Molly Wood

Host and senior editor

Molly Wood is the former host and senior editor of "Marketplace Tech," a daily broadcast focused on demystifying the digital economy, and former co-host of "Make Me Smart," where she and co-host Kai Ryssdal would try to make sense of big topics in business, tech and culture. What was your first job? Grocery store checker (but I also drove an ice cream truck once). Fill in the blank: Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you ______. Time, the most precious thing of all. What is something that everyone should own, no matter how much it costs? A pet! What’s the favorite item in your workspace and why? My electric fireplace! It is both cute and cozy.

Latest from Molly Wood

Jan 28, 2011
You can make your Facebook more secure
A few months ago on our program we talked about Firesheep. It's a little program that you can use to spy on anyone on an unsecured public Wi-Fi network. Using it, it's easy to tap into Facebook accounts since those run on an unsecured protocol. But now Facebook has done something about it, allowing users to select an "https" setting instead of "http".
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Jan 27, 2011
The government wants your Internet service provider to keep better track of you
Does your Internet service provider keep track of where you've been online and how long you spent there? They might. Or they might not. There are no laws requiring ISPs to keep records of their customers. The Department of Justice says there should be. This week they called for ISPs to keep records for an as yet unspecified amount of time.
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Jan 26, 2011
Facebook finds itself in a revolution
Egypt is erupting with anti-government protests and there are reports coming out that the government is cracking down on Twitter, making it harder for protesters to organize and stay in touch. Social media is now a huge part of protests around the world. On today's show, we take a look at the role of Facebook in the recent upheaval in Tunisia.
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Jan 25, 2011
Does technology alienate us from each other?
You can get on Facebook and get in touch with hundreds of your "friends", connect with them, find out how they're doing. But are those real relationships?
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Jan 24, 2011
What are the barriers to the Internet for people with disabilities?
The Department of Justice wants to broaden the authority of the Americans with Disabilities Act in regard to the Internet and specifically websites. Today is the final day for public comment on that proposal. Meanwhile, new data has emerged that shows far fewer people with disabilities using the Internet than people without.
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Jan 22, 2011
Can you trust what you see on Google?
Google says that the results you see when you search for something are objective and put there only by algorithm. But a Harvard professor recently ran an experiment using common search terms on several different search engines. He says Google's results heavily favored Google's own products, casting the claim of objectivity into doubt.
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Jan 20, 2011
What the Comcast-NBC Universal deal means for you
The acquisition of NBC Universal by Comcast will formally take place later this month after the deal was approved by the FCC and the Justice Department. But that approval came with a host of provisions, rules that the new company must obey. Those new rules are going to have an effect on how people use the Internet and what they watch on television.
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Jan 19, 2011
The latest ways in which your computer is vulnerable to attack
By now, we should all know that the Nigerian prince who emails you out of nowhere is not actually a Nigerian prince. Similarly, that email from your bank needing to "verify" your PIN code at some shady website? Yeah, probably not legit. But scammers, malware purveyors, and other bad guys are still out there, adopting new approaches.
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Jan 18, 2011
The Reaper and the future of military flight
When Defense Secretary Robert Gates presented the Pentagon budget earlier this month, it contained more spending than ever before for UAVs: unmanned aerial vehicles. These are planes without any humans inside, operated by humans on the ground. What are we investing in and how is the rest of the world responding with planes of their own?
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Jan 17, 2011
How to volunteer while sitting right here at your computer
Besides being Martin Luther King Day, today is also a national day of service. It's a day on which Americans are being called upon to volunteer in their communities to try to make things better. Jacob Colker is the co-founder of an organization that offers ways to volunteer from your computer.
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Molly Wood

Latest from Molly Wood