2024 Daily Tech News Show


1			TITLE: Blue is Hard	Guest:

2			Stories subject to change up until showtime
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4		tm	Daily Tech News Show is made possible by its listeners. Thanks to all of you including Paul Boyer Bradd Kevin Morgan New Patron: Ed
5			On this episode of DTNS, Dr. Niki explains how stingrays are making us blue. Without the chemicals! Plus are you OK with AI-generated images of food in your restaurant menus? and RIP Apple Car. We barely knew ye. I mean we never knew ye.	Twitch Chat Pop-out Window
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7			Today's date	--== START OF DTNS ==--
8			This is the Daily Tech News for... Tuesday Februrary 27th, 2024. In LA, I'm Tom Merritt
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10			From Studio Animal House I'm Sarah Lane
11			From 'Loosa, I'm Dr. Niki Ackermans
12			And I'm the show's Producer Roger Chang
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16	:01	TM	Let's start with the Quick Hits.
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18			Quick Hits	Quick Hits:
19		sl	Sony announced it's laying off 900 employees, about 8% of its global headcount, and closing down its PlayStation London Studio. This will impact a number of its PlayStation studios, including Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games, and Firesprite. Sony also just missed a PS5 sales target, which saw Sony’s stock lose $10 billion. Analysts also pointed toward a near-decade-low games margin — meaning the cost of making games is eating into Sony’s profits.	https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/27/sony-is-laying-off-900-employees-from-its-playstation-unit/
20		tm	Universal Music Group and TikTok did not renew a license for UMG-distributed music, and around 3 million songs disappeared from TikTok as a results, sometimes causing posts to be muted entirely. A separate deal covered songs published by UMG writers. That deal ends at the end of this week, and if a new agreement isn't reached, around 4 million more songs will not be available on TikTok, causing even more music to be muted./ Since it's based on songwriter, it means it won't be consistent by artist either. Some songs from an artist will remain up, but any that have contributions from a UMG songwriter would go away.	https://www.engadget.com/tiktok-is-muting-more-songs-amid-its-tussle-with-universal-music-161839190.html?src=rss
21		sl	Netflix used to let you subscribe through the Apple app, meaning it had to give Apple a cut of its fees. Then in 2018, it stopped letting new subscribers sign up that way, but let folks who had signed tup through Apple keep being billed that way. Now Netflix is changing that too. Users who were being billed through Apple will now have to provide Netflix another method of payment or lose their subscription. It also means they lose any lower prices they had been grandfathered into as well.	https://www.engadget.com/netflix-removes-grandfathered-accounts-access-to-apple-itunes-billing-055305616.html
22		tm	The Humane AI pin, the little square you wear on your shirt for voice activated assistance, will start shipping out in March in the US, arriving for customers in mid-April. The pin costs $699 and $24 a month. You get a phone number, unlimited data and the ability to ask any question and get an unlimited number of answers either spoken back to you or projected on any surface. Human partnered with T-Mobile for data service in the US, and just announced that South Korea will be its next market in partnership with SK Telecom. SK Telecom will also license Humane's CosmOS for use in its AI products. SK Telecom annocuned a partnership with the AI search engine Perplexity on Monday.	https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/27/humane-announces-first-international-market-for-its-ai-pin-partnering-with-south-koreas-sk-telecom/
23		sl	Nvidia's GeForce Now has a free tier that lets you queue up to get assigned a server to play an hour of games for free at a time. Starting March 5th, Nvidia will show players waiting in the queue up to two minutes of video ads. There won't be any ads during game play itself. Nvidia says it hopes the increased revenue “will reduce average wait times for free users over time.”	https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/26/24084338/nvidia-geforce-now-ads-free-tier
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25			Let's talk a little more about...	Top Stories:
26	:05		SEGMENT A - BIG NEWS
27		sl	Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that Apple has officially canceled "Project Titan" AKA its electric car effort. Apple COO Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch had been leading the Apple Car project since 2021 apparently surprised employees with the news internally on Tuesday to the more than 2000 people working on the Apple Car project. At least some of those employees are said to be moving to Apple's AI team which is led by John Giannandrea, but Gurman's sources say there will also be layoffs. Rumors of Apple's forthcoming electric car have been around since 2014, including everything from a fully autonomous vehicle to a scaled-back software vision, with the most recent whispering of a 2028 release date for… something.	https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/27/24084907/apple-electric-car-project-titan-shuts-down
28				https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-27/apple-cancels-work-on-electric-car-shifts-team-to-generative-ai
29			NOTES: - Earlier this month Wired reported Apple had driven over 45,000 miles in 2023 using the autonomous driving tech it’s developed.
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32	11		SEGMENT B - COHOST SEGMENT
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34		tm	404 Media's Emanuel Maiberg has a report on ghost kitchens using generated images in their menus. Ghost kitchens are restaurants that don't have a location you can visit yourself. Sometimes they're in a warehouse or even someone's house. Sometimes it's an actual restaurant making food under another name. But they show up on delivery apps just like other restaurants. And many of them, though it's unclear how many, are using generators like Stable Diffusion and DALL-E to make images to go with their menus. Reality Defender, a deepfake detection firm, verified to Maiberg that many of the images appear to be generated by a diffusion model. Grubhub specifically told Maiberg it forbids generated images and DoorDash said the images must be realistic depictions of what you'll get and it encourages restaurants to take photos themselves or take advantage of complimentary photo sessions provided by Door Dash. Why does this happen? A few reasons - It's hard to make food look good. That's why chain restaurants spend a lot of money on photo shoots to make their food look unrealistically good in commercials. Most restaurants don't have those budgets though. - The algorithm rewards refreshing your photos, so using generated images can make it practical to do that and boost your rankings. - Consumers respond. We know those photos aren't necessarily what the food will look like when we get it, and yet we all tend to choose food with better photos.	https://www.404media.co/ghost-kitchens-are-advertising-ai-generated-food-on-doordash-and-grubhub/
35			human-made photographs	https://imgur.com/a/bVUw1Uc?ref=404media.co
36			AI-generated images	https://imgur.com/a/pWClrDp?ref=404media.co
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40		tm	What do YOU want to hear us talk about on the show? One way to let us know is in our subreddit. Submit stories and vote on them at dailytechnewsshow.reddit.com	News from you: http://dailytechnewsshow.reddit.com
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42			More Discussion Stories	Discussion Story:
43	:18		SEGMENT D - MAIN TOPIC
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45		sl	We often turn to nature when we want to replicate a phenomeon like flight, cell regeneration or coloring. There's recent research into the ribbontail stingray, specifically how it gets its blue coloring. Its a lot more sophisticated than you think. Dr. Niki can you explain what this research is looking for and how can the results be useful for people?
46		NA	A preprint from the City University of Hong Kong comes to us this week talking about one of the rarest colors in nature: blue! True blue as a pigment in nature is relatively uncommon. If you see in nature, it is usually not created by a pigment but instead a nanostructure. Like in the blue jay or the blue morpho butterfly, they are actually brown, with a specific structural pattern that causes light to scatter and appear blue into your eyes, similar to the effect of a prism. Other animals, like colorful reef fish acquire their blue coloration, created by cells containing organic crystallized compounds. This study, however, explores this blue coloration in stingrays and its newly discovered unique structure.	https://assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-2969747/v2_covered_44077295-9f27-45f9-8e5c-75cf7b5ccfbf.pdf?c=1684960187
47			To show butterfly:	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpho_(genus)
48			To show blue jay	https://www.nature.com/articles/srep18317
49		SL	SL: but people had seen these rays before and… it’s in the name, they are called the blue-spotted ribbontail ray… you can kind of easily tell that they’re blue! What’s new here?
50		NA	What’s new in this study is that in analyzing the nature of these stingray’s coloration, the researchers found that these electric-blue spots were not in fact made of sacs of crystals, called photonic crystals, as one would expect, and would commonly see in nature. Photonic crystals are only visible from a certain direction, this is what also makes them iridescent. Those morpho butterflies for example sometimes look dark brown in a certain light. But to the surprise of the researchers working on these stingrays, their blue coloration was not iridescent and visible from all angles.
51		SL	So what is going on inside these blue dots!
52		NL	The researchers took a closer look with a scanning electron microscope… so a very very close look, and found specialized cells within those blue dots on their skin had a unique arrangement of nano-spheres containing nanocrystals. What was most interesting about these structures, and also what differentiates them from those seen in fish, is that they;re arranged in a non-uniform manner. Usually you’d think this would result in a total scattering of light, and would not hive you much to see but in fact, this unique structure creates a blue color through random scattering of light, which is still visible but loses its iridescence because it is not uniform like in other animals. This is called a photonic glass-ultrastructure and it basically looks like a jar of marbles. It is the first time this type of structural coloration has been described in nature, and also the first time structural color has been described in elasmobranchs (rays and sharks)
53		SL	What are some future applications for this type of structure? a show about a dog called "Photonic-glass-ultrastructure-y?”
54		NA	Because this coloration is created by structure and not a dye, it could be a promising avenue to explore for manufacturing colors that don’t fade and that don’t need additional chemicals to be produced. All the photonic glass we know of right now is manmade, this new biological perspective gives us some more flexibility and may inspire new ways to produce color, on materials like skin!
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58	:26	sl	Mailbag (feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com) (ALT: Kicker)
59			I've been a listener for many years, and finally backed DTNS starting in 2020. I looked back recently and realized just how much value I was getting from the show. I figured I'd give a little back while I can. I've been programming computers for more than 40 years, and been in the tech industry my entire professional life. I've witnessed massive growth, rapid change, and both the thrill and the chaos that comes from both. Staying on top of technology today is difficult. New products are being introduced faster than ever before, and the impact of some products is increasing more than we've ever seen. I find myself often busy, with demands from both work and family eating up my time. Staying abreast of the news has become increasingly challenging. DTNS is my lifeline, enabling me to better understand what's going on in the world of tech without having to sacrifice my other responsibilities. On top of that, Tom, Sarah, and the team accompany me on my occasional commutes to the office. On those days, your voices keep me sane in otherwise insane Boston traffic. I can't thank you enough for that! Thank you all for everything you do. Here's to many more years of DTNS! Kris
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66	:28		Thanks to...	Today’s guest:
67			Dr. Niki Ackermans	Dr. Niki Ackermans https://www.nicoleackermans.com @AckermansNicole @nicoleackermans.bsky.social	https://nicoleackermans.com/
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71			GUEST PLUG 15 SECONDS MAX
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78		tm	Patrons! Stick around for the extended show, Good Day Internet--- it's not just food menus, AI images are sneaking past peer reviewers in scientific papers. In ways you think would be easy to spot. Like that mouse shouldn't look like that.
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80		sl	You can also catch the show live M-F at 4:00 PM eastern/21-hundred UTC find out more at dailytechnewsshow.com/live. We'll be back tomorrow talking about the Video Game History Foundation's unique approach to recording video game history with:	Next guest:
81		sl	Scott Johnson	Scott Johnson http://frogpants.com https://frogpants.substack.com @scottjohnson @scottjohnson@mastodon.sdf.org
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90			GDI CONTENT - Quiz/game/content?	GDI Content:
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92		tm	Last Tuesday the peer-reviewed scientific journal "Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology" published a paper titled "Cellular functions of spermatogonial stem cells in relation to JAK/STAT signaling pathway." The paper was written by three scientists from Xi'an Honghui Hospital and Xi'an Jiaotong University that summarized the current state of sperm based stem-cell research. Fellow scientists who saw the piece were struck by the anatomically incorrect depiction of a rat, as well as diagrams with labels like "dissilced," Stemm cells," "iollotte sserotgomar." The article acknowleged that its images were created by Midjourney, so they wren't trying ito hide it. Still, some questioned if the entire article was written by AI and how something so obviously inaccurate was published in the journal. Niki, How did this pass peer review?	https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/02/scientists-aghast-at-bizarre-ai-rat-with-huge-genitals-in-peer-reviewed-article/
93				https://mashable.com/article/ai-rat-penis-diagram-midjourney-science
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119			ROTATING PROMOS
120			Know A Little More is Tom's podcast to do deep dives into individual topics. And it's coming back this Thursday better than ever. If you have not yet sampled the show, go get subscribed right now. The first episode in the relaunch is about RSS, its rocky history and how it ended up being the underpinning of podcasting. Don't miss it. Subscribe by Thursday at knowalittlemore.com	Subscribe to Know A Little More: http://knowalittlemore.com
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125			If you want to stay up-to-date in the fast-moving world of artificial intelligence you need to listen to "A.I. Named This Show"! Each week Tristran Jutras (ju-tra) and Tasia Custode wade through the hype and the doomsaying to keep you informed about the latest news in the A.I. world. Catch it at "AI Named This Show" dot com!	Check out A.I. Named This Show: https://www.ainamedthisshow.com
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127			Watch Tom'sTop Five. The show where I break down the top five things you need to know about technology. This week I count down the Top Five... XXXX . You can catch it at @dailytechnewsshow on TikTok, @dtnspix on Instagram and youtube at youtube dot com slash daily tech news show!	Check out Tom’s Top Five: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHN12N7TXUyeSz1XWNVjwDvdzpAycENQi
128			Thanks to everyone who became new Patrons and increased their pledges, because of your support we can bring Molly Wood on the show one Friday every other month. But to reach our goal of having Molly one Friday every month we need a bit MORE help! If you haven't already, consider supporting the show by visiting patreon.com slash D-T-N-S!"	Help Bring Molly Wood to the Show: https://www.patreon.com/dtns
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130			All next week is DTNS Experiment week! We're swapping out our normal DTNS show and trying out some new ideas. In previous years we launched shows like BBQ tech show and The Tech Jawn. This year we have Nicole Lee with a show about online life, Roger interviewing people and personalities who made the TechTV network possible just to name a few. It all starts next week Monday Aug 14th on the DTNS feeds.
131			If you want to stay up-to-date in the fast-moving world of artificial intelligence you need to listen to "A.I. Named This Show"! It launched during DTNS Experiment Week in August. Each week Tristran Jutras (ju-tra) and Tasia Custode wade through the hype and the doomsaying to keep you informed about the latest news in the A.I. world. Catch it at "AI Named This Show" dot com!	Check out A.I. Named This Show: https://www.ainamedthisshow.com
132			Apple has lots of power users and hipster users but what about the rest of us? Sarah Lane and Eileen Rivera premiere Apple Vision Show to talk about whther Apple's vision matches with what they want. Get subscribed now applevisionshow.com	Subscribe to Apple Vision Show: https://applevisionshow.com
133			Want a recap of the week’s tech headlines with insights into how technology affects and disaffects communities of color? Then check out The Tech Jawn where hosts Robb Dunewood, Stephanie Humphrey, and Terrance Gaines dive into the top tech stories of the week delivered from points of view you don’t always hear in mainstream media. New episodes land Tuesday afternoons. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. Or visit the tech j-a-w-n dot com.	https://thetechjawn.com/
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