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Is the tide turning against noncompete agreements?

A recent economics study seeks to quantify just how much noncompete clauses restrict worker mobility and wages.
"The estimates range between 18% and 40% of the American workforce is impacted by [noncompete] agreements," said Marketplace senior economics contributor Chris Farrell.
golibtolibov/Getty Images

Who's better at my job, Chinese AI or me?

Dec 4, 2023
Makers of AI chatbots have promised it would change how we work. Our reporter put that theory to the test with China's Ernie Bot.
Baidu's AI chatbot, Ernie Bot, gives an error message on Aug. 31 in response to a question about a potential war over Taiwan.  It reads, "Try another question."
Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

New research quantifies why you want to quit social media but can't

All that's keeping some of us on social media is basically the fear of missing out. That raises larger questions about its value.
Do people get a lot out of being on social media, or do we stay on these platforms simply because everyone else does and we don't want to miss out?
Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Measuring immigrants' impact on innovation

Chris Farrell says that immigrants can benefit the US economy in hard-to-quantify ways, such as innovation.
Immigrants stand for the national anthem before becoming American citizens. Chris Farrell says that datasets often underestimate the positive impact immigrants have on the economy.
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The transistor's story is one of innovation and immigration

Mohamed Atalla of Egypt and Dawon Kahng of Korea are responsible for the technology that helped harness the transistor's power.
The technology developed by two immigrants at Bell Labs in 1959 allowed transistors to become small enough so that more could fit on a microprocessor.
krystiannawrocki/Getty Images

Taking the transistor mainstream with music on the go

The transistor starts to shine when Texas Instruments asks Regency to make a radio for more mobile listening.
The Regency TR-1 was the first commercially manufactured transistor radio.
Joe Haupt via Wikimedia Commons

For public good, not for profit.

What does Nokia Bell Labs look like 75 years since the transistor's invention?

It's responsible for the transistor, information theory, pioneering satellite work and more.
Today, Bell Labs is owned by Nokia. The research company is working on 6G mobile phone technology and a cellular network on the moon, among other things.
Alex Schroeder/Marketplace

Bell Labs: The research center behind the transistor, and so much more

Bell Labs was the research arm of AT&T, a monopoly at the time the transistor was invented.
Physicists John Bardeen (left), William Shockley (center) and Walter Brattain won the Nobel Prize for their work on the transistor. It's one of nine Nobel Prizes that Bell Labs researchers have received.
Nokia USA Inc. and AT&T Archives

75 years ago, the transistor ignited the fire of modern innovation

The transistor was born in 1947 at Bell Labs in New Jersey. We're looking into the culture of innovation that made it possible.
Nokia Bell Labs still has the first transistor, which was invented in 1947. Here's David Brancaccio holding it at the company's campus in Murray Hill, New Jersey.
Alex Schroeder/Marketplace