines in “Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week in Review.” Good news for Nvidia, the top chipmaker for artificial intelligence applications. There are signs that the company’s product shortage is finally easing up, as more customers nab chips to power their AI ambitions. Plus, Apple reportedly hits the brakes on plans to create its own electric vehicle. But first, there was significant movement on data privacy policy. Thi...

Voting precincts are steadily moving away from paperless machines

“DRE” is the acronym in election-speak. It stands for direct-recording electronic voting machines … the kind that record votes directly into a computer’s memory, often with no paper trail. In an effort to boost security and ensure more reliable counting of ballots across the country, officials have been replacing them with voting machines that produce a paper backup. And there has been noticeable progress on this front. According to a recent report from the nonprofit organization Verified V...

DOE’s Granholm drives campaign to make EV batteries a U.S. industry

A big part of Jennifer Granholm’s job as U.S. secretary of energy involves selling President Biden’s clean energy agenda and convincing Americans that it’s benefiting them. On Monday, she toured a facility near San Francisco operated by the company Cuberg, which is developing a lithium-based battery that’s less flammable than the ones we use today. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali talked with Granholm about how batteries like Cuberg’s fit into the administration’s sweeping climate policy.

Will we remember any of the fast-paced “trendbait” slang on TikTok?

The race to coin new words and phrases is on — on TikTok. They range from “first time cool syndrome,” to “the weekend effect,” and “dinner and couch” friend. Keeping track of all this can feel like a wild goose chase, to use an expression credited to William Shakespeare, who introduced countless words and phrases to the English language. But unlike the Bard’s phrases, TikTok slang doesn’t seem to have much staying power. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke with Rebecca Jennings, senior correspo...

How NetChoice became Big Tech’s ally against social media regulation

The Supreme Court hears arguments on two state laws Monday — one in Texas and one in Florida — that seek to punish social media platforms over allegations they censor conservative speech. The legal force fighting these state laws is itself a group with conservative leanings called NetChoice, which has emerged as Big Tech’s top political lobbyist. And it’s going after social media crackdowns in blue states too, like the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, which required that platforms...

Amazon to join the Dow, VCs steer away from China’s startups, and Rivian’s cold EV winter

It was not that long ago that electric vehicle maker Rivian was drawing comparisons to Tesla. But flagging demand for EVs has not served the company well. Its earnings release this week made that much clear. Also, a look at why American venture capital firms appear to be pulling back from funding startups in China. But first, Amazon has come a long way since it was founded 30 years ago. Its next stop: the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It joins the market indicator Monday. Marketplace’s Lily ...

When cellphones fail, landlines are still a lifeline

AT&T is asking California regulators to be relieved of its obligation to provide basic landline phone service to anyone who wants it. “No customer will be left without voice or 911 service,” AT&T says, but Californians weighing in are, by and large, skeptical. Regina Costa, telecom policy director at the Utility Reform Network, an advocacy group, told Marketplace’s Lily Jamali that having a “carrier of last resort” matters.

Want to quit your smartphone?

Once a week, many of us get that dreaded screen-time report courtesy of our smartphones. But a recent study found keeping track of our average usage doesn’t actually help us control our screen time all that much. Caught in the loop of screen-time shame like so many of us are, New York Times tech reporter Kashmir Hill decided to actually do something about it. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke with Hill about her experience breaking up with her iPhone and replacing it with a flip phone, T9 text...

Would you trust a cancer screening by artificial intelligence?

As consumers, we’ve all been subjected to the “upsell,” or pressure to pay a little more for a product that’s slightly better. It’s one thing if you’re buying, say, a car or a piece of clothing. The ethical questions get a lot more complicated in health care. Some providers have started integrating artificial intelligence in diagnostic procedures, including screenings for breast cancer. The tools may be available for an additional cost, and questions about their accuracy have been raised. M...

Vibrating suits offer a new way to experience music

We often think of music as a mostly auditory experience, but it’s also a physical one, especially for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. Daniel Belquer — a Philadelphia-based technologist, composer and “chief vibrational officer” of Music: Not Impossible — has been studying the relationship between sound and sensation, and how that connection can make music more accessible. “Marketplace Tech” spoke with Belquer about how his vibrating technology is helping people experience music in ne...

A $7 trillion chips moonshot, AI-fueled cyberattacks, and Disney’s bet on gaming

On the show today, Microsoft says groups affiliated with the governments of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are using AI tools to improve their cyberattacks. Also, Disney is investing $1.5 billion in Epic Games. Can we expect a “Frozen” / Fortnite crossover? We’re not sure yet, but what we can expect is regulatory scrutiny. But first, in Silicon Valley, where software normally gets all the glory, OpenAI’s Sam Altman is reportedly planning a big move into hardware by raising up to $7 tril...

How a comprehensive federal privacy law could protect kids online

On our show last week, we had Sen. Amy Klobuchar share her take on the recent Senate hearing with tech executives. You remember the one, with the execs, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, doing their best to stall in response to searing questions about how to keep kids safe online. Klobuchar told us that hearing may have actually moved the needle on that issue. She stressed to us that such events educate the public and help lawmakers get on-the-record pledges of support for specific bills fr...

Dating apps can get pretty intimate with your data

Cuffing season is that time of year when singles hunker down with someone to keep them warm — temporarily. And Valentine’s Day more or less marks the end of it. So people are about to start flocking back to their dating apps. Adrianus Warmenhoven, cybersecurity expert at NordVPN, told Marketplace’s Lily Jamali that a lot of those apps are eager to vacuum up their personal data.

In spite of plummeting valuation, 23andMe still aims to pivot into biotech

23andMe has seen its valuation plummet from $6 billion to close to zero, with the Nasdaq threatening to delist the company’s stock. Still, company leaders have high hopes for medical research and a pivot to biotech. Rolfe Winkler has been writing about what happened for The Wall Street Journal, and discussed the company’s financial woes and future roadmap with Marketplace’s Lily Jamali.

For Uvalde families, social media is a tool to share grief and energize advocacy

On May 24, it will be two years since 19 children and two teachers were killed in the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Photojournalist Tamir Kalifa has spent much of the last year and a half documenting the lives of the victims’ families and friends in the wake of the tragedy. Last week he was awarded the American Mosaic Journalism Prize for that work. He told Marketplace’s Lily Jamali about how social media is helping the community deal with its grief and bolstering its ...

FCC cracks down on AI robocall scams, Meta tightens oversight of AI content and Sen. Klobuchar discusses Section 230 reform

What does it take to protect children online?

A week later and we’re still thinking about the hearing that saw half a dozen tech CEOs testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on keeping kids safe online. It left us wondering: Why do lawmakers hold these hearings then fail again and again to pass federal laws to keep Big Tech in check? One thing was clear: The importance of keeping kids safe online is one of the few things that a lot of Democratic and Republican senators agree on. Take for example the SHIELD Act, a bill co-sponsored...

The Department of Energy will track energy used in crypto mining

The business of minting cryptocurrencies here in the United States is growing bigger by the day. In January 2020, just 3.4% of the world’s bitcoin mining took place here. That figure ballooned to almost 38% in just two years. As we’ve talked about on this show, mining bitcoin and some other cryptocurrencies burns through a lot of electric power. The Energy Information Administration has been interested in tracking this activity, sifting through articles in the media and company reports. But ...

Pumped-storage hydropower could help renewable energy flow

Back in the 1970s, the Tennessee Valley Authority built what remains one of the largest energy storage facilities in the world: a pumped-storage hydropower plant. A pump takes water from the Tennessee River, shoots it up a giant shaft and holds it there until electric power needs peak during the day. At that point, the water is allowed to drain back down, spinning turbines that can generate enough power for a million homes. It’s almost like a gravity-powered battery as big as a cathedral … ...

Apple’s Vision Pro is finally here. What took so long?

Last Friday, Apple’s long-awaited contribution to the virtual reality headset market finally hit stores across the U.S. Apple CEO Tim Cook promised the new technology would be nothing short of revolutionary when he unveiled it last summer. But let’s not forget the fate of the Google Glass, the glasses with a built-in display and camera first released by Google in 2013 and formally ended a decade later. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke to Lance Ulanoff, U.S. editor-in-chief of TechRadar, for h...

Tech CEOs grilled by Congress, Microsoft still leads in AI, and Neuralink touts its human brain implant

Companies vying for AI dominance have told us their stories, but this week they showed us their numbers, and there is a clear front-runner. Plus, a court struck down Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package, but it’s the announcement that his startup Neuralink did its first human brain implant that has us really scratching our heads. First, though, a look back at Wednesday’s Senate hearing that put tech execs, politicians and families affected by online child sex abuse in a room together on Capit...

What the “grief tech” industry says about how we navigate loss

The universe of industries that make money off dying in this country is extensive, and tech entrepreneurs have managed to insert themselves into various corners of it. That’s all according to culture journalist Mihika Agarwal, who’s been reporting on the grief tech industry — including ghost bots, the chatbots that are supposed to help us process grief. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke to Agarwal about her reporting.

The many battles in the lithium and critical minerals revolution

In 2021, the Biden administration put out a report about gaps in the supply chain for electric vehicles. It estimated global demand for lithium and graphite would grow by more than 4,000% by 2040 if the world were to achieve the climate goals laid out in the Paris accords. These materials, along with copper, nickel and others, are critical to green technologies. And there is a global fight over their supply, one that Reuters correspondent Ernest Scheyder documents in his new book, “The War ...

More people are buying EVs, but there aren’t enough mechanics to fix them

By 2030, there are expected to be up to 11 million hybrid or electric vehicles in the United Kingdom, according to the Local Government Association. But there are currently only around 45,000 mechanics who are qualified to fix and service them. Unless more people sign up to be EV mechanics, drivers in the U.K. might find themselves with an electric car they can’t get fixed or afford to insure. We’ll hear more from BBC reporter Frey Lindsay.

Why carbon capture isn’t a magic bullet solution to the climate crisis

In rural North Dakota, an old, coal-fired power plant is being retrofitted to capture emissions before they enter the atmosphere and store them underground. $890 million from the 2022 bipartisan infrastructure law will go towards that and two similar projects in California and Texas. Critics take issue with spending taxpayer money to kick the tires on “carbon capture and storage” technology. Among those critics are Catherine McKenna, Canada’s former minister of environment and climate chang...

Layoffs continue, Silicon Valley renews romance with Middle East money and why Netflix is retiring its no-ads basic tier

On the show today, Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds have parked a whole lot of money in Silicon Valley. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, for one, spent more than $31 billion on 49 venture deals, up 33% in 2023. Why does the tech industry find it so hard to break up with Middle East money? Plus, Netflix changes up its business model — again. We look at why the streaming giant sees even more ads in its future. But first, job cuts continue across the tech landscape. Even TikTok, with...

How satellite radar helps scientists map the destruction in Gaza

The World Court is expected to rule Friday on whether to grant emergency measures to stop the war in Gaza. South Africa has accused Israel of carrying out genocide in the Palestinian enclave. Israel says it’s targeting Hamas militants – not civilians – in response to the deadly Hamas attack of Oct. 7. But more than 25,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes, and according to Corey Scher of the City University of New York and Oregon State University’s Jamon Van Den Hoek, nearly h...

The anonymous world of “extreme privacy”

It’s hard to disappear these days. Everything from renting property and using a credit card to working a job leaves a digital footprint. But just because it’s hard to vanish from the virtual world doesn’t mean people aren’t trying. Some do it out of necessity, to escape violence or persecution. Others do it out of curiosity, pursuing total anonymity just to see how far they can take things. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke with Hal Triedman, a privacy engineer who recently wrote about the “ex...

AI reveals unseen human activity across the world’s oceans

AI can be used for unsavory things, like any technology. But researchers at the nonprofit Global Fishing Watch have revealed a promising use case — enlisting AI to accurately track human activity on the oceans, according to its new study published in the journal Nature. There’s a lot out there that has long floated under the radar of monitoring systems, including the so-called dark fleets involved in illegal and unregulated fishing. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali spoke with David Kroodsma, direc...