Business, Spoken

The announcement earlier this week that Intuit, the financial software giant, would be buying the personal finance company Credit Karma for $7 billion was striking. The tech industry is under more antitrust scrutiny than ever; just a few weeks ago, the Federal Trade Commission announced a broad inquiry into the past decade of acquisitions by the five biggest tech giants, with a focus on mergers that kill off budding rivals. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On Thursday, 18 stories above the streets of Manhattan, the rooftop bar of one of the more than a dozen Marriott hotels in Midtown played host to an unusual crowd. Some were Airbnb hosts, others repped the burgeoning homesharing startup scene, most were wannabe rental empire titans—all were members of New York City’s booming short-term rental industry interested in learning how to turn their Airbnb side hustle into a hospitality superbrand. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Amazon is cracking down on third-party merchants who violate its policies while selling items related to the new coronavirus disease known as Covid-19. Following reports by WIRED and others of price gouging and misleading claims, the retail giant confirmed it had removed or blocked over one million products that falsely advertised to defend against or cure the illness, as well as tens of thousands of items—such as face masks—that were listed for inflated prices. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This story is part of a collection of pieces on how we work today, from video conferencing to using productivity apps for off-label purposes to appeasing our robot overlords. When J. Lo and Shakira put on their “provocative” performance during the Super Bowl halftime show in January, was it an act of female empowerment or a demeaning objectification? Just kidding. People will never agree on that. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos may very well have fundamentally changed the fight against climate change this week. In an Instagram post Monday, the world’s richest man committed $10 billion of his personal fortune to set up the new Bezos Earth Fund, which would support “scientists, activists, NGOs—any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Federal Communications Commission is once again seeking comment on its repeal of its Obama-era net neutrality rules. But the new comment period isn't focused on the usual issues that underpin the net neutrality debate, such as blocking or throttling content. Instead it will focus on less-noticed aspects of the agency's decision with regards to public safety and the agency's oversight of broadband internet providers. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Fans of games like Dungeons & Dragons know that the fun comes, in part, from a creative Dungeon Master—an all-powerful narrator who follows a storyline but has free rein to improvise in response to players’ actions and the fate of the dice. This kind of spontaneous yet coherent storytelling is extremely difficult for artificial intelligence, even as AI has mastered more constrained board games such as chess and Go. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Artificial intelligence has made big strides recently in understanding language, but it can still suffer from an alarming, and potentially dangerous, kind of algorithmic myopia. Research shows how AI programs that parse and analyze text can be confused and deceived by carefully crafted phrases. A sentence that seems straightforward to you or me may have a strange ability to deceive an AI algorithm. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University in Wuhan, China, is at the heart of the outbreak of Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that has shut down cities in China, South Korea, Iran, and Italy. That’s forced the hospital to become a testbed for how quickly a modern medical center can adapt to a new infectious disease epidemic. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Onstage during last night’s primary debate in Nevada, Mike Bloomberg found himself with no friends. But he’s got a plan to make some new ones in California. In advance of the state’s pivotal primary on March 3, the Mike Bloomberg presidential campaign is hiring more than 500 “deputy field organizers” in the state, at a $2,500 monthly salary for part-time work. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices