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1 week ago | 
marketplace.org | Daisy Palacios |Daniel Shin |Rosie Hughes
In case you forgot, we’ve got Election Day tomorrow. But it was also a big year for elections in the rest of the world. About half of the global population is voting in national elections in 2024, and in many countries people have encountered shut down internet, blocked websites or manipulated content online, according to a recent report from the nonprofit Freedom House.
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1 week ago | 
marketplace.org | Daisy Palacios |Daniel Shin |Rosie Hughes
TikTok has a lot going on legally these days. Last week, it saw a fresh round of lawsuits alleging the short-form video app harms children. And then there’s the federal law that could ban the app if ByteDance, its China-based owner, doesn’t divest by January. TikTok has sued to block that law. Oral arguments in TikTok Inc. v. Merrick Garland were heard in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in September.
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1 week ago | 
marketplace.org | Daisy Palacios |Daniel Shin |Rosie Hughes
Today we’re talking about voting tech and the push in some areas to move away from machines and go back to hand counting ballots. A legal battle is brewing in Georgia over a new rule requiring that ballots be hand counted on election night to ensure that the tally matches electronic records. The issue has become particularly mired in misinformation, with some election deniers questioning the security of the technology used in our elections.
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1 week ago | 
marketplace.org | Daisy Palacios |Daniel Shin |Jesus Alvarado |Jesús Alvarado |Rosie Hughes
There’s a movement to make it possible to repair our gadgets ourselves instead of having to send them back to the company that makes them or, you know, just get a new one. The “right to repair” movement in consumer electronics has made real gains in recent years. Several states, like California, New York and Oregon, have passed legislation requiring it. And it looks like Apple’s newest iPhone — the 16 — has made strides in that department.
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1 week ago | 
marketplace.org | Daisy Palacios |Daniel Shin |Rosie Hughes
Scam calls about fake warranty renewals, non-existent credit card bills and more are still a global problem. But some companies and telecommunication providers are turning to AI chatbots to intercept the calls before they ever reach a real person. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino recently spoke with Dali Kaafar, founder and CEO of Apate AI, an Australia-based company creating these chatbots, about how his company is designing these bots to scam the scammers.
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1 week ago | 
marketplace.org | Daisy Palacios |Daniel Shin |Jesus Alvarado |Jesús Alvarado |Rosie Hughes
After another polarizing presidential election, Americans with widely ranging views are getting ready to sit across the Thanksgiving table from one another. And we’re anticipating some potentially tense conversations with friends and family about politics, beliefs and misinformation. Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams spoke to Whitney Phillips, assistant professor of digital platforms and ethics at the University of Oregon, about how to navigate awkward conversations this holiday season.
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1 week ago | 
marketplace.org | Daisy Palacios |Daniel Shin |Rosie Hughes
One of the industries that is adopting artificial intelligence tools fastest is the legal field. A recent report from the legal tech company Clio showed almost 80% of legal professionals are using AI in some way in their practice, up from about 30% last year. Joshua Lenon, a lawyer in residence at Clio, told Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino the profession is particularly ripe for tech disruption. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.
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1 week ago | 
marketplace.org | Daisy Palacios |Daniel Shin |Jesus Alvarado |Jesús Alvarado |Rosie Hughes
All those fancy artificial intelligence systems need a lot of data centers to run, and those data centers need a lot of energy. One estimate from the Electric Power Research Institute suggests that U.S. data center electricity consumption will more than double by 2030, making up about 9% of all energy use. But the AI sector is coming up against the energy-hungry tech innovation of yesteryear — crypto mining.
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1 week ago | 
marketplace.org | Daisy Palacios |Daniel Shin |Rosie Hughes
A federal appeals court heard arguments Monday in a case that pits the First Amendment against national security. TikTok sued to block a bipartisan-backed law that will ban the Chinese-owned app in the U.S. by January 19 — unless it finds a U.S. buyer. This week, the government argued the app gives China access to Americans’ sensitive data, as well as the ability to spread propaganda. TikTok argued it’s been unfairly singled out and that a sale isn’t the only way to address security concerns.
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1 week ago | 
marketplace.org | Daisy Palacios |Daniel Shin |Rosie Hughes
Disabled people face obstacles throughout the voting process: paper registration forms, inaccessible polling places, and ballot-casting machines that require sight and dexterity. In 2020, as COVID-19 raced through the country, several states expanded voting options in the general election in order to keep people safe, allowing more mail-in and early voting. Electronic voting was opened up to people with disabilities. Turnout among disabled voters surged. But no voting system is 100% secure.
