They are called shade balls, they are used to reduce evaporation by up to 90%.
They tried a bunch of ideas for blocking the sun and settled on the balls as the best compromise between cost, effectiveness, and safety.
There are a couple of other benefits. They need far less chlorine to manage algae growth and it discourages waterfowl from taking up residence in the pool, also increasing water quality. They expect the balls to pay for about half of their cost over an expected 10 year lifetime from the savings in chlorine and evaporation.