The software titan is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month and building up its AI assistant, known as Copilot. Microsoft's consumer marketing chief, Yusuf Mehdi, touts the program's abilities and discusses the company's AI ambitions.

The small, modular reactor industry could bring safer, low-carbon electricity production closer to populated areas. Professor Aditi Verma at the University of Michigan is teaching students about designing these facilities with community needs in mind.

Maria Curi of Axios joins Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino for “Tech Bytes: Week in Review.”

The Born This Way Foundation and the nonprofit Hopelab jointly published a report showing that a majority of queer 15-24-year-olds prefer expressing their true selves and interacting with others in online spaces.

Gerrit De Vynck of The Washington Post reports that tech workers with H-1Bs are being advised to not leave the country in case they can’t reenter. The industry fears that major constraints on skilled immigration would hold back innovation, he says.

Since its file-sharing operation was shut down in 2001, Napster has been bought and reimagined several times. Harry McCracken, global technology editor at Fast Company, says the disruptor brand still has appeal but the “learned nostalgia” that surrounds it may be overvalued.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is investing in the development of advanced technology, a pivotal arena of competition with the United States. The nation has made notable gains, most famously the DeepSeek chatbot. 

Joanna Stern, senior personal technology columnist at The Wall Street Journal, joins Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino for “Tech Bytes: Week in Review.”

“Virtual power plants” enlist users in producing electricity and balancing supply and demand. But there’s no tech fix for getting people to sign up, as Rice University’s Daniel Cohan explains.