• Bytes: Week in Review - Saudi Arabia bets billions on AI
    May 16 2025

    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 the "HBO" to its Max streaming platform.


    Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Natasha Mascarenhas, reporter at The Information, to discuss all of this and more.

    Show More Show Less
    10 mins
  • What it takes to bring manufacturing to space
    May 15 2025

    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.

    Show More Show Less
    11 mins
  • AI is more marketing hype than real capabilities, new book suggests
    May 14 2025

    The excitement around AI has gotten a bit frothy. Those two magic letters are everywhere, promising everything. Authors Emily Bender and Alex Hanna want us all to take a beat and a more critical look, per their new book "The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want."


    Bender is a linguist at the University of Washington who helped popularize the term "stochastic parrots" to describe large language models. And Hanna is the director of research at the Distributed AI Institute, formerly an AI ethicist at Google. She says claims of AI's artistic prowess can be misleading.

    Show More Show Less
    15 mins
  • Mozilla rejects DOJ's remedies in Google search antitrust trial
    May 13 2025

    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, about how the move would be crippling for smaller browsers like theirs.

    Show More Show Less
    11 mins
  • The rise of the "Splinternet"
    May 12 2025

    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 Strategy Group, about the growth of what she calls the Splinternet.

    Show More Show Less
    11 mins
  • Bytes: Week in Review - RIP Skype
    May 9 2025

    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 technology columnist at the Wall Street Journal, to discuss all these topics and more.

    Show More Show Less
    11 mins
  • Vibe coding is having its moment
    May 8 2025

    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 financial software company Intuit and an early adopter of vibe coding, about how the practice has changed how he approaches building software.


    More on this

    “What is vibe coding, exactly?” - from MIT Technology Review


    “New ‘Slopsquatting’ Threat Emerges from AI-Generated Code Hallucinations” - from HackRead


    “Three-minute explainer on… slopsquatting” - from Raconteur

    Show More Show Less
    8 mins
  • The human cost of fast shipping
    May 7 2025

    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 at The Information. He tells Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino that drivers are hired through a network of subcontractors and UniUni pays them per item rather than an hourly wage.

    Show More Show Less
    8 mins