Fraser Cain is on the show and we’ll chat about uBeam’s ubiquitous wireless power claims and how we so very much want them to come true.

MP3

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

A special thanks to all our Patreon supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guest: Fraser Cain, publisher of Universe Today

Headlines

Ars Technica reports scientists from Cornell University and IBM Research have designed a chip that mimics how the brain works though an asynchronous collection of thousands of processing cores capable of spikes of activity and complicated connections just like neural networks. Computers have been able to model neural networks but the binary nature of transistors have limited the efficiency. This new processor, dubbed TrueNorth, uses the cores to receive and send to 256 other “neurons.” The power density of TrueNorth is 20mW per square centimeter and was fabricated by Samsung using a 28nm process. Next up, software!

According to ZDNet, Google has released a preview of its Android fitness platform to developers. Google Fit, announced in June at Google I/O, will collect fitness activity from Android smartphones and wearables. Google says developers will be able to launch their apps when the SDK goes into general availability later this year through Google Play services for handsets, Android Wear and the web.

ReCode reports Facebook announced Thursday it has acquired PrivateCore, a server security startup. PrivateCore will help defend Facebook’s data centers from malware and other security breaches. PrivateCore’s founders and other members of the team will work at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters on the Facebook security team run by Joe Sullivan.

GigaOm reports Google said late Wednesday it will start taking TLS connections, the secure URLS that begin with https:, into account in search engine rankings. It will affect fewer than 1% of queries and carry less weight than other content signals. The move may encourage sites to provide secure connections to their webpages in order to help SEO. 

The Verge notes Twitch has begun scanning archived video for copyrighted music and muting entire 30 minute chunks if such music is found. Many games incorporate music and already high profile streams like the dota2 streams from Valve, maker of dota 2, have reportedly been muted. Twitch partnered with a company called Audible Magic for the scanning. The heavy-handed and often capricious nature of the policy reminds many of YouTube’s similar contentID system further fueling rumors that Google is acquiring TwiTch. Twitch CEO Emmett Shear said on Reddit Twitch has no intention of flagging songs due to original in-game music and will try to fix the problem and stressed the no live streams will be scanned or blocked. Twitch also announced it will no longer allow videos to be archived forever, Making 14 days the maximum that video will be preserved. However you can push a button and have your archived videos saved— to YouTube.

News From You:

MikePkennedy submitted the Verge article noting several reports that Microsoft will get rid of the Charms bar from Windows 9. That’s the devilish bar that you have to hover over to the right just right in order to access things like settings and shutdown. It works much better on touch screens than with a mouse. Windows 9 will also add an amazing Linux feature from the early 2000s known as ‘virtual desktops’. 

sdc111 pointed out the Boing Boing post that USIS, a federal contractor that does background checks for the US DHS, disclosed Wednesday that federal employees’ personal data has likely been stolen. USIS said the attack had “all the markings of a state-sponsored attack,” because reasons. The US FBI is investigating.

diggsalot submitted the Android Police report that T-Mobile claims it is now the number one pre-paid wireless provider in the United States. The company reports it has 15.64 million pre-paid subscribers to Sprint’s 15.19 million. Pre-paid contracts are not generally considered as lucrative as customers can stop anytime. The real money is in ‘post-paid’ subscribers–people locked into nice, predictable two-year prison sentences–er contracts. T-Mobile CEO John Legere predicts his company will overtake Sprint in overall subscribers by the end of the year. 

And tm204 passes along good news for European gamers from The Verge: Microsoft will release an over-the-air TV tuner/adapter for the European X-Box One, allowing users to pass broadcast channels through the Xbox’s HDMI port. The device goes on sale in October in France Italy German Spain and the UK, and will cost 29,99 Euros. Microsoft has not yet committed to going full DVR, but users will be able to pause live television and get program listings. No word yet on when this technology will reach other regions of the world, so Australia, you just keep doin’ what you do. 

Pick of the Day: The Red Cross First Aid App via Grant in beautiful Northern Ontario.

As a passenger train conductor, I am extensively trained in first aid. But, when an emergency pops up, I like to double check everything I am doing to make sure passengers are getting the best treatment possible. The Red Cross First Aid app is amazing for this purpose. It makes finding emergencies quick and easy right on the home screen and keeps updating for any new techniques that may have been implemented since my last first aid class. It is available for different countries and is free.

Plug of the Day:  It’s Thursday, which means its time for another article+video combo from Molly Wood in The New York Times. This week Molly checks out three services competing to be the Netflix of Books. Check out nytimes.com/machinelearning to read up on e-books.

Friday’s guest: Lamarr Wilson and Len Peralta

Jessica Naziri is on the show today. We’ll debunk the big Russian hack a bit and talk about her experience visiting the tech scene in Israel.

MP3

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

A special thanks to all our Patreon supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Bloomberg reports ten Apple products, including iPads and MacBooks have been omitted from a Chinese government procurement list distributed in July. The models had been included on the June list. Products not on the procurement list cannot be purchased with government money.

The Verge reports Apple and Samsung issued a joint statement Tuesday announcing the companies have “agreed to drop all litigation between the two companies outside the United States.” The two US cases are the biggest with Apple winning the first with more than $1 billion in damages and a split decision in the second heavily in Apple’s favor with Samsung owing $119.6 million and Apple owing $158,400.

Now that the folks at Lyft have made us feel *mostly* comfortable with the idea of riding in a stranger’s car because that car is wearing a pink mustache, The Next Web reports Lyft is adding more strangers to the equation. Lyft Line allows up to three solo passengers who share a common route to ride together. The company claims Line rides could be sixty percent cheaper. Yesterday Uber announced a ride-sharing experience called UberPool, so the arms race between the two companies remains in balance til at least tomorrow.

The Next Web reports that Foursquare has officially relaunched its mobile app with a renewed focus on location-based recommendations. The company introduced a new tagging system called “tastes’ which gather initial input from the user and then use that data to suggest nearby establishments that fit your preferences. For those still smarting from the loss of their Foursquare mayoralties, the new app introduces the concept of experts–every time a user adds a tip, and every time that tip is saved or shared by another user, they gain expertise. 

The BBC reports Wikipedia has begin naming links that have been removed from European versions of search engines under the right-to-be-forgotten rules there. Wikipedia pages no longer indexed include a photograph of a musician, Tom Carstairs, holding a guitar, Dozens of Dutch-language pages that mention Guido den Broeder, a chess player from the Netherlands, An English-language page about Gerry Hutch, a Dublin-born businessman nicknamed “the Monk” who was jailed in the 1980s, as well as several-Italian pages. Wikimedia also issued its first transparency report about takedown requests. One involved a selfie taken by a macaque.

News From You:

biocow pointed out the Engadget story that Softbank has given up its efforts to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom and merge it with Sprint. Regulatory approval proved to be too unlikely for CEO Masayoshi Son’s taste. Subsequently Sprint announced Sprint CEO Dan Hesse will step down August 11 and Marcelo Claure, the chief of wireless distributor Brightstar, will take over. Dish Network Chairman Charlie ERgen told analysts on an earnings call that now that Sprint is out of the picture, “T-Mobile is something that we would have an interest in.”

spsheridan pointed out the Verge article that pokes some holes in the report that Russian hackers had stolen email and passwords for 1.2 billion accounts covering 420,000 websites. Among the reasons for skepticism is that Hold Security, which revealed the hack, is charging a $120-a-year subscription to check if your name and password are on the list. The technique to acquire the database involved buying names on the black market as well as SQL-injection attacks, which mostly affect small sites. Finally Russell Brandom points out the attackers responsible have been using their vast bounty to do Twitter spamming rather than something more lucrative.

duxbak99 submitted the Ars Technica story that researchers from FOX-IT and FireEye recovered private encryption keys to ransomware CryptoLocker and have created a website at http://www.decryptcryptolocker.com/ that allows victims to unlock their computers without paying the $300 or so ransom. Victims must upload one of the files encrypted by CryptoLocker along with the e-mail address where they want the secret key delivered. KAPT_Kipper and magoojc also submitted links about this story.

spsheridan pointed out the Planetary Society article about the arrival of European Space Agency probe Rosetta arriving at comet 67P/Chryumov-Gerasimenko becoming the first spacecraft to maneuver alongside a speeding body. The comet is traveling at 55,000km per hour. The craft will study 67P from alongside and then in November, the Philae lander will put down on the comet’s surface to carry out closeup experiments. 

Discussion Section Links: 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101804286

http://www.wamda.com/2014/08/palestine-s-only-startup-accelerator-announces-its-latest-round

Pick of the Day from Willie X. Gluck : My pick is Clipjump, a clipboard manager for Windows that has changed the way that I work (for the better!). It’s easy and intuitive to use in that it uses the usual copy and paste shortcut keys. Now I can copy multiple items that I will need to paste, switch, and paste them sequentially without the need to switch back-and-forth between applications. It also has a feature that will strip the formatting, allowing me to replace PureText, which was a great but single purpose app. I also like that you get a preview of what you’re going to paste. The developer also introduced plug-ins that do stuff like change case. There are also a bunch of other cool features.

Plug of the day:  Like tech history? I’ve teamed up with Scott Johnson to put out monthly looks at what happened in history this month. For 99 cents you get what happened on each day of the month that helped make the tech we sue today, plus illustrations from Scott Johnson. Check them out for 99 cents each at tommerrittbooks.com or just search Amazon.        

Calendar item of the Day:  The super awesome FAQ for DefCon:  http://www.defcon.org/html/links/dc-faq/dc-faq.html

 Tomorrow’s Guest: Fraser Cain

Ken Denmead is on the show. We’ll chat about how MIT researchers can reconstruct audio from a bag of potato chips behind soundproof glass. Also a little on the overreaction to NASA and the propellant-free microwave drive.

MP3

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

A special thanks to all our Patreon supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes
Today’s guests:  Ken Denmead, Grand Nagus at GeekDad.com

Headlines

Not a good 24 hours for Samsung. First Canalys announces its data showed Xiaomi shipped just less tan 15 million smartphone units in China in Q2, taking the top spot away from Samsung which shipped 13.2 million in the country. That was barely enough to stay in front of Lenovo. Then Counterpoint Research claims Micromax has passed Samsung in India to take the top spot in mobile phone market share with 16.6% for Micromax to Samsung’s 14%. The good news for Samsung? They still hold the SMARTphone crown in India with 25.3% to Micromax’s 19.1%.

None of the following is actually official. Techcrunch, citing a Re/Code report, says Apple has scheduled a ‘big media event’ for Tuesday September 9th, at which Apple is likely to unveil its next generation iPhone. Here’s what the rumor roundup has rustled so far: Phones with 4.7 inch screens, and possibly also another device with a 5.5 inch display. The new iPhone *may* use the new A8 processors, *could* be all metal, *might* have temperature and humidity sensors, and could *possibly* support for near-field communications. Bloomberg And Wall Street Journal are also reporting the September 9th date.

Reuters reports Blackberry has sent a memo to its employees saying restructuring is done and the company is back on track to be cash flow positive by the end of the year. In other words, if you’re still working here, your job is safe for now. BlackBerry has cut its workforce by 60% over the last three years. 

GigaOm reports Justin.TV has shut down after seven years.  Existing members have until September 5 to transfer their accounts to Twitch. Archived video is not available. Justin had shut its archives down June 15. The company now solely exists as Twitch which had 50 million unique viewers in July and is rumoured to have agreed to sell to Google.

According to Tom’s Guide, a new device called Navdy can sit on your dashboard and project maps, images and text on to a 5 inch flip-up glass screen. The projected image is transparent and appears to float six feet ahead of the driver, and I quote “so it doesn’t distract.” The device can pair with your smartphone to make calls and stream music, and plugs into a car’s OBD II port for power. Navdy will ship in early 2015 for pre-order price of $299, with future Navdy’s selling for $499. In their video, LonelySandwhich assured me its safe because pilots use a similar thing. Thanks Adam. The Daily Tech News Show is now accepting suggestions on how this could possibly be safe. 

ReCode reports Microsoft confirmed Tuesday it has hired former Qualcomm executive Peggy Johnson to head up business development. Johnson will start Sept. 1 as executive VP of global business development, reporting to CEO Satya Nadella. Johnson was most recently heading global marketing and Qualcomm Labs.

Ars Technica reports that 17-year-old Joshua Rogers of Melbourne has discovered another way to spoof a browser cookie to bypass PayPal’s two factor authentication. The procedure involves using the process that links eBay to Paypal accounts. An attacker would still need to know the victim’s userid and password. Rogers, a whitehat hacker, says he reported the vulnerability to PayPal June 5 but received no response. 

News From You:

tm204 submitted the MIT News post that researchers from MIT, Microsoft and Adobe will present findings at SIGGRAPH on how to reconstruct audio from video of certain objects. One experiment recorded video of a potato chip bag from 15 feet away behind soundproof glass. An algorithm interprets minute vibrations on the bag to reconstruct the audio. While most of the experiments required high quality video of up to 6,000 fps to detect the vibrations, the researchers also figured out how to exploit sensors in 60fps consumer camera, to detect lower quality but still usable audio. None of the experiments could interpret the audio in real time. One capture took two hours to process. 

Hurmoth posted the Ars Technica article that Aereo is still fighting. We know Aereo argues they should be allowed to pay the compulsory license to continue operating. Another argument asks permission to continue to provide recorded video since in oral arguments the Supreme court indicated that did not violate Plaintiffs’ public performance rights. While US District Judge Alison Nathan rejected Aereo’s emergency motion on these arguments, she ordered both sides to file papers in support of their positions over the next five weeks.

SpydrChick pointed out the Dvice story that the IEEE has released a new official standard for 802.22 that can cover 12,000 square miles. The standard is designed to take advantage of spectrum from 54MHz to 698MHz opened up by the shutdown of analog TV. In theory the standard will supposedly be able to broadcast data at up to 22 Mbps 62 miles from a single base station over WRANs (wireless regional area networks).

MacBytes passes along an Engadget reports that the DAWN OF THE ROBOTIC EXOSKELETON IS UPON US! Sort of. South Korean carmaker Daewoo has been testing a robotic suit that allows shipyard workers carry objects as heavy as 66 pounds with ease by putting all the load on the machine at least for three hours the battery lasts. Daewoo hope that the exoskeleton will eventually hold up to 220lbs, just as soon as they figure out how to cope with slippery floors and twisting movements. So no moonwalking in the exoskeleton, people.

Pick of the Day: Pluto.tv via Chris

Hey Tom and Jennie, love the show. Just discovered pluto.tv – a cool app to watch video online. Over a hundred curated channels in a nicely organized channel guide for that “lean back” experience. Now with chromecast support on Android, this is a nice pick for folks just looking for a variety of queued specialty content online. I can’t speak for the rights clearances or how these channels are legally vetted but I thought it was worth sharing… maybe something of interest for the cordkillers podcast as well.

Plug of the Day:  The Sword and Laser Anthology collects 20 amazing stories from new writers in the Sword and Laser book club audience. 10 SciFi and 10 fantasy stories with an introduction by Patrick Rothfuss. Get a copy at swordandlaser.com/store      

Wednesday’s guest: Jessica Naziri

Todd Whitehead is on the show. We’ll talk about the line between your privacy and Google’s obligation to fight child porn. Is it OK to passively scan your email attachements?

MP3

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

A special thanks to all our Patreon supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests:  Todd Whitehead of Alpha Geek Radio

Headlines

According to TechCrunch, Square, the company that makes mobile credit card readers, has acquired food delivery service Caviar for a reported 90 million dollars in stock. Square launched its own food-ordering service earlier this year, but only allowed customers to order food for pick-up. Caviar provides delivery for restaurants. Producer Jennie has done some research, and can confirm the ability to order an ounce of actual Osetra caviar from Caviar exists only in New York for now. In related news, producer Jennie is now very hungry. For caviar. No Jennie we cannot have a ‘Jennie gets paid in caviar’ level added to the Patreon.

GigaOm passes along a Xinhua report that the Beijing Youth Daily says a procurement list for governmental security software suppliers now only includes Chinese vendors. Symantec of the US and Kaspersky of Russia have been removed from the list. However it may not be as bad as it looks. A Symantec representative told Reuters “It is important to note that this list is only for certain types of procurement and Symantec products are not banned by the Chinese government.”

The BBC reports a 41-year-old Houston man was arrested on charges of possessing and promoting child pornography after Google sent a tip to the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Houston Police’s David Nettles implied Google identified child porn int he man’s Gmail account. Google’s Eric Schmidt wrote int he Daly Mail last year that Google will actively removes such images from its services. A similar case happened in 2013 when a man was caught sharing illegal images through an AOL email account.

The Verge passes along a Wall Street Journal report that the Department of Transportation plans to propose a rule this December that would prohibit making and receiving in-flight cell phone calls. The ban seems to be based on workplace factors for flight crew not because of any technical reason.

ReCode reports Comcast will allow low-income customers with outstanding bills older than a year to to sign up for its $10 a month Internet plan. The plan called Internet Essentials is for families with at least one child that qualifies fro the US school lunch program. Comcast also announced it will waives the first six months of fees for new customers in the program. 

News From You

spsheridan submitted the Reuters story that security researcher Ruben Santamarta says he has figured out how to hack the firmware of satellite communications equipment on passenger jets partly through using WiFi and inflight entertainment systems. Santamarta will present his findings Thursday at the Black Hat security conference this week. His procedures have only been tested in IOActive’s Madrid laboratory, and might be difficult to replicate in the real world. 

mranthropology posted the CNET article about a printout of a screenshot of 4Chan post fetching a BID of $90,900 on eBay. The post from Anonymous reads “Art used to be something to cherish. Now literally anything could be art. This post could be art.” A screenshot of the eBay listing of Artwork by Anonymous — had collected more than $50,000 in bids, but was then taken down. 

KAPT_Kipper submitted the Verge article that Elon Musk seems a little spooked after reading the book ‘Superintelligence’ by Nick Bostrom. On Saturday, less than two hours after experienceing a Guardians of the Galaxy induced euphoria, Musk was brought back down to Earth somehow, writing “We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes.” Sunday the man behind Spacex and Tesla Motors was still in a funk writing, “Hope we’re not just the biological boot loader for digital superintelligence. Unfortunately, that is increasingly probable.” 

porkchop_d_clown passes along Gizmodo reports that Japan wants to create a military-based project to monitor space debris. As many as 3,000 individual pieces of trash orbit the earth, moving at speeds up to 22,000 miles per hour. The new force will track debris and share that data with the United States, but the program will also monitor military activity in space. As for what to do with the junk, in January Japan announced a plan to launch a space garbage collection net by 2019.  

Pick of the Day:  Portable USB battery pack via Jamie in Vancouver, Canada.

I just came across this today while researching for a friend. It’s a portable USB battery pack for charging your devices on the go. It packs 11200mAh into its tiny form factor, and you can charge two devices at full speed simultaneously. It supports smartphones, as well as tablets. Best part is the price, only $40! I might be getting one of these for myself, and thought I would share this with you and the listeners of DTNS. Thanks again for an awesome podcast!

Plug of the Day: We’re getting some great pictures from listeners wearing their Daily Tech News Show T-Shirts. There’s still plenty of time to send us a picture of you in YOUR DTNS t-shirt for our special end of year project. Wait, you don’t have a DTNS-T? Well check out Slashloot.com for the very cool shirt with the very cool logo by Mustafa from thepolarcat.com’s logo available in white, black and Ash. Look in the podcasts section.

Tuesday’s guest: Ken Denmead, Grand Nagus at GeekDad.com