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

Dec 31, 2010
What mattered this year in technology
A whole lot of things happened in the world of technology in 2010. But when people look back on 2010 years from now, what are they going to point to? What really changed the world this year? To answer that, we talk to Clay Shirky, one of the smartest people we know about how people and technology shape each other.
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Dec 30, 2010
Susan Orlean’s favorite apps of 2010
It wasn't that long ago that when you said "apps," people thought you were talking about, like, shrimp puffs or jalapeno poppers: appetizers. But now applications for mobile phones are just part of life for a lot of people who use them. Susan Orlean of The New Yorker magazine joins us to talk about the apps she loved most in 2010.
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Dec 29, 2010
Using search to predict the future
Christopher Ahlberg thinks he has a pretty good shot at predicting the future using information that is online today. Next terrorist attack? Next major economic shift? Next fashion trend? Might all be spelled out already. The CIA and Google both think Ahlberg is on to something. They've invested in his company, Recorded Future.
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Dec 28, 2010
The travel industry war and you
Remember back before the internet when you'd have to call each airline on the phone to see what fares they were offering for that trip you were taking? You'd write everything down on paper. Recent battles between major airlines and travel websites might make you wonder if those days could soon be returning.
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Dec 27, 2010
Are you part of an online psychology experiment?
Amazon.com is known for selling just about anything you might want. But it's also a place where you can make (usually small amounts of) money through their service called Mechanical Turk. You perform small online tasks and get paid. But one Harvard researcher sees Mechanical Turk as the perfect venue for psychological experiments.
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Dec 24, 2010
The technology of Santa
Tonight, Santa Claus will be getting a lot of work done. First, he'll go to one house, slide down the chimney, place toys beneath a tree, maybe nibble a cookie, feed a carrot to a reindeer. Then he'll repeat the process ZILLIONS of times. All in a few hours. What technology does Santa use to get all that done?
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Dec 23, 2010
Human rights sites being attacked, Wikileaks style
The Internet was set up to be an open marketplace of ideas. But that model is in jeopardy due to Distributed Denial of Service or DDoS attacks. We've been hearing a lot about these in relation to Wikileaks, but a new report indicates that DDoS attacks as a form of suppression are on the rise.
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Dec 23, 2010
The coming wave of augmented reality
There's this video going around, 2.5 million hits on YouTube. It's for a new app called Word Lens. You point your camera at words like on a sign and it translates them into a different language. You see Spanish words on your phone where English words are in real life. Kind of amazing. But it may become completely normal.
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Dec 22, 2010
What information is your phone sharing about you?
The Wall Street Journal recently analyzed 101 popular apps for iPhone and Android and found most of them to be sharing some user information with advertisers. We talk about what's being shared and what it means to you.
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Dec 20, 2010
Net neutrality, and a conversation with Tim Wu
Our connection with the Internet is something we're just beginning to fathom, so how we manage it is new territory too, right? Wrong, says Tim Wu. The man who coined the term "net neutrality" says history is full of instructive examples of technology, innovation and regulation.
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Molly Wood

Latest from Molly Wood