Marketplace Tech
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Marketplace Tech
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.
Recent Episodes
185 episodes
Watch Duty dives into flood detection
During last year’s massive wildfires in Los Angeles, concerned residents and firefighters went to one app to get up to date information: Watch Duty. N...
Gene editing technology can help de-extinct some animals — but should it?
Many scientists believe we’re in the midst of a sixth mass extinction brought on by factors like climate change, deforestation, fishing and hunting. T...
Chicago's quantum leap into the future
AI is the buzzy tech of the moment. It's made plenty of money not only for companies but the cities and states where investment is pouring in. Illinoi...
How Anthropic is tracking AI's impact on the labor market
Who is using AI? And what are they using it for? Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude, has been trying to answer these questions to better understa...
Why Boston Dynamics is deploying robot dogs at the World Cup
The resemblance to an actual dog is loose but the quadrupedal robot dogs known as “Spot” from Boston Dynamics do have four legs. They're often used to...
Hospitals pull back on robotic nursing assistants
There’s a longstanding nursing shortage in the U.S. that's only expected to get worse. Some hospitals have experimented with robotic nursing assistant...
Why SpaceX stock soared, then stumbled
SpaceX stock prices fell back to earth this week after they skyrocketed in the wake of the IPO a couple weeks ago. Plus, why a Google AI subsidiary is...
What happened to alternative energy investments from the 1970s?
The price of oil has gone up significantly since late February, when the US invaded Iran. And when oil prices see a crazy rise, it makes other sources...
How one company is using AI for improved wildfire risk mitigation
The wildfire risk mitigation company Technosylva helps utilities, insurers and government agencies predict where and when a fire could spark. It uses...
AI's double-edged (cyber) sword
Anthropic’s newest AI model, Mythos, is so good, the company says, at uncovering security vulnerabilities that it's too dangerous to release to the pu...
Canada to share its hydropower with Northeast U.S.
Hydropower is one of the oldest forms of energy creation, and uses the flow of rushing water to create electricity. The province of Québec, Canada, ha...
What AI can and can't do for you (for now)
Imagine if you invited robots - smart ones or “smart-ish,” at least - into every aspect of your life. Your emails and texts are all composed by an AI,...
Taylor Swift vs. AI
This week, Taylor Swift trademarked her voice and image in what appears to be a bid to protect against AI misuse. Plus, a Japanese airline is experime...
How this startup is bringing nuclear power to AI data centers
There's been renewed interest in nuclear power in recent years, thanks in part to demand from tech companies in search of reliable energy to power the...
What a reform to Section 702 could look like
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, allows government agencies to collect information about foreign nationals located a...
California buildings must limit "embodied carbon." Here's what that means
California became the first state to regulate embodied carbon in its building code. That’s changing the construction industry even beyond the state bo...
How botnets infiltrate the internet of things
Routers, computers, web cameras — they all connect to the internet. And they can be infected with malicious software that lets someone else take over....
MLB brings automated ball-strike tech to the Big Leagues
In baseball, calling balls and strikes is a kind of art form. Now, a little more science is being added to the artistry. Major League Baseball has int...
U.S. regulators eye rules for prediction markets
Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino takes a look at how platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket are allowed to function in states with varying gambling r...
The ethics of using AI to immortalize the dead
There's an emerging industry that uses artificial intelligence to create simulations of people who've died. These post mortem avatars are also called...
How confident are crypto consumers?
Here at Marketplace, we often report on a monthly economic indicator from the University of Michigan called the consumer sentiment index. It basically...
California’s one-stop shop for data brokers to delete consumers' data
The 39.4 million people who live in California now have a new tool where they can request that data brokers delete their personal information. That ma...
Iran’s cyberwar on American banks
As the war in the Middle East intensifies, one risk facing American banks is the possibility of cyber attacks by hackers linked to Iran.
There...
Bytes: Week in Review - Anthropic and the Pentagon face off, OpenAI teams up with consulting firms and Mac Mini moves to the U.S.
This week, OpenAI turns to consultants to get more companies to integrate AI coworkers.
Plus, Apple will be making its Mac Mini in Texas.
...
AI meets the search for a BA
As teenagers decide whether to go college, and where, more of them are turning to artificial intelligence to help make that decision. According to a s...
AI makes it easier to code websites — including ones that scam consumers
Thanks to AI coding agents, basically anyone can program their own software without much technical knowledge. But lowering the barrier to sophisticate...
Can software companies survive the AI boom?
As artificial intelligence companies roll out more sophisticated agents, many analysts and investors raised concerns that AI could replace traditional...
Fewer students are enrolling in computer science classes and majors
According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, the number of students enrolling in computer and information science decreased this p...
High-tech data centers get a powerful assist from a century-old company
Caterpillar, which manufactures heavy duty equipment like asphalt pavers, diesel engine locomotives, and industrial gas turbines, has been around for...
Crypto’s big growth on the books and in the shadows
Cryptocurrency is being used more frequently in illegal transactions — about $158 billion was used in illicit crypto activity last year. That’s an all...
Is the moon (and its resources) up for grabs?
NASA’s Artemis II mission, which will send humans around the moon for the first time in over five decades, could launch as early as March. This is par...
New study reveals a "smartphone penalty" that distorts survey results
According to surveys by the FINRA Foundation, our knowledge of personal finance here in the U.S. went down by 15% between 2009 and 2021. But what if i...
Is social media addictive? And are social media companies liable?
A landmark lawsuit that accuses social media companies of intentionally designing their platforms to be addictive — and causing harm to children and t...
Making the most of AI, without the hype
With all the fanfare surrounding AI these days — the utopian dreams and dystopian nightmares — it can be hard to see the technology as simply a tool t...
Bytes: Week in Review – Are we in an AI bubble?
Is AI a bubble? It's the trillion-dollar question in the economy. So Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino decided to look to history for some answers i...
A historic home tour of the virtual world
529 Bryant St. in Palo Alto, California, is home to a key landmark in tech history. Now owned and operated as a data center by Equinix, the building h...
The 'biohacking' trend that has tech workers experimenting on themselves
In an industry known for pushing the bounds of human innovation, tech elites are now trying to push the bounds of their own bodies. The hot new biohac...
AI is eating up the world's computing memory
Much like graphics processing units, high bandwidth memory is essential for training and running AI. It's paired with all those NVIDIA chips that have...
Trying to stay off your phone? There’s an app for that
The digital detox economy is estimated to grow to $20 billion by 2032. The gamification that got you addicted to your phone might be the key to puttin...
A whiplash year for electric vehicles
2025 brought some new speed bumps for electric vehicle sales, namely the Republicans' One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It cut federal EV tax credits — up t...