Episodios

  • Bytes: Week in Review — Google antitrust verdict, Trump's crypto stake, and AI angst
    Sep 5 2025

    The Trump family took their digital token public this week. Plus, artificial intelligence is generating angst in Silicon Valley.


    But first, Google’s antitrust case over its search business ended this week with a punishment far short of what the government sought. Google could have been forced to sell off its Chrome browser or stop paying Apple and others to make it the default search engine. Instead, a federal judge said all the company has to do is share some of its search data with rivals.


    Marketplace’s Nova Safo spoke with Natasha Mascarenhas, a reporter at The Information, to discuss all of this and more.

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    11 m
  • Police departments quietly disable AI-generated report safeguards
    Sep 4 2025

    Axon, a company that makes policing equipment, developed new software called Draft One that takes recordings from police cameras and uses artificial intelligence to summarize them into incident reports.


    Many police departments trying out the tool are not disclosing that they're using AI to write reports, according to a Mother Jones investigation. That potentially leaves both prosecutors and defense attorneys in the blind — despite safeguards Axon built into its software to prevent this very scenario, and to remove errors or AI hallucinations.


    Marketplace’s Nova Safo spoke with investigative journalist Takendra Parmar who reported the story for Mother Jones.

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    10 m
  • Can you buy wins in sports or the AI talent wars?
    Sep 3 2025

    Big Tech companies have been in an all-out bidding war to capture top AI researchers and engineers. Companies like Meta have reportedly been offering compensation packages in the hundreds of millions of dollars. They're the kind of eye-watering sums you usually only hear about in pro sports. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino explores whether this strategy of collecting expensive superstars will pay off for Big Tech firms looking to win the AI race.

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    5 m
  • Is grieving with AI a healthy way to cope?
    Sep 2 2025

    More and more people are using generative AI to “resurrect” deceased loved ones. There are tools that can turn an old photograph into a short animation or create entire "AI clones" trained on old audio, video or written diaries. These technological advancements are taking memorializing the dead to a whole new level, but is it healthy? Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to psychologist Elaine Kasket, who specializes in mental health issues and technology, for some answers.

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    9 m
  • "Organs on a chip" help researchers better understand diseases like endometriosis
    Sep 1 2025

    Endometriosis is a condition in which the tissue that typically lines the uterus grows outside of it instead, often causing intense pain and infertility. MIT researchers are studying that living tissue on plastic chips in the lab, with bioengineer Linda Griffith leading the effort.

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    9 m
  • Bytes: Week in Review – Spotify is sliding into our DMs
    Aug 29 2025

    Chipmaker NVIDIA reported quarterly earnings this week and they were strong - better than expected, even. NVIDIA's sales rose last quarter by over 50% though its data center business was a little softer than expected. So why did share prices fall? Plus, OpenAI says it's updating ChatGPT to better handle mental distress. And Spotify is sliding into our DMs. The music streamer has launched a messaging system on its platform. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Jewel Burks Solomon, managing partner at Collab Capital, about all these headlines for this week’s Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week in Review.

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    10 m
  • U.S. officials pressure EU regulators to soften tech regulations
    Aug 28 2025

    President Donald Trump called out countries trying to regulate U.S. tech companies earlier this week, warning they could face new tariffs. The White House has struck a provisional trade deal with the European Union, but tensions remain over the bloc's sweeping tech laws, like the Digital Services Act, which requires platforms to moderate illegal content and disinformation.

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    9 m
  • Automated application systems add insult to injury in a tough job market
    Aug 27 2025

    Job growth in the economy has slowed, and the ranks of the long-term unemployed are growing. It makes the indignities of the modern hiring process even more frustrating for those in the market. Job-seekers are navigating a gauntlet of automated application systems set up to whittle down the hundreds — sometimes thousands — of applicants. Only for many to never hear from a human. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino has more from the front lines of algorithmic application hell.

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    5 m