The 1982 science fiction classic “Blade Runner” was set in November 2019 in Los Angeles. But the LA envisioned by director Ridley Scott is very different from the LA you’d recognize today. For one thing, it’s raining all the time, and it’s a dystopian hellscape with flying cars, pervasive technology and artificial humans, or replicants, who are almost indistinguishable from real humans. Also, almost everyone smokes. Aside from the obvious, how far off is the movie from present-day 2019?

We’re revisiting some of our stories looking at how technology can help us adapt to climate change.  In this piece (which originally aired October 1), we look at the digital tools available to figure out a home’s flood risk.

Today, it’s almost possible to leave your wallet at home and not pay using your phone. In the not-too distant future, stores could even use facial recognition, or fingerprint scanning, so you don’t even need a device — just grab your items, and walk out. Consumers seem to want this frictionless payment as much as retailers do, but why?

PG&E has said it could take a decade to upgrade its infrastructure so it’s less likely to spark deadly fires. On Thursday, the utility reported a $1.6 billion loss in the third quarter related to fire charges. A group of California mayors think PG&E should be turned into a publicly owned cooperative utility. Is the answer here just to get off the grid or for utilities to split up into lots of smaller microgrids?

Google announced plans to buy Fitbit for more than $2 billion, and make no mistake, it’s not for the wristbands. Last year, it announced an effort to use artificial intelligence to scan electronic health records to make predictions about what might happen with hospitalized patients. Kirsten Ostherr, the director of the Medical Futures Lab and the medical humanities program at Rice University, said Fitbit’s trove of data is all about social determinants.

The tech industry is coming for traditional banking. Digital payment apps are changing how we move money around. A wave of so-called neobanks — all-digital services that let people do everything on a smartphone without any branches — is cropping up in the United States. Molly Wood speaks with Jelena McWilliams, the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., best known for providing federal insurance to licensed banks. The agency also has oversight and consumer protection responsibilities. McWilliams said that there’s a lot going on.

As the amount of data coursing through the internet grows, so does the infrastructure needed to keep all that data flowing. Huge data centers are popping up around the country, but data centers don’t always make good neighbors due to their noise. Bianca Bosker, a contributing writer for The Atlantic, wrote about Chandler, Arizona, where a group of neighbors have taken on data center giant CyrusOne.

After a very dramatic bidding process, U.S. Department of Defense last month awarded a $10 billion cloud computing contract to Microsoft. Several companies, including Oracle, claimed the process was rigged and that President Donald Trump threatened to personally intervene in the choosing process because he’s been a critic of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act says tech platforms can’t be held liable for most things their users post on those platforms. The same section has been under attack recently from politicians and others who say it gives companies too much protection in this age of harassment, radicalization and misinformation. But even as the debate is happening, the law is being exported, so to speak. Language similar to Section 230 is part of U.S. trade agreements with Japan and made the cut in the recently agreed upon deal with Mexico and Canada.

Earlier this week, Steph Korey resigned as CEO of the trendy luggage company Away after a report on the company’s toxic workplace culture. Recently, there have been several negative stories about female CEOs, too. Sara Mauskopf, CEO and co-founder of Winnie, wrote about this and said the negative coverage of female CEOs compared to their male counterparts is noticeably disproportionate.

Chatbots are growing in importance as a way of bringing in revenue: Juniper Research estimates that by the year 2023, retail sales through chatbots will reach $112 billion. But those bots can lose customers if they can’t keep up with conversations. So to make chatbots witty and even funny, tech companies are turning to entertainers.

A report this week in the Financial Times suggests that China might be moving to ban all foreign computer hardware and software from government agencies and public organizations within three years. The move could hurt American tech companies, but what’s tricky is that China doesn’t really have the technology to replace a lot of the software it’s trying to kick out. “Marketplace Tech” host Molly Wood talks with Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

Microsoft is one of the world’s biggest tech companies, but it’s mostly been left out of controversies and investigations around privacy, data protection and antitrust. It’s ironic since the company spent about a decade fighting antitrust allegations in the 1990s. Microsoft is still developing many of the technologies that are under scrutiny now.

This week, world leaders are meeting at the United Nations climate summit in Madrid, talking about how to keep global warming in check. One thing that’s going to become increasingly valuable in the future is drinking water. Droughts, storms and sea level rise all affect the availability of potable water. India, in fact, is already running out. One startup is working on it with tech that collects water vapor from the air and stores it as clean water.

The 1982 science fiction classic “Blade Runner” was set in November 2019 in Los Angeles. But the LA envisioned by director Ridley Scott is very different from the LA you’d recognize today. For one thing, it’s raining all the time, and it’s a dystopian hellscape with flying cars, pervasive technology and artificial humans, or replicants, who are almost indistinguishable from real humans. Also, almost everyone smokes. Aside from the obvious, how far off is the movie from present-day 2019?

Amazon is by far the largest online retailer in the United States. Chances are you’ve clicked the buy button for holiday shopping or just some daily staples recently. Reporter Will Evans said he obtained records on injury rates from 23 Amazon fulfillment centers around the country and found the rate of serious injuries is more than double the average for the industry. At some warehouses, it’s as much as six times higher.

We’re revisiting some of our stories looking at how technology can help us adapt to climate change.  In this piece (which originally aired October 1), we look at the digital tools available to figure out a home’s flood risk.

This week, we’re revisiting pieces on how technology can help us adapt to climate change, from our series “How We Survive.”  This story (which originally aired August 5), looks at how technology can help us keep our indoor air clean when wildfires cause intense smoke outside.

This week, we’re revisiting several stories on how technology can help us adapt to climate change as part of our series “How We Survive.” This piece (which was originally published on July 18) looks at how a unique levee in the Bay Area utilizes nature to increase flood protection while restoring wetlands.

This week, we’re revisiting several stories on how technology can help us adapt to climate change. In this piece, which originally aired June 18, we look at how using Microsoft’s AI computing power can help the environmental nonprofit Chesapeake Conservancy make better decisions about the watershed.

Using new data, a new report from the Brookings Institution estimates that the higher you’re paid, the more your job may be at risk from artificial intelligence. We talk with Mark Muro, co-author of the report.

Recently, regulators began investigating the new Apple Card and Apple’s partner Goldman Sachs after several users reported that in married households, men received higher credit limits than women — even if the women had higher credit scores. Safiya Noble, an associate professor at UCLA who wrote a book about biased algorithms, said data algorithms used to evaluate credit reflect a long history of women having little financial independence or freedom.

Doorbell security cameras are a hot item and hot topic when it comes to privacy and security. Amazon owns the Ring security camera company, and the company will give police camera footage with the customer’s permission. Andrew Ferguson, author of the book “The Rise of Big Data Policing: Surveillance, Race, and the Future of Law Enforcement,” was asked how this is different from traditional security systems that involve police and other agencies.

Esther Duflo is one of this year’s winners of the Nobel Prize in economics. She and her colleagues at MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab won for their unique approach to tackling poverty. They try to break up huge problems like immunization or educational opportunity into smaller problems. Their team comes up with questions about what might work and then uses randomized controlled trials that are traditionally used in medicine and hard sciences to compare the impact of specific ideas. She says the team also uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to deploy the findings of their research in the most efficient way possible.

Amazon bought a couple of health care startups that range from prescription drug distribution to telemedicine. It setup Haven, a consulting group that wants to bring down the cost of health care. Its Echo devices can sync with Fitbit for fitness and sleep data, and it’s filed for patents on tech that would let Alexa detect when you’re sick and recommend medicine. Do people want to give their medical data to Amazon? If so, is it worth it?

Gen Zers, the generation after millennials, are wearing looks from the ’90s. And they’re not finding them at their local thrift shops — they’re shopping at a digital marketplace that specializes in vintage wear, the Depop app. It’s kind of an Etsy-Instagram mashup. Buying and selling used clothes is a simple act, but it’s going to help us with our fast-fashion problem during this climate crisis.

Less than half of the population of Africa can rely on flicking on a switch for light, heat or cooking, and that also limits technological advances in banking, education and health care. A recent International Energy Agency report says microgrids powered by solar and wind energy have real potential for accelerating development, particularly in Central African countries. Michaël Aklin, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh who researches energy policy, said that the renewable-first approach can work — with some caveats.