• Bytes: Week in Review - SpaceX and xAI merge, Nvidia and OpenAI's funding relationship and U.S. TikTok's rough start
    Feb 6 2026

    On this week’s “Marketplace Tech Bytes: Week in Review,” we take a look at Nvidia's changing investment relationship with OpenAI. Plus, a stormy start for the new U.S. version of TikTok. But first, SpaceX, one of the world’s largest rocket companies, announced this week that it’s buying xAI, a two-and-half-year-old artificial intelligence startup. Both companies are controlled by Elon Musk. The new company is reportedly valued at $1.25 trillion. It means the chatbot Grok, the satellite internet company Starlink, and the social media firm X are all going to co-exist under the same rocket hangar. Marketplace’s Stephanie Hughes spoke with Paresh Dave, senior writer at Wired, about what adding these companies together equals.

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    10 mins
  • Is social media addictive? And are social media companies liable?
    Feb 5 2026

    A landmark lawsuit that accuses social media companies of intentionally designing their platforms to be addictive — and causing harm to children and teenagers' mental health — is in court this week in Los Angeles.


    The defendants in this case are Meta and YouTube, both of which dispute the allegations. Snap and TikTok both settled in advance of the trial.


    Some are calling this social media's "Big Tobacco" moment. Eric Goldman, co-director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University, discusses this as well as a series of lawsuits against the social media giants.

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    8 mins
  • What AI fitness apps can and can't do — for now
    Feb 4 2026

    You can get a pretty good workout plan from a chatbot, but the tech is also being incorporated into all kinds of existing fitness apps, from Apple's Workout Buddy, which motivates you through earbuds, to the Fitbit AI health coach, to Peloton's AI-enabled camera that tracks your form.


    Nicole Nguyen, personal tech columnist at The Wall Street Journal, gave some of the most popular ones a spin. She spoke with “Marketplace Tech” host Meghan McCarty Carino about her experience.

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    8 mins
  • Making AI work — for work
    Feb 3 2026

    In his new book, Wall Street Journal tech columnist Christopher Mims offers a guide for getting the most out of the technology. He's compiled two dozen "Laws of AI" to shed light on the best ways to use these generative tools.


    Yesterday we talked about how individuals can improve their productivity with AI, and today we're digging into how organizations can use — or sometimes misuse — it.

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    8 mins
  • Making the most of AI, without the hype
    Feb 2 2026

    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 that anyone can use to improve their lives.


    That's what tech columnist Christopher Mims at the Wall Street Journal focuses on his new book "How to AI: Cut Through the Hype. Master the Basics. Transform Your Work.” In it, he outlines two dozen “AI Laws” for how consumers and organizations should think about AI.


    First up: AI is an assistant, not a replacement.

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    10 mins
  • Bytes: Week in Review – Are we in an AI bubble?
    Jan 30 2026

    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 in this week’s special episode of “Tech Bytes: Week in Review.” McCarty Carino spoke with David A. Kirsch, a historian and management professor at the University of Maryland. He’s also co-author of the book "Bubbles and Crashes: The Boom and Bust of Technological Innovation." He and Brent Goldfarb looked at patterns over 150 years of technological breakthroughs, from broadcast radio to rayon and came up with a model of the conditions that most often lead to bubbles.

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    13 mins
  • A recycling startup joins the AI boom
    Jan 29 2026

    Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino takes a tour of Redwood Material’s new R&D Lab with CTO Colin Campbell. Redwood, an EV battery recycling startup, is now offering off-grid, renewable energy grids to AI data centers and it’s looking to scale up its operations in this AI boom.

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    4 mins
  • Infrastructure lessons from the dot-com bubble
    Jan 28 2026

    Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino speaks with Paul Vixie, vice president at AWS Security and an early internet innovator, about the rapid buildout of fiber optic networks during the dot-com boom, and what happened when the bubble burst.

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    4 mins