This Week in Tech with Jeanne Destro

Available Episodes

5 of 9

The Moon, The Stars, Mars, & Robots!
This week, it's all things space, as we explore the possibility of life on Mars, Star Trek's upcoming 60th Anniversary, and the University of Akron's NASA Mining Robot team. Another new development this week that's newsworthy but unfortunately didn't make it into this a edition of "This Week in Tech with Jeanne Destro", is that NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, has just been selected to lead the way on a new billion dollar effort to build a nuclear reactor on the Moon. But it's a perfect lead in as we set our sights on the stars, and boldly go where imagination, ingenuity, and great technology can take us. Listen now.
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Cash For Tech Workers: Ohio's New STEM Relocation Incentive
Want highly skilled STEM-skilled workers to permanently relocate to Ohio? Offer their employers cold, hard, taxpayer-generated cash to bring them here. That's what JobsOhio is doing right now, and you can get details on that story plus a whole lot more, like the latest on Google's big privacy fine, a last minute surge in EV sales before tariffs kick in, and a new data center planned for the site of the old Lordstown GM plant, when you listen to the latest edition of "This Week In Tech with Jeanne Destro".
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Safety First: Fairlawn's New High Tech Connected Vehicle Corridor
The City of Fairlawn is embarking on an ambitious new plan to ease traffic flow and prioritize safety on State Route 18. They're spending $300,000 on a new system that will turn lights green ahead of buses and emergency vehicles, and warn motorists about adverse traffic conditions through a new mobile app. Listen now for details from Fairlawn Public Service Director Ernie Staten, in this week's edition of "This Week in Tech with Jeanne Destro".
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OK Boomers: Seniors, Technology, and Better Health
It was one of those "I can't believe I fell for it", moments on social media, where somebody was going on about how this "old lady" couldn't figure out how to process a particular type of electronic payment at a store, when I started seeing red, especially because "old" was defined (in her mind at least) as "over 50". The nerve! Well, I can laugh about it now, but at the time I was pretty steamed. Once I calmed down, I realized that I had fallen for the bait that the tech giants behind social media build into their algorithms, to generate both outrage, and engagement. The madder we get, the more we click, the more we click and comment, the more money they make on ads. Anyway, it got me thinking, and I decided to stop being mad, and start getting even, in a positive way. So I called some experts to help me find out if there really is any truth to what I perceived as an ageist bias against older people, for their (alleged) inability to use technology. Our featured guests on today's edition of "This Week in Tech with Jeanne Destro", are Abby Morgan, who is the CEO of Direction Home, the Akron-Canton Area Agency on Aging, and Cleveland Clinic Gerontologist Dr. Ken Koncilja. Listen now.
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This Week in Tech with Jeanne Destro
Google took action this week to better protect children from harmful content on YouTube; announcing they're using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze users' behavior to determine whether they're under the age of 18. Like Meta did a few months ago on Instagram; they will restrict that user from viewing what they believe is age-inappropriate content, and will also disable personalized advertising. If an adult believes they have been incorrectly identified as a minor; they can prove their age by providing a credit card or government ID. In other tech news this week, we're noting the end of an era, as the venerable old web portal and online service provider most closely identified with the early internet era–AOL–is discontinuing dial-up internet service. To find out more; I had a conversation with former CNET Editor, and CBS News Tech Contributor, Ian Sherr:
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