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Marketplace Tech for Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Feb 5, 2014

Episodes 3111 - 3120 of 4268

  • Every year on my birthday, I’m amazed to discover how many people on Facebook remember. Thanks guys. Well today, some people might be posting well wishes on Facebook’s wall. The social network turns 10 years old today. And for a little 10-year-old, it’s had some major impact on our online lives. And this week, the wearable tech company Pebble launched it’s app store, offering downloads like Yelp notifications that will appear on your smartwatch. But there’s a problem: Battery life. As wearable technology grows, our battery power will need to grow too.

  • Today Facebook releases a new mobile application called Paper. It doesn’t really look a lot like Mark Zuckerberg’s crowded, blue social network. But, it is part of his empire, and it might help the company keep building engagement by not looking like … Facebook. Also, some of the newer high-valued companies in Silicon Valley these days are more focused on sharing with your business partners than sharing with your friends. Example: Box helps people and businesses share documents and other data on the cloud. And the young company privately filed for an IPO a few days ago.

  • It might be number 48, but this weekend’s football game is being called the first mass transit Super Bowl. The game will not be played in downtown Manhattan, but in East Rutherford, New Jersey. And with a Met Life stadium capacity of about 82,000 a lot of technology is being leveraged to actually get the fans to the game via public transportation.

  • All this week, Marketplace Tech has been talking about sports and technology for our “Gaming the System” series. Today, we take you to a hockey rink right about the spot that A-Rod usually stands — that’s right, Yankee Stadium. On the eve of a big outdoor hockey game at New York’s Yankee Stadium, we find out how the NHL is converting a baseball field to a hockey arena.

  • This month, a neuroscientist and his team announced that the ceremonial first kick at this year’s World Cup opening in Brazil would be completed by a paralyzed teenager using an exoskeleton attached to her brain. Prosthetic robotic devices connected to the human brain are becoming more common. You may remember video a few years ago of a woman at the University of Pittsburgh feeding herself chocolate with a robot limb. For today’s installment of Marketplace Tech’s sports and tech series, “Gaming the System,” we’ll hear from a guy working in this field.

  • Have you ever heard the phrase “live high, train low”? It’s part of the strategy employed by a U.S. Olympic Ski Team about to head to Sochi for the games. The idea is to acclimate the body to an altitude with less oxygen, which can boost performance. Today, on the second conversation in our sports and tech series “Gaming the System,” Marketplace Tech talks with Jim Stray-Gundersen, who advises Team USA and pumps nitrogen into athletes’ bedrooms so they can live high and train low.

  • Today Marketplace Tech kicks off a new series about sports and technology. We’re calling it “Gaming the System,” and we’ll be talking Olympics, World Cup, and yes, Sunday’s big football game. But first let’s talk about how some people are using numbers and data tracking to try and change a major U.S. sport. Not baseball, but basketball.

  • Tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary of Apple’s Macintosh computer. Plus, today’s game of Silicon Tally is set to level expert. And by that we mean that today’s guest, who host Ben Johnson will try and stump with numbers from the week’s tech news, is Kara Swisher, formerly of All Things D, currently co-executive editor with Walt Mossberg of the new tech news and reviews website Re/Code.

  • Online dating websites use all kinds of technology and calculations to help you find a mate. It could be as simple as giving a thumbs up or thumbs down to a photo, or as complicated as a long list of questions asked, points scored, and intense mathematical algorithms that play digital matchmaker. Mathematician Chris McKinlay was working on his doctorate and his love life at the same time, and found that he was unsatisfied with the calculations made. So he hacked an answer and in the process wrote “Optimal Cupid: Mastering the Hidden Logic of OkCupid.” 

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About the show

Every weekday morning, Marketplace Tech demystifies the digital economy. The radio show and podcast explain how tech influences our lives in unexpected ways and provides context for listeners who care about the impact of tech, business and the digital world.

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