This week we’re looking ahead at what to expect in tech and business in 2019. Today we’re diving into tech policy and regulation. There’s the possibility of federal privacy legislation, net neutrality is still on the table, tons of state laws are in the works, and, in 2018 we saw the first big challenges around Section 230, the law that says tech platforms aren’t legally responsible for everything that gets posted on their platforms. That language in Section 230 is really crucial to the digital economy. But in 2018, Congress passed a law holding Google, Facebook and others responsible for sex trafficking posts on their sites. Molly Wood talks with Cecilia Kang, who covers tech policy for The New York Times. (01/03/19)

All this week, we’re looking ahead to 2019 and what’s likely to be big in business and technology. This year, expect the space economy to really take off. According to Space Angels, an investment firm that specializes in aerospace, private investment in space-related businesses has gone from a handful of companies and a couple hundred million dollars in 2009 to 375 companies and $15 billion today. The Trump administration is making space a huge economic priority, as well as a military one, creating a new Space Command in December to oversee and organize the country’s space-based operations. Kimberly Adams, a senior reporter at Marketplace and our resident space expert, says those moves are all part of an international race to space that’s got money at its core. (01/02/19)

It is New Year’s Eve, and that means we made it to the end of 2018, which was by any account a huge year in the world of business and technology. It was a year of gigantic data and privacy scandals, Amazon’s search for a second headquarters and MoviePass turning out to be too good to be true. This week, we look back at the year that was and ahead to the stories that will be big in 2019. Molly Wood talks with Tom Merritt, host of the “Daily Tech News Show.” (12/31/18)

Facial recognition software has made huge advancements in accuracy, but it has a long way to go — specifically when it comes to recognizing people of color. Commercially available software can tell the gender of a person using a photograph. According to researcher Joy Buolamwini, of the MIT Media Lab, that software is correct 99 percent of the time when it’s looking at a white male but is less than half as accurate when looking at a darker-skinned female. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood spoke with Buolamwini about her research and the human biases that creep into machine learning. (This interview originally aired Feb. 13.)

Fake news is enemy No. 1 right now. Companies and governments are trying to figure out who should be in charge of spotting misinformation and getting rid of it. MIT researcher Sinan Aral has found that the not-true stuff, what he calls “false news,” is not only hard to stop, but also really effective. A study published last spring found that false news travels way more efficiently and much farther than the truth. In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, Aral said misinformation can come at a real cost. (This interview originally aired Aug. 27.)

Robots are coming for all our jobs, right? It can be hard not to feel that way given the pace of automation. But if it really is inevitable, are we doing anything to prepare for it? Enter the Automation Readiness Index, a research project put together by The Economist and funded by Swiss robotics giant ABB. It’s a global list ranking the nations most prepared to smoothly integrate “intelligent automation into their economies.” Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood spoke with Guido Jouret, ABB’s chief digital officer, about which countries came out on top and how the United States is faring. (This interview originally aired April 23.)