Episódios

  • Bytes: Week in Review - Amazon and AI, YouTube tops the media market and Meta buys an AI-only social network
    Mar 13 2026

    This week, the AI chatbot social network Moltbook finds a new home. Plus, YouTube dominates the media landscape. But first, a look at AI-related site outages at Amazon.


    Marketplace’s Stephanie Hughes spoke with Jewel Burks Solomon, managing partner at Collab Capital, about all these headlines for this week’s “Tech Bytes: Week in Review.”

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    11 minutos
  • Why Bitcoin falls short as a safe haven in geopolitical turmoil
    Mar 12 2026

    Pretty much since its inception, the cryptocurrency bitcoin has been compared to gold: There’s only so much of it, its value isn't tied to any fiat currency. But gold is a traditional safe haven asset, while bitcoin isn't, necessarily. Gold surged in value when news first spread that the U.S. had attacked Iran. Bitcoin didn’t see the same immediate flight to safety. Marketplace’s Stephanie Hughes spoke with Gil Luria, head of tech research at D.A. Davidson, about why investors still don’t see Bitcoin as a safe haven for their assets.

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    8 minutos
  • An Ohio newspaper gives AI a byline
    Mar 11 2026

    The Plain Dealer newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio, has been around since the 1800s. Now, it's leaning into a very 21st century tactic: embracing the use of artificial intelligence in its journalism. That includes AI actually writing articles.


    The paper's editor, Chris Quinn, says incorporating artificial intelligence is critical to its success. Will Oremus, tech reporter at The Washington Post, says lots of publications are experimenting with AI. But the Plain Dealer has taken it further than most.

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    8 minutos
  • What do Girl Scouts get out of selling cookies online?
    Mar 10 2026

    Girl Scout cookie sales started back in 1917. In addition to raising money, cookie selling is also meant to make the girls more business savvy. The Girl Scouts say it's the largest girl led entrepreneurial program in the world. And now, some of that entrepreneurship is happening online. Marketplace’s Stephanie Hughes spoke with Wendy Lou, who oversees the cookie program as the chief revenue officer at Girl Scouts of the United States of America. She says last season, digital transactions accounted for more than 40 percent of cookie sale revenue.

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    7 minutos
  • California’s one-stop shop for data brokers to delete consumers' data
    Mar 9 2026

    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 may include their online search histories, social security numbers and where they work, among other identifying data.


    The tool is called the Delete Request and Opt-Out Platform (DROP). It was mandated by a 2023 state law called the “Delete Act.” Data brokers have until August to start processing these requests. Nicol Turner Lee, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, says it could limit the sale of our information.

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    8 minutos
  • Bytes: Week in Review — Prediction markets reel amid Iran conflict, defense contractors to drop Anthropic, and Meta's AI deal with News Corp
    Mar 6 2026

    Meta and News Corp reached a licensing deal this week. Plus, defense contractors untangle Claude from their workflows.


    But first, the online prediction marketplace Kalshi lets users bet on the outcome of many things that can happen in the future. One bet that saw a lot of action was whether Ali Khamenei would be ousted as the supreme leader in Iran. Khamenei was killed over the weekend during a U.S. military strike.


    Kalshi didn’t pay out the bets that were placed after Khamenei’s death. Instead, it reimbursed those traders. And this outraged some users on the site. Marketplace’s Stephanie Hughes spoke with Paresh Dave, senior writer at Wired, about all these headlines from the week in tech.

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    13 minutos
  • Iran’s cyberwar on American banks
    Mar 5 2026

    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 is some historical precedent for this: from late 2011 to mid-2013, nearly 50 financial institutions in the U.S. were attacked repeatedly by a group of hackers aligned with the Iranian government. The attacks disabled bank websites and prevented customers from accessing their accounts.


    Marketplace’s Stephanie Hughes spoke with Rafe Pilling, Director of Threat Intelligence with the cybersecurity firm Sophos about what those attacks looked like and whether banks are better equipped to fend off those attacks now.

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    8 minutos
  • Brands are racing to show up in AI search
    Mar 4 2026

    You've probably heard of search engine optimization, or SEO. That's what you need to do to get your shoe brand or your coffee shop or your public radio show picked up and pushed out by a search engine. Now, with more people using AI to search for things, these brands have to work on what's being called AEO, or "answer engine optimization." When someone asks Chat GPT "where do I get good coffee in Baltimore?" Your brand shows up. Marketplace’s Stephanie Hughes spoke with Erin Griffith, a reporter at the New York Times, about what companies can do to make the AI look their way.

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    8 minutos