Marketplace Tech

One area where artificial intelligence has been swiftly adopted is software coding. Google even boasted last year that more than a quarter of its code was generated by AI. But the technology is also generating challenges to the traditional technical job interview, where candidates are given programming problems as a way to assess their skills. And lately it’s become apparent that

The tariff rollercoaster has created a lot of uncertainty in the tech industry. We're digging into how its playing out for makers of consumer tech, e-commerce platforms and AI. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino speaks with Paresh Dave, senior writer at Wired, about all these topics for this week’s Tech Bytes.

Etsy, the online marketplace known for selling one-of-a-kind handmade items, is hoping that artificial intelligence can boost sales of those crafty creations. The site has been selling less stuff and recently announced a plan to double down on high-quality and unique merchandise over cheap and mass-produced. Now, it's launching AI-curated product collections, based on trends li

After President Donald Trump's launched his “Liberation Day” tariff agenda, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite stock index suffered its biggest plunge since March 2020. The so-called Magnificent 7 — Nvidia, Apple, Meta, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Tesla — lost a combined $1.8 trillion of market value in two days. The tariff-induced downturn in business conditions is like

Microsoft celebrates its 50th anniversary this month. The company started as a small software startup co-founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in an Albuquerque, New Mexico, garage. It went on to revolutionize personal computing, business productivity and now — it hopes — artificial intelligence with its big investment in OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. Microsoft has set about int

Rising demand for electricity, largely to power the artificial intelligence boom, has stirred a resurgence in nuclear energy. Older plants like Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania are being brought out of retirement, but there’s also investment in smaller-scale reactors with different designs. The fresh interest in nuclear generation has also renewed discussion about how to build t

OpenAI — the maker of ChatGPT — keeps raising more money, this time in a $40 billion round led by SoftBank. We’ll get into the strings attached in Marketplace “Tech Bytes — Week in Review.” Plus, what’s going on with Tesla’s sales slump? And how much is its polarizing CEO, Elon Musk, to blame? But first, the clock is ticking on a TikTok sale. The extended deadline,

There’s been mounting concern in recent years about the harms of social media use for kids. The sites can be addictive, ripe for cyberbullying and contribute to increased rates of body dysmorphia, anxiety and depression.The growing evidence has led at least a dozen states to pass laws attempting to restrict access to online platforms for kids. The Kids Off Social Media Act, a bip

Registration for the H-1B visa lottery closed last week. The tech industry has long been the biggest beneficiary of this program for specialized workers. But uncertainty has been spreading due to the Trump administration’s restrictive stance on immigration policy. Even legal immigrants have felt the crackdown. It’s led some companies to advise their H-1B holders not to leave th

Yes, Napster is still alive and kicking. The peer-to-peer file-sharing company that became synonymous with music piracy in the early 2000s was bought by a company called Infinite Reality Labs last week for about $207 million. It’s the latest in a string of attempts to revive the brand. After it was shut down by the courts in 2001 and declared bankruptcy, Napster returned as a mus