E-commerce is creating a cardboard nightmare. The rise of Amazon and the like has left a deluge of packing waste in many of the world’s largest economies. None more than China, where more than 40 billion packages were shipped last year. That number will likely increase as the Chinese economy grows. There is some pressure on retailers to use less material in their packaging and to switch to reusable alternatives. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood spoke with our China correspondent, Jennifer Pak, about how China will cope with the pending cardboard apocalypse.  

The tech industry has a bit of a PR problem. From tech addiction to online bullying and foreign influence over elections, consumers are getting skeptical about tech’s impact on our lives. There’s even a push from within Silicon Valley to find solutions to these and other issues. Former employees of Google, Facebook and other tech firms have founded the Center for Humane Technology to address tech addiction, a problem they helped create. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood spoke with author and education researcher Audrey Watters about her recent blog post asking whether technologists should be trusted to solve technology’s negative externalities.      

The Trump administration wants more privatization in space — specifically, the International Space Station. The administration’s latest budget proposal would see the ISS funded and run by private industry instead of the U.S. government. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood spoke with our Kimberly Adams to unpack the most important aspects of the president’s budget proposal.   

Watching the Olympics on your phone is great and all, but if you’ve spent a pretty penny on an ultra-high-definition TV, an iPhone probably won’t cut it. How, then, does one watch the winter games in glorious 4K? Well, it’s complicated. NBC is delivering 4K video of some events the day after they air, but that video is difficult to access even with the right TV and set-top box. Sam Machkovech wrote about this problem for Ars Technica. He spoke with Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood about the Olympic 4K rigmarole.  

In the tech world, we talk a lot about the applications for virtual reality, when you’re immersed in a totally different world.  But there may be more business applications for AUGMENTED  reality, where you add something to the scene around you.  Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood talks about it with Tim Merel, managing director of the tech consulting firm Digi-Capital.

Less than a year ago, Yahoo and AOL officially merged after AOL’s parent company, Verizon, bought Yahoo for more than $4 billion. Since then, former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has moved on to an unannounced venture. AOL CEO Tim Armstrong has had the job of blending the two companies into a digital content behemoth named Oath, vying to challenge Facebook and Google for advertising revenue. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood spoke with Armstrong about how Oath fits in the digital media landscape at the Makers conference in Los Angeles. The early February conference was sponsored in part by Oath.  

Twitter has the power to shape global conversation. And it’s become a way for marginalized communities to garner attention for the issues that matter to them. Case in point: Black Twitter. According to Pew Research, young black Americans use Twitter more than any other platform. And they’re discussing topics like racial injustice, police shootings and representation in entertainment. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood spoke with the author and activist known as Feminista Jones about the cultural significance and influence of Twitter as a platform for black activism. 

Google Chrome’s built-in ad blocker is set to start blocking some of the most annoying ads — pop ups, automatic players and the like. But while ads can be irritating, ad-tracking software might actually be worse. To get a closer look at this kind of tracking and why it should matter to consumers, Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood speaks with Casey Oppenheim, co-founder and CEO of the privacy software company Disconnect. 

Tech, like a lot of other industries, is dominated by men. Women get $3 in venture capital for every $4 that men do, according to tech site Crunchbase. And only 17 percent of startups have a woman as their CEO. Katrina Lake, the founder and CEO of Stitch Fix, has experienced that sexism first hand. In 2017, she was the only female CEO to take a company public in the U.S. Marketplace Tech host Molly Wood spoke with Lake at the Makers conference in Los Angeles about navigating Silicon Valley’s sexist culture.