Business, Spoken
2,372 episodes — Page 22 of 48
An Ohio City's Campaign Got More People to Buy Electric Cars
In just three years, Columbus managed to exceed its goal of more than 3,200 new BEVs and plug-in hybrids . Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
A New Card Ties Your Credit to Your Social Media Stats
Founded by Instagram and finance alums, Karat wants to be the black card in every influencer’s wallet. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
European Football Clubs Are Turning to AI for an Assist
Software company Acronis has been storing the data of the best and brightest teams. Now, it wants to use that to help them win games. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
How ‘Sustainable’ Web Design Can Help Fight Climate Change
To cut the carbon, programmers are cutting the code. Call it green programming. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
A Survey of New Cars Finds More Tech Means More Problems
US carmakers fare well in JD Power's annual survey of new vehicle owners. Tesla gets poor grades on a small sample. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Baidu Breaks Off an AI Alliance Amid Strained US-China Ties
The search giant was the only Chinese member of the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, a US-led effort to foster collaboration on ethical issues. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Therapist Is In—and It's a Chatbot App
Companies rush to offer digital help for psychiatric disorders, after the FDA relaxes its rules amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Apple Threatens to Move Basecamp's New Email App to Trash
Scrutiny of Apple’s App Store policies heats up as the company heads into its annual software conference. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
A Bill in Congress Would Limit Uses of Facial Recognition
Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM say they want federal rules around the technology. Critics of the proposal, sponsored by four Democrats, say it doesn't go far enough. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
A New Air Taxi Model Takes Design Cues From a Far-Flying Bird
Beta Technologies' Alia, which debuted Friday, draws inspiration from the ultra-efficient Arctic tern. The craft may one day transport organs for transplants. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Pandemic Is Propelling a New Wave of Automation
Software programs adopted during the Covid-19 crisis make it easier to complete forms and track requests. It saves work, but could cost jobs. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
As Cities Reopen, Expect to Wait in Lots of Lines
Capacity limits and social distancing requirements prompt businesses to count how many people are inside—and force some to wait outside. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Deepfakes Aren't Very Good. Nor Are the Tools to Detect Them
The winning detection algorithm from a Facebook-led challenge could spot about two-thirds of the altered videos, highlighting the need for improvement. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
OpenAI's Text Generator Is Going Commercial
The research institute was created to steer AI away from harmful uses. Now it's competing with tech giants to sell a cloud computing service to businesses. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Twitter's Newest Trick Relies on Tracking More of Your Clicks
The social media company is testing warnings for users who try to share links to articles they haven't read. To do that, it has to know what you've read. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
IBM's Withdrawal Won't Mean the End of Facial Recognition
To some in the tech industry, facial recognition increasingly looks like toxic technology. To law enforcement, it’s an almost irresistible crime-fighting tool.IBM is the latest company to declare facial recognition too troubling. CEO Arvind Krishna told members of Congress Monday that IBM would no longer offer the technology, citing the potential for racial profiling and human rights abuse. In a letter, Krishna also called for police reforms aimed at increasing scrutiny and accountability for misconduct.“We believe now is the time to begin a national dialogue on whether and how facial recognition technology should be employed by domestic law enforcement agencies,” wrote Krishna, the first non-white CEO in the company’s 109-year history. IBM has been scaling back the technology’s use since last year.Krishna’s letter comes amid public protest over the killing of George Floyd by a police officer and police treatment of black communities. But IBM’s withdrawal may do little to stem the use of facial recognition, as a number of companies supply the technology to police and governments around the world.“While this is a great statement, it won’t really change police access to #FaceRecognition,” tweeted Clare Garvie, a researcher at Georgetown University's Center on Privacy and Technology who studies police use of the technology. She noted that she had not so far come across any IBM contracts to supply facial recognition to police.According to a report from the Georgetown center, by 2016 photos of half of American adults were in a database that police could search using facial recognition. Adoption has likely swelled since then. A recent report from Grand View Research predicts the market will grow at an annual rate of 14.5 percent between 2020 and 2027, fueled by “rising adoption of the technology by the law enforcement sector.” The Department of Homeland Security said in February that it has used facial recognition on more than 43.7 million people in the US, primarily to check the identity of people boarding flights and cruises and crossing borders.Other tech companies are scaling back their use of the technology. Google in 2018 said it would not offer a facial recognition service; last year, CEO Sundar Pichai, indicated support for a temporary ban on the technology. Microsoft opposes such a ban, but said last year that it wouldn’t sell the tech to one California law enforcement agency because of ethical concerns. Axon, which makes police body cameras, said in June 2019 that it wouldn’t add facial recognition to them.But some players, including NEC, Idemia, and Thales, are quietly shipping the tech to US police departments. The startup Clearview offers a service to police that makes use of millions of faces scraped from the web.The technology apparently helped police hunt down a man accused of assaulting protesters in Montgomery County, Maryland.At the same time, public unease over the technology has prompted several cities, including San Francisco, Oakland, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, to ban use of facial recognition by government agencies.Officials in Boston are considering a ban; supporters point to the potential for police to surveil protesters. Amid the protests following Floyd’s killing “the conversation we’re having today about face surveillance is all the more urgent,” Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty program at the ACLU of Massachusetts, said at a press conference Tuesday.Timnit Gebru, a Google researcher who has played an important role in revealing the technology’s shortcomings, said during an event on Monday that facial recognition has been used to identify black protesters, and argued that it should be banned. “Even perfect facial recognition can be misused,” Gebru said. “I’m a black woman living in … Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Zynn, the Hot New Video App, Is Full of Stolen Content
Late last month, a mysterious new video app called Zynn began appearing at the top of app store charts, beating out household names like Instagram and YouTube. Zynn is a near identical copy of TikTok, and both apps are the product of Chinese tech giants. The biggest difference is that Zynn, in an effort to attract new users, is currently paying people in the United States and Canada small sums to watch videos and invite their friends to join. The tactic has seemed to work: Zynn has already been downloaded over 3 million times, according to the market research firm Sensor Tower, and ranked number one this week on Apple’s list of the most popular free apps.As of Tuesday, however, Zynn is no longer available for download from the Google Play Store, and a link that previously went to the app’s listing is now dead. It’s unclear why the app was removed, and Google did not immediately comment. A spokesperson for Apple said it was looking into Zynn but did not have any additional information as of publication. Twitter and Instagram accounts claiming to represent Zynn posted a statement Tuesday afternoon acknowledging the app had been removed, and said the company was “in communications with Google and working to fix this ASAP.”Meanwhile, Zynn is filled with videos that appear to be stolen from creators on other social media platforms, including TikTok celebrities with massive followings like Charli D'Amelio and Addison Rae. Many of the clips are aggregated by accounts centered around a single theme, like “pranks.” Other videos appear on look-alike profiles impersonating individual creators. Four influencers who spoke to WIRED said videos they originally published to TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube were uploaded to Zynn without their consent, under accounts they didn’t open.“I didn’t create this,” Max Mazurek, a Polish dancer and model with almost 190,000 TikTok followers, said after WIRED showed him a Zynn profile using his name. The account has nearly 25,000 followers and featured many of the videos Mazurek had previously uploaded to TikTok and other platforms. “It’s not my account. I can’t download this app in Poland,” he said.The launch of a new social media platform often sets off a rush to grab famous or valuable usernames, and it’s not uncommon for scammers to impersonate celebrities on social media. Reposting other people’s content without credit has also long been an issue online. What’s strange about the Zynn accounts, however, is how many of the copied videos have time stamps that date back months before the app went public.Zynn officially launched in the Apple App Store on May 7, and it was first installed by Google Play users on May 5, according to Sensor Tower. Many of the impersonator accounts reviewed by WIRED, including the one under Mazurek’s name, uploaded their first posts on February 19. The significance of that date isn’t clear, and Zynn did not respond to a request for comment sent to an email address listed on its website. Its Community Guidelines state that it respects intellectual property rights and forbids users from posting “anything that you do not own or do not have permission from the owner to share.”“I feel that it’s honestly sad that they are stealing creators’ content and impersonating people,” said Chloe, a TikTok influencer with almost 18,000 followers. Until WIRED brought it to her attention, Chloe says she was unaware that a Zynn profile had been created using the same handle she uses on Instagram and TikTok, @ebonychlo. The account also began posting videos taken from her official social media profiles on February 19, months before Zynn became available for download. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Covid-19 Opens the Door for Gig Workers to Win Sick Pay
Uber, Lyft, and others have agreed to pay people who've missed work because of the virus. Seattle is on the cusp of making it law in that city. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
As Businesses Reopen, Some Workers Fear Returning
Employees who decline to work amid the pandemic could lose both their paychecks and their unemployment benefits. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Schools Turn to Surveillance Tech to Prevent Covid-19 Spread
Administrators hope tracking beacons will identify where students congregate and who should be isolated if someone contracts the coronavirus. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Tech Companies Denounce Racism. Will Silicon Valley Change?
The killing of George Floyd elicited corporate outrage, and some donations. But well-intentioned rhetoric has not always been followed by meaningful action. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Trump's Tweets Force Twitter Into a High-Wire Act
By hiding but not deleting the president's tweets, the platform has struck a difficult balance to approach a nearly impossible situation. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Facebook Employees Take the Rare Step to Call Out Mark Zuckerberg
Some workers at the social media giant are publicly criticizing decisions not to remove or flag misleading posts by President Trump. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Remote Work Has Its Perks, Until You Want a Promotion
Companies like Facebook and Twitter expect many employees to work far from headquarters after the pandemic. That calls for a change in corporate cultures. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Everyone's Ordering Delivery, but Apps Aren't Making Money
With dining rooms closed, more people are using Uber Eats, Grubhub, and DoorDash. But the services face a challenge to satisfy both consumers and restaurants. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
It's Called Artificial Intelligence—but What Is Intelligence?
We’ve built machines that are capable of incredible feats, yet still they have nothing on a baby. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Are AI-Powered Killer Robots Inevitable?
Military scholars warn of a “battlefield singularity,” a point at which humans can no longer keep up with the pace of conflict. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
As Machines Get Smarter, How Will We Relate to Them?
Millennia of evolution have left us ill prepared to crack open the black box of AI and peer inside. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
On Earth, the Economy Is Tanking. In the Cloud, It's Fine
Amid the pandemic, life has moved online. That's good news for the tech giants that run data centers, and the companies that supply them. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Is the Brain a Useful Model for Artificial Intelligence?
Thinking machines think just like us—but only up to a point. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
This AI Maestro Wants to Serenade You
A composer and the co-creator of Siri are trying to create background music that responds to the listener's feelings. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Why Didn't Artificial Intelligence Save Us From Covid-19?
The key to good AI is solid data, and that’s been tough to come by in a global health crisis. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Buying Giphy Gives Facebook a New Window Into Its Rivals
The social media giant acquires another rich source of data, this time in the form of the internet’s favorite GIF library. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Here’s What an Antitrust Case Against Google Might Look Like
Two DOJ veterans lay out a roadmap for cracking down on the company’s digital advertising juggernaut. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Silicon Valley Rethinks the (Home) Office
Some tech companies are adjusting to the pandemic with new WFH perks and even letting employees ditch their commutes forever. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Facebook's AI for Hate Speech Improves. How Much Is Unclear
The company says algorithms flagged almost 90 percent of the hate speech it removed in the first quarter. But it doesn't report how much slipped through. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
You Can Now Attend VR Meetings—No Headset Required
Virtual-reality workspace startup Spatial is offering a free version for users. All you need is a web browser. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Watson's Creator Wants to Teach AI a New Trick: Common Sense
David Ferrucci built a computer that mastered Jeopardy. Since then, he's been attacking a more challenging task. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Year the Internet Thought I Was MacKenzie Bezos
After the billionaire announced she would give away her fortune, Google’s algorithm decided the best way to reach her was by contacting me. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
He Helped Build Facebook Messenger. Now He’s Building an Army of Voters
Mobilize was the leading events platform for Democrats before the pandemic. Now its organizing is entirely virtual—and it’s getting creative. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Is There a Constitutional Right to Make Robocalls?
Meeting via conference call for the first time ever this week, the Supreme Court considers a case about our phones. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Covid-19 Pandemic Shows the Virtues of Net Neutrality
Network speeds are holding up despite the crush of internet traffic. Freed from rules, broadband providers have cut investment in their systems. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
In a Tough Month, This Instagram-Friendly Cereal Startup Eats Cake
With the country on lockdown, even digital brands are hurting. But some companies say business is better than ever. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
A New Chatbot Tries a Little Artificial Empathy
A bot created by Facebook aims to make conversation with people more natural, though it also could enable better fakes. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Cubicle Is Back. Blame (or Thank) the Coronavirus
As businesses reopen, social distancing rules will lead to new partitions between workspaces, reminiscent of the fabric-clad dividers of the 1980s. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The US Supreme Court Rules That Laws Can’t Be Paywalled
The ruling over Georgia's official law code sets an important precedent that will help secure the right to publish other legally significant public documents. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Pandemic Creates New Challenges for Crisis Counselors
Therapists and hotline workers who work with abuse victims now must take calls from home, increasing their risk for isolation and emotional burnout. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Georgia's Governor Lets Businesses Reopen. Some Say No Thanks
Concerned about the health of employees and customers, owners of businesses permitted to reopen Friday are staying closed. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Delivery Companies Hand Out Safety Gear—with Mixed Results
Some gig workers say their supplies were low-quality or arrived damaged, as shortages continue for items like masks and sanitizer. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Why Farmers Are Dumping Milk, Even as People Go Hungry
About half of the nation's food is typically consumed in group settings like restaurants and schools. Quickly rerouting the supply chain isn't easy. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices