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The Global Positioning System (GPS) uses satellite radio waves to map restaurants on our smartphones, guide cars and monitor aircraft. For those who want to stop others from tracking their movement, GPS signals can be jammed -- albeit illegally. And now, GPS signals can also be "spoofed."

"A GPS spoofer, instead of just trying to jam the signal, tries to mimic [it]," says Todd Humphreys, a professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Texas, who spoke during a recent session at South by Southwest. "And if you can do this precisely enough, you can fool a receiver into tracking your [spoofed] signals instead of the authentic ones."

Humphreys and some of his students set out to test the possibility. They got an $80,000 pilotless aircraft -- a drone -- and flew it over an otherwise empty football stadium. 

"The drone was commanded to hover in place, holding its position," says 23-year-old graduate student Daniel Shepard, who ran the experiment. The team then told the drone's GPS receiver that it wasn't hovering -- it was rising. "In response it plummeted towards the ground in rather dramatic fashion."

The demonstration got the attention of Congress and Homeland Security which unlocked some funding to try to protect the GPS system from spoofing.

To hear more about the possibility of GPS spoofing, click on the audio player above.

This final note today, which, as you'll see, has a distinct 'keeping the workers happy' theme to it.

Next time you're feeling sleepy on the job -- not unusual around this time of year with the whole daylight savings time thing -- go ahead and consider a nap. USA Today points out a 20-minute nap can give a big boost to productivity. And that some companies are in fact setting up rooms just so you can grab a quick snooze.

And about what I said Friday -- no, I'm not leaving. Are you kidding?

Did get the big boss to agree to Beer Cart Friday, though.

@kairyssdal OK. I hear you! You pick the Friday, and I will get the beer for the whole Marketplace crew. #CultureBeforeProfits

— Jon McTaggart (@JonMcTaggart) March 9, 2013

Before Mariano Rivera, relief pitchers were seen as erratic starters past their prime. Rivera couldn’t be a starter, he only had one pitch, but that pitch was a killer fastball that cut at the last moment. And he rarely choked under pressure. By the late 1990s, every general manager wanted his own Mariano Rivera.

“This was your relief ace to nail down a game and if you didn’t have this guy, you couldn’t hold leads," says Brien Jackson, who writes for the blog, It’s About The Money.

Many relief pitchers who came after Rivera were overpaid -- and that created a market bubble. So a crafty general manager like Billy Beane of the Oakland A’s would let a decent closer save a bunch of easy games, "and then he’d flip them to other teams for assets that he thought were more valuable,” explains Jackson.

Around 2005 -- the bubble burst.

“Teams have finally started to realize that closers are actually made, not born, and you can find dominant relievers from the scrap heap," says Matt Meyers is an editor for ESPN.com.

Mid-level closers may not get the huge contracts anymore, but they’ve earned more respect since Rivera took the mound.

One of the biggest names in tech in Texas has had a complicated few days. Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO of computer and computer services giant Dell wants to buy back his company from shareholders. The idea is once the company is private, it will have room to rebuild itself for the longer term without the short-term demands of a publicly-traded stock. But a powerful Dell shareholder, Carl Icahn, is reportedly now pushing for more money than is on offer, a development that could upset the deal.

Although we were told Michael Dell couldn't address the buyout, it did come up during a rare interview at the Dell headquarters outside Austin. 

On his vision for Dell in the next five years:

Dell is really evolving towards the ability to provide end-to-end solutions for our customers. And of course, we started out with PCs and servers, and as the company has grown and developed, what we've found is that products alone were unable to solve all the challenges and opportunities that customers have presented us. So you've seen us move aggressively into services, software, deeper into the data center.

On taking Dell private:

It's a very exciting time for our company. Our board recently announced that it agreed with myself and a firm called Silver Lake to take the company private, which means the company will be even more founder-led than it was in its first few decades. I think this is very good for our customers. It gives our shareholders an opportunity to take advantage of some of the benefits of the things that we are doing as a company without taking on all the risks that I and Silver Lake will bear.

On what led Dell to its uncertain position today:

This isn't necessarily easy stuff. When I think about our business, the company started as a product company and we grew quite successfully. The first eight years, we grew 80 percent per year, the six years after that we grew 60 percent per year. What we are doing [now] is building broad new capabilities. I think our customers resonate with that. So we are seeing a lot of acceptance as we are building out these new solutions.

On why Dell is headquartered in Texas instead of Silicon Valley:

I think companies are coming [here]. Texas is a great place to do business. We've been very fortunate to be here. It's been a fantastic place to attract and grow talent. The quality of life here is fantastic, very rich culture. What I'll also tell you about any company -- especially a great company -- is you find a great company, you'll find a great university nearby. We have that here in Austin. It's just a wonderful, wonderful place.

On tech's role in solving world problems:

The largest opportunities and challenges are really heavily influence by technology and technology can help address those. So you think about what's going on in education, in health care, the environment, energy -- technology is actually a big part of the solution. Our foundation, using some of the opportunities I've had personally in creating this company, has given us a chance to really make a difference.

On whether running Dell is still as fun as it was at the beginning:

Yeah, it's a lot of fun. We are doing epic stuff here. This is about growth. This is about the long-term in our business. It's about doing the right things for our customers, and creating the next generation of growth and success in our business.

To hear Marketplace Tech host David Brancaccio's full interview with Michael Dell, click on the audio player above.

A currency war sounds weirdly abstract, like a game played by rival politicians -- but it can have devastating effects in the real world. And it’s not all that different from a rivalry of different kind -- a hypothetical sibling rivalry.

Imagine a pair of brothers. They together own a honey-making business in Minnesota, just a few miles from the Canadian border. One day, the brothers have a fight, and decide they can’t work together anymore -- so they divide the company in two. The younger brother decides to take his half of the bees and move across the river to Canada.

Both businesses make the same honey, sold in an 8 oz. jar; priced the same, $1 per jar. When the fight happened and the brothers moved apart, the Canadian and U.S. dollars were at parity, so a jar of honey -- regardless of where it was made -- was worth both one U.S. dollar and one Canadian dollar. The younger brother sold his honey to his fellow Canadians, the older brother had the American market.

All goes well, until... CURRENCY WAR! The brothers wake up, and find that one Canadian dollar is now worth just 50 U.S. cents! Or, to put it another way, one U.S. dollar is worth two Canadian dollars.

Joe is an American who loves honey. He has one dollar. Usually he would just buy a jar of honey from the American honey company -- it’s closer, the honey tastes the same, why not buy American? But his single U.S. dollar will now buy him two Canadian dollars, with which he can buy two jars of Canadian honey.

The currency wars allow him to get two jars of honey for the price of one. This is great news for Joe, and all those Americans like him -- they all start buying up Canadian honey. It’s great news for foreigners, who also like a good deal. And it’s great news for the Canadian honey company, of course -- the cheap Canadian currency has allowed it to boost its share of the market.

But this is really bad news for the elder brother and his American honey company. He can’t afford to compete, not without watering his honey down or using imported bees or something else. Unless the government does something to weaken the U.S. dollar, he’s going to go out of business, which means he’ll have to lay off honey workers and sell off those bees.

And this will be happening all over the country, eroding America’s manufacturing base, accelerating unemployment and leaving all of us badly needing a drink.

Despite disappointment at the polls, attendance isn't expected to dip much at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference near the nation's capital. But there has been an uproar over who's invited to CPAC this year — and who's not.

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Despite disappointment at the polls, attendance isn't expected to dip much at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference near the nation's capital. But there has been an uproar over who's invited to CPAC this year — and who's not.

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An estimated 80,000 American prisoners spend 23 hours a day in closed isolation units for 10, 20 or even more than 30 years. Now, amid growing evidence that it causes mental breakdown, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has decided to review its policies on solitary confinement.

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Kirk Bloodsworth was the first person in the U.S. to be exonerated by DNA evidence after receiving the death sentence. Convicted in Maryland, Bloodsworth is now one of the strongest advocates of abolishing the death penalty in the state.

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The seven — four Lebanese, one British, one Greek and one Italian citizen – who worked for a construction company were kidnapped Feb 16. A militant Islamist group claimed responsibility.

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The allegations come as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel continues his first visit to the nation as Pentagon Chief – and after a deadly explosion in Kabul on Saturday that the Taliban called a message to the new defense secretary.

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By signing a new charter for the Commonwealth states, Her Majesty is royally endorsing equal rights. One possible outcome of her support: If Prince William and Kate have a girl, she may well be queen someday.

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In a rare test of democracy, a soft-spoken, 31-year-old aid worker won a seat on the Aleppo provincial council in a vote held on March 3 in neighboring Turkey. Abdul Rahman Kahir won top votes for his work organizing aid distributions in the Syrian city.

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With only about 1,000 full-blooded Hawaiians left in the world, preserving native island culture is a huge challenge. One way to do this: teach students and other island residents the ancient art of making poi, a dish that's been feeding native Hawaiians for centuries.

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Preparations at the site of Tuesday's papal conclave include a high-tech scrubbing of the chapel for bugs and electronic monitoring equipment. Wi-Fi will be blocked throughout Vatican City, and cardinals with Twitter and Facebook accounts have been warned.

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Venezuela's elections commission announced Saturday that voters will go to the polls on April 14. Henrique Capriles, who opposed Chavez in the last election, is expected to face interim leader Nicolas Maduro.

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It was supposed to be the most modern election in African history. Biometric identification kits, computerized registration rolls and an SMS transmission of results. It all went spectacularly wrong.

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Islamist fighters have been playing a larger role in the Syrian conflict, and the most prominent single group is Jabhat al-Nusra. One of its fighters sat down with NPR and spoke about the group.

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Carl reads three news-related limericks: Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite; Safety Pants; The Flat Pack Hotel.

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Our panelists tell three stories about attempts to improve your commute.

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