recent Episodes
- What will we do with all this "white space"?
09/26/10 11:15 AM
There’s a vote coming up this week in Washington that will have a big impact on how (more...) - Can social networks help prevent the flu?
09/20/10 02:43 AM
The flu season is just around the corner. Sorry, but it’s true. Even though H1N1 (more...) - The Wikipedia entry on the Iraq War in 12 handy bound volumes
09/17/10 01:02 AM
US forces in Iraq were part of a firefight in the city of Fallujah on Thursday. At least (more...) - Free public domain classical music on the way
09/16/10 06:00 AM
Soon, you’ll be given a library of classical music played by symphony orchestras for (more...) - Microsoft and political repression in Russia
09/15/10 06:00 AM
The New York Times recently reported that Russian authorities were raiding the offices of (more...) - Your car and your concentration are at issue in Washington
09/14/10 06:00 AM
The U.S. Department of Transportation will hold a Distracted Driving Summit next week. (more...) - What if you could declare online reputation bankruptcy?
09/13/10 06:00 AM
(more...) - Machine translates brain waves into words.
09/10/10 08:06 AM
The idea of a computer being able to read your thoughts and translate them into words seems (more...) - Judge makes it harder for feds to see your cell phone records
09/09/10 09:31 AM
New developments in who gets to see your cell phone information. A federal appeals court (more...) - Craigslist censors self, decries censorship
09/08/10 08:38 AM
Craigslist has taken down the “adult services” section of its site. This after (more...)
Twitter. And Facebook. And death.
08/16/10 06:00 AM
Listen
DownloadCheerful topic for a Monday morning, don’t you think?
Twitter has confronted the idea of death. We all have to eventually, right? The microblogging site has announced a new policy for when users die. Once the death is confirmed, the account can come down and they can send the family an archive of the person’s tweets. Or the family can choose to just leave the account alone.
Facebook offers a third choice: leave the web presence there but turn it into a memorial to the deceased. No new friends would be added but those who were already there can post things to the person’s wall.
It’s kind of a weird time for social media. Sites like Facebook and Twitter have become a regular part of our society, which inevitably involves all aspects of society, including death. But while these sites are good at organizing parties and making jokes, they’ve never had a good framework for the big inevitability of death itself.
We talk to Ira Brooker and Kim Osland, a couple of our Twitter followers, about how they’ve encountered and dealt with death through social media. We also check in with John Troyer, Deputy Director at the Center for Death And Society at the University of Bath in England. We get his thoughts on ritual, technology, and how we’re dealing with death in the digital world.
the Blog
Future Tense becomes Marketplace Tech Report
09/17/10 06:12 PMHi everyone. John Moe here. Starting Monday, September 20th, Future Tense will be going by the name Marketplace Tech Report.
Producer Larissa Anderson and I have been working closely with the folks at Marketplace ever since we took over Future Tense in May. It’s worked out great. We’ve helped them, they’ve helped us, and together we’ll find more stories you’ll want to hear. Basically, we loved Marketplace so much we married them. And kind of took their name too. Is it creepy to compare two radio shows to a married couple? Sorry about that.
As part of the Marketplace portfolio of programs (along with Marketplace, Marketplace Morning Report, and Marketplace Money), Marketplace Tech Report will keep bringing you stories that explain news and trends and technology and what it all means to you. We’ll be moving to a new simpler URL: marketplacetech.org, which will go live over the weekend. We’ll be bringing our entire archive of past shows and blog posts with us but in the meantime, we’re leaving futuretense.publicradio.org up so you can access the show archives from there as well.
Previous Entries
- Google and competition
09/17/10 02:40 PM - Bronado is the new Double Rainbow
09/17/10 12:53 PM - Best Buy CEO: iPads are murdering laptops
09/17/10 12:02 PM - New marketing: getting it right, getting it wrong
09/17/10 11:16 AM - CROWS USE TOOLS, EAT HEALTH FOOD
09/17/10 11:09 AM - 102.5 mpg vehicle wins the X Prize
09/16/10 04:45 PM - Halo Reach pulls in 200 million dollars in first day
09/16/10 02:04 PM - Oakley to release 3D eyewear
09/16/10 11:13 AM - Internet Explorer 9 beta launches
09/15/10 05:49 PM
