Countries like China represent huge potential markets for U.S. tech companies, but homegrown options pose stiff competition for upstart American entrants. That’s exactly the challenge facing the taxi hailing app Uber as it launches in China. Crowdfunding website Kickstarter was hacked over the weekend and Microsoft has partnered with the company DocuSign to make electronic signatures easier in their Office software. Both of these headlines point to a still-growing challenge of the Internet age: proper authentication.

Fashion week is done here in New York. But social media week is just starting. It involves 2,500 events in 25 cities. As events get underway we wanted to talk a little bit about the state of social media. Plus, why 2014 has been such a rough year for Bitcoin.

If the U.S. government allows a $45 billion merger deal between Comcast and Time Warner Cable, many changes could be coming, and not just when it comes to the logo that sits on top of some 30 million monthly cable bills. There could be new departments, new restructuring and improving so-called “operational efficiencies” — otherwise known as job cuts. Plus, Brendan Francis Newnam from APM’s The Dinner Party Download joins us this week to play Marketplace Tech’s Friday numbers game: Silicon Tally.

Senator Rand Paul files a class action law suit against the National Security Agency. The Kentucky Republican has long been known for Libertarian politics, but going up against the National Security Agency is by some measurements a bold move. Also, we check in on a story we’ve covered about growing tensions in and around Silicon Valley, where ideas about class and even tradition are being disrupted. And where there are plenty of accusations that the tech industry in northern California is way too insular.

If there was a Net Neutrality Paranoia Index, it would be way up this week. There’s a new quarterly report from video streaming company Netflix. It looks at how well Netflix’s content streams on different internet service providers. And there’s been an interesting pattern. Both Verizon and Comcast’s performance on this report have been dropping for several months. 

A list of more than 5,000 online companies and organizations want to help — and hurt — two separate pieces of legislation moving through Capitol Hill. The bills deal with the Nationasl Security Agency and surveillance. Taiwanese phone maker HTC announced quarterly earnings that fell to $1.4 billion this week. That may not sound bad, but in a competitive smartphone market, HTC has struggled to sit at the table with the likes of Apple and Samsung. Plus, a new operating system out of North Korea and a novel way to give out your phone number.

When it comes to returning the sense of hearing to people who are deaf or hard of hearing, technology is far from perfect. Hearing aids can feed back. And there are other problems, but this week there’s been a leap forward in one particular area. Cochlear implants; a new processing computer chip for these implants has been developed at MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratory and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmiry. Meanwhile, of all the industries being disrupted by technology, the music business might be undergoing the most change. But one thing that has not changed dramatically is music education … yet. Marketplace’s David Weinberg travelled to new Orleans to bring us the story of a new tool that connects students with American master musicians.

This week, Target executives have been answering questions about the hack that resulted in the theft of personal data from tens of millions of people. But while that story continues to develop, there’s something else to consider. Far from credit card and phone numbers, what about all the information in our health records? Turns out a lot of those records aren’t very secure, and might be even more valuable to hackers. And, what do Super Bowl leftovers, hook-up apps, and Steve Ballmer have in common? They’re all part of Silicon Tally this week. Our guest, Molly Mullshine, writes about tech for the website Beta Beat, and joined us to play.

The winter olympics start Tomorrow in the Russian city of Sochi. Olympians, officials, and reporters have been arriving all week with lots of devices in tow. And that means there’s been a lot of talk about digital surveillance. Russia’s government doesn’t have the best record in, say, protecting freedom of the press. Plus, YouTube used to be a place that was mostly about curiosities, bits of original, unedited video clips by amateurs. Then people started getting serious. The amateurs started getting famous because of what — and how much — video they were putting on the website. YouTube started selling ads on all those videos and giving some of that money to creators. But as one New York Times reporter found out, it can still be hard to make the big bucks even when you’re a super YouTuber.