Business, Spoken

Communities across the country are trying to lure high-tech jobs away from Silicon Valley. It doesn’t seem like that should be hard. Silicon Valley is one of the most expensive places on earth, and as the home to some of the biggest and most valuable companies in the world, the competition for tech talent is fierce. But according to a report by job site Indeed, Silicon Valley’s share of tech job l...

Initial coin offerings have gotten a bad rap---in many cases, deservedly so. Sure, there were blockchain projects with sound dreams and solid business plans. But as the bitcoin bubble swelled in late 2017, ICOs became synonymous with predation: get-rich-quick schemes that involved taking money from anyone who was willing, in return for worthless crypto tokens. Since then, the Securities and Exchan...

The convoluted legal battle between Apple and chipmaker Qualcomm may be coming to an end. The companies Tuesday said they're dismissing all litigation against each other. Apple will pay Qualcomm an undisclosed sum as part of the settlement, which includes a six-year licensing agreement between the companies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On Tuesday, Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, came to TED 2019 to answer for the sins of his platform. In his signature black hoodie and jeans, unkempt facial hair and black beanie, he sat with head of TED Chris Anderson and Whitney Pennington Rodgers, who curates current affairs for the conference, for a conversation that left all three members, and the audience, frustrated. Learn more about your...

China’s bitcoin miners have long embodied a contradiction. Cryptocurrency trading is illegal in the country; initial coin offerings, used to fund new blockchain projects, are banned; and Chinese banks can hardly touch the stuff. And yet somehow the country has remained the epicenter of global cryptocurrency mining, home to more of the computing power used to mint new bitcoin than any other country...

Just before 9 am last Thursday, an unusual speed dating scene sprang up in San Francisco. A casually dressed crowd, mostly male, milled around a gilt-edged Beaux Arts ballroom on Nob Hill. Pairs and trios formed quickly, but not in search of romance. Ice breakers were direct: What’s your favorite programming language? Which data analysis framework are you most expert in? More delicately, conversat...

Rolling your eyes is not allowed at TED. There’s no rule in the conduct policy (I assume, I haven’t actually checked), it’s just one of those powerful unspoken maxims that goes ignored at your peril. When they hand you your TED badge, you’re consenting to check your cynicism at the door. The TED Conference, which has taken place annually since 1990, was founded on the principle that spreading idea...

President Trump Friday confidently declared that the US will lead the world in deploying the next generation of wireless services known as 5G. “The race to 5G is a race that the United States must win,” Trump said at a White House event, flanked by farmers in cowboy hats and workers in hardhats. “It’s a race that we will win. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Facebook is trying to redefine authoritativeness on the internet as part of its efforts to fight the spread of misinformation and abuse on its platforms. On Wednesday, the company rolled out a slew of announcements that aim to promote more trustworthy news sources, tamp down on Groups that spread misinformation, and give the public more insight into how Facebook crafts its content policies writ la...

Legislation to restore the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules passed a big hurdle Wednesday. But it’s far from becoming law, and faces long odds. The House of Representatives approved the bill in a 232 to 190 vote. No Democrats voted against the bill. Representative Bill Posey of Florida was the only Republican to vote in favor of it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit p...

Tuesday's House Judiciary Committee hearing on the rise of hate crimes and white nationalism devolved into a four-hour squabble over who’s most hated, and who’s doing the hating, in America. The members of the committee and some of the eight witnesses who sat before them battled over whether anti-semitism or anti-black hate is most deserving of their attention, and whether it’s white supremacists...

The Big Disruption, a satirical novel written by Jessica Powell, Google’s former head of communications, is set inside the lush and bountiful Silicon Valley headquarters of Anahata, a massive 10-year-old tech giant in love its own mythology about open-door board meetings and profound yet “napkin-able” ideas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Verizon launched its mobile 5G network last week in "select areas" of Minneapolis and Chicago, and a speed test shared by a Verizon spokesperson showed an impressive download speed of 762Mbps. But the single speed test displayed by Verizon was conducted near a tower with clear line of sight to that tower. Actually finding a 5G signal elsewhere in Verizon's launch areas is much more difficult, acco...

Tech news you can use, in two minutes or less: Congress held a hearing on hate, and it went exactly as you thought it might Congress called the leaders of tech to a hearing on the rise of hate crimes and white supremacy, but instead of illuminating solutions and building bridges, the haters got their way and the tech giants got off scot free. The hearings were mostly full of arguments and partisan...

Facebook was designed for the living, but as the social network grew older, it also needed to decide what should happen when users die. In 2015, Facebook began allowing people to assign a legacy contact to be in charge of their account in the event they pass away, but the system wasn't perfect and users found some of the associated policies upsetting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcas...

Silicon Valley’s use of nontraditional employment arrangements, where workers typically aren’t afforded the same privileges as employees, has grown faster than full-time jobs, even as tech giants come under fire for their treatment of Uber drivers, Google cafeteria workers, or Facebook content moderators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two Chinese software developers are trying to harness the power of open source software to improve working conditions for coders. Last weekend, Katt Gu and Suji Yan, published the “Anti-996 License,” which requires any company that uses the project's software to comply with local labor laws as well as International Labour Organization standards, including the right for workers to collectively barg...

In July 2016, Ethereum endured an early test of faith. The people behind the barely year-old blockchain had taken Bitcoin’s idea of decentralized money and run with it, building a digital landscape where users, based on a mutual trust in code, could interact and create applications. Then hackers emptied $50 million from one of those applications, the DAO. Facing a crisis, a core group of developer...

Google says the fiber optic cable it's building across the Atlantic Ocean will be the fastest of its kind. When the cable goes live next year, the company estimates it will transmit around 250 terabits per second, fast enough to zap all the contents of the Library of Congress from Virginia to France three times every second. That's about 56 percent faster than Facebook and Microsoft's Marea cable,...

Tech news you can use, in two minutes or less: Microsoft employees protested the company's treatment of women After a female employee posted about hitting a "brick wall" for promotions, Microsoft employees protested CEO Satya Nadella in a meeting this morning. The CEO was reportedly empathetic to their concerns, and promised more transparency about advancement within the company going forward. Lea...

A group of Microsoft employees appeared at an employee meeting with CEO Satya Nadella Thursday to protest the company’s treatment of women. The protesters asked Nadella to address claims of discrimination against women in promotion and advancement, as well as claims of sexual harassment, raised as part of a widespread discussion that has been building steam on internal company forums for the past...

It’s a well-worn idea that bitcoin is helping to trash the planet, throwing fuel on an already burning world while providing value to very few people. By one recent estimate, the energy used to keep the network going, a process known as mining, is enough to power Hungary. But now a Montana county in the heart of crypto-mining territory is taking matters into its own hands, invoking a local climate...

After a long drought, the go-go days of hot technology IPOs appear to be back. The new age began last week with the long-awaited public offering of shares in ride-hailing service Lyft, which raised more than $2 billion for the company with a valuation climbing to over $26 billion before falling back to earth on Monday. To put that in perspective, Lyft’s valuation after the IPO rivaled those of Sna...

While millions of Americans were enjoying a warm spring weekend, Facebook employees were hard at work responding to an avalanche of news about their company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Virtual private networks (VPNs) can help protect your internet traffic from prying eyes. VPN services route your email, web browsing, and other internet activity through the service provider's servers, making it appear to outsiders that you're only accessing those servers. VPN services help users in China, for example, reach blocked sites by making it appear they’re accessing something else. Learn...