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.

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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