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Daily Tech News Show

18 Jun 2026 · 31m · 17 chapters

Episode artwork

Brain-Computer Interface You Can Use On Your Own for Years - DTNS 5293

In short

A UC Davis/Nature Medicine report on a brain-computer interface (BCI) that let a man with ALS communicate and control a cursor at home without supervision, plus discussion of broader DTNS tech news.

Guests

Dr. Nikki Ackermans (science correspondent; provides interpretation and context).

Guest background

Science communicator/host for DTNS; appears as an expert commentator on tech/science topics.

Key claims

Casey Harrell (47, severe ALS) used four microelectrode arrays (256 cortical electrodes) targeting left precentral gyrus to generate English phonemes and synthesized speech using his own pre-ALS voice; also enabled cursor control. He used it ~3,800 hours over nearly two years, producing 183,000+ sentences (~2M words) at ~56 wpm, ~92% accuracy. Unsupervised at-home use was the major step; data may improve future systems.

Notable examples

“Brand” software translating brain signals; BrainGate 2 trial; discussion of language/translation limits and single-neuron resolution vs EEG.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes.

Chapters

0:33

Breakthrough in Brain-Computer Interfaces

Learn about a study where a man with ALS used a BCI for communication without supervision.

“Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI.”
2:39

Breakthrough in Brain-Computer Interfaces

Learn about a study where a man with ALS used a BCI for communication without supervision.

“We tell you what you need to know, give you important context and help each other understand.”
5:08

Insights on ALS and Communication

Dr. Nikki discusses the implications of using BCIs in ALS patients and the significance of the research.

“Nikki, thank you for helping us understand a little more about this.”
8:00

Advancements in BCIs and Future Applications

Discussion on the potential expansions of BCI technology to other conditions and applications.

“Yeah, I was thinking about what you said about, you know, the area of the brain that they were able to use for this particular BCI.”
10:15

Personalization of BCI Technology

Exploration of how BCI technology is tailored to individual needs and the challenges of wider application.

“really small because neurons are pretty small, but you can, you can't see them like at the naked eye level, but you can see them on a microscopy level and you know where they are.”
16:20

Apple's Price Increases and Supply Chain Issues

Discussion on Tim Cook's statements about price increases and supply chain challenges.

“All right, well, Apple CEO Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal, quote, unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable.”
20:44

Anthropic and Geopolitical Sensitivities

Exploration of Anthropic's challenges with the U.S. government and implications for AI.

“government, meaning Anthropic knew that they were going to tell the U.S.”
24:46

Regulating Emerging Technologies

A nuanced discussion on the intersection of technology, politics, and regulation.

“So it's just fascinating to see how all this plays out and what and I don't know how things shake out.”
28:00

Patreon Changes and Subscriber Reminder

Learn about the changes to the DTNS Patreon and how to support the show directly.

“And if you're a DTNS patron used to getting it in the Patreon, do remember that in July, it is going to not be in the DTNS Patreon anymore.”
28:36

Regulating Emerging Technologies

A nuanced discussion on the intersection of technology, politics, and regulation.

“It's called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping.”
Show all 17 chapters
29:01

Beauty Products and Trends

Get insights into the latest beauty products and shopping tips from Sephora.

“literally stop me and ask what perfume I'm wearing, which you know I love.”
29:44

Gaming and Google Calendar Updates

Stay informed about GTA 6 pre-orders and Google Calendar's new color options.

“As we do, let's finish off with some quick headlines that are just good things to know.”
30:27

MidJourney Scanner and Medical Innovations

Explore the advancements in medical imaging technology with MidJourney's new scanner.

“I am that kind of person with my Google calendar.”
31:37

Waymo's Autonomous Car Developments

Learn about Waymo's updates on autonomous cars and their construction area issues.

“Waymo says it has identified 13 instances where its autonomous cars entered sections of highway closed for construction.”
33:08

AI and Smell Language Model

Discover how INOS and National Taiwan University are developing a smell language model for disease diagnosis.

“Well, INOS, an AI and biotech company, and National Taiwan University are developing a smell language model that they hope can be used to diagnose disease by analyzing volatile organic compounds.”
34:19

Vox Media Acquisition Insights

Discuss the recent acquisitions in the media industry and their implications.

“other parts is getting Vox Studios, Eater, The Verge, SB Nation, PopSugar, The Dodo, Punch, Thrillist, and Vox Creative.”
35:31

Listener Feedback and Show Updates

Engage with listener feedback and learn about upcoming show changes and episodes.

“again, um, luck and whether you just hit the right note with someone.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

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2:38Huyen Tue Dao: This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, June 18th, 2026. We tell you what you need to know, give you important context and help each other understand. Today, Dr. Nikki joins us right here to talk about a new brain computer interface that can be used for longer without supervision. brain control computer yeah i'm tom errett i'm went to it now let's start with what you need to know with that big story a study out of the university of california at davis describes how casey harrell a 47 year old man with severe paralysis caused by als was able to use a brain computer interface or bci to communicate work and interact with people from home over a computer without assistance for a couple of weeks.

3:28Huyen Tue Dao: In 2023, they implanted four microelectrode arrays recording brain activity from about 256 cortical electrodes into Harrell's left precentral gyrus, which most of you know what that is. But if you don't, it's a part of the brain that coordinates the muscles needed for speech. So it's what allows your mouth to move and you can record what he's trying to make his mouth do, even though the mouth might not do it, to understand what he's trying to say. Those signals are translated into English, English language phenomes to be exact, by a software they call Brand. And then that can be read in a synthesized version of Harold's pre-ALS voice.

4:08Huyen Tue Dao: So what he sounded like before ALS became a problem for his speaking. It also gives him cursor control. So he can not only do the thinking to speech, but also control the cursor to send emails and do stuff like that. Harold used the system for nearly two years for a total of 3 ,800 hours. He communicated more than 183 ,000 sentences, close to 2 million words, and he could do it faster than I can type, an average speed of 56 words per minute. Harold said that he found it about 92 % accurate, either exactly what he wanted to say or close enough that there wasn't a meaningful difference. Side benefit of the study is those 3 ,800 hours of brain recording, which is the largest known brain recording data set with single neuron resolution ever, can be used to improve these kinds of systems for others.

5:01Huyen Tue Dao: The device is part of a wider trial called BrainGate 2, which is still enrolling participants. And the article covering the research was published today in the journal Nature Medicine. Dr. Nikki, thank you for helping us understand a little more about this. What's your impression of this research? Well, my impression is that this has been a incremental project that they've been building up on for years. So they've mentioned they've been working on this for two years in the home of this patient. Harold, was it? And so this paper just came out, you know, summarizing those two years and kind of the result of that clinical trial.

5:37But they had been working on it with him in the lab even before that. So this has really been building and getting more and more precise over multiple years. And it's really exciting to see the results from this. I think this is going to be like a really big step ahead for at-home use of this kind of devices. I love that they used his own voice. They trained the speaker on his own voice. I think that's great. I do want to develop a little bit more on that area of the brain. Was it the precentral gyrus that everybody knows? I think this is really interesting that ALS specifically is the example for this.

6:16So amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a disease that affects muscle strength, let's say. And so that's the reason why you're not able, over time, you lose the ability for speech. So the area that they targeted in the brain is an area that controls muscle movement, but throughout the body, although they specifically targeted, you know, like you said the face and the tongue and the throat muscles um so i wanted this is a huge advancement for that specific category but this may not be applicable to all diseases uh where you lose speech for example you can have other types maybe neurological or cognitive based speech impediments and then this would not be the technique you would use to improve speech and still i think it's a hugely forward.

7:04Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah. It feels like, at least from the UC Davis post about this, that the big advancements were unsupervised use. He didn't have to go into a lab. And the fact that he was able to use it for a long time, for a couple of years, is impressive. It's still bulky. It's still not something you're going to put on the shelf, right? Yeah. But I mean, that's a huge step forward for somebody, you know, if you're already wheelchair bound, having to go over to a lab to do these trials, that's a huge, you know, deal and it's not practical. This must be really nice to have in home and be able to use it to speak to your family and just, you know, use it for everyday use, which is why I think they got these 3 ,800 hours out of it.

7:46They said that some days he talked for 12 hours at a time. So I'm sure he's very excited to be able to use this. And I think, you know, now that they have the two-year trial, they'll be able to streamline it a little bit and hopefully implement this with other patients.

8:02Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah, I was thinking about what you said about, you know, the area of the brain that they were able to use for this particular BCI. Of course, there's a lot of BCIs out there doing a lot of different things. I wonder if because they were able to do this for the speech, would it be simpler or at least, you know, maybe this would make it easier to control other parts of the body? so you could have like a robotic prosthesis that could be controlled for arms and legs? I think now, so I don't know the actual answer, but I think that at least it's the same concept and the same principle. If you've ever seen the homunculus, which is like, you know, the parts of the brain, like one part is the mouth and it's like a really silly looking mouth.

8:43Oh yeah,

8:43Huyen Tue Dao: and it's mapped on the brain. Yeah, it's mapped onto that like arch of the brain. Theoretically, you could target each area and you notice that in this article they talk about single neuron control and that's because they know each neuron controls each specific muscle or muscle spindle so i'm assuming this is already the case and this is already being done for other motor impediments whether it's limbs or even you know when als gets really severe they have difficulty swallowing as well so even more like life-saving manipulations like that although they haven't mentioned it in this, so I'm not sure where that's at.

9:16That might be more difficult. I'm not sure. The other thing I was thinking about is whether this is translatable to other languages, because they have their big data set for English, but can someone who's thinking in Spanish use this? I don't think so. I think they'd either have to make a new data set or they would have to translate from the English data set. I don't know.

9:38Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah, I wonder if they could use a generative model to help them bridge that gap faster, right? You know, so they could get to the training faster. Speaking of training, I did not realize that they were able to record. I mean, and they were saying the side benefit, of course, was so much brain recording. I did not realize as just a lay person that you could record like the brain at a single neuron resolution. That's kind of blowing my mind a little bit. Yeah, that's the difference between something like this and an EEG where it just records like group of neurons and brain waves. You probably see this in like the TV shows where they wear like the net on their head.

10:14But you can with very specific pins, pin it onto a really, really small because neurons are pretty small, but you can, you can't see them like at the naked eye level, but you can see them on a microscopy level and you know where they are. Basically, you can tease out the electrical signal if you're saying like, okay, pretend you're speaking. and then that neuron is going to fire or that group of neurons is going to fire. And you can actually pinpoint that literally with a pin and then build this interface. It might be slightly different depending on the person because we all have a bit plastic brains.

10:47So plastic in the sense of like they change a little bit. So, you know, my word for dog might fire a few different neurons, similar area, but not exactly the same as this patient, for example. But that was a good precision question to clarify. That's so interesting. Also, I'm just going to show that this is not like it seems to be at the way it is. It is a very personalized, like literally like for the person, I guess, set up or configuration. So maybe like given how like amazing this sounds, it's probably different reasons why we can't like as as Tom said, we can't just, you know, like, well, I don't know if you meant it this way.

11:24but like just oh start you know like churning these out and and and being able to like serve a lot of people with als and similar conditions because it's just so specialized for a particular person i mean i think that's the next step um probably while they've been running this with this person they've been trying to bring it to another person he probably has like the perfect you know perfect storm of brain that works with this and that's why he was in this trial um and i would assume that they're now like the second stage of the trial would be branching this out to other people and people who have different stages of ALS because it is a progressive disease and potentially other diseases as well.

11:59Huyen Tue Dao: Well, it's nice to have a story about algorithms and brain-computer interfaces and speech-to-text and even synthesizing someone's voice that are all positive uses. Yeah, yeah. And there really wasn't this big highlight about AI in this story. You know, the focus is on the technology. And so this I like. I think this turned out very well. And I'm it's going to keep going. And one day, you know, maybe in 10 years, he'll just have this in his pocket, you know, a little chip in your brain and it's in your phone app. I think we can get there. I mean, you know, right now it looks like all the spaceship stuff used to look like 20 years ago.

12:34It's like 10 screens, all these wires and stuff. But this can be, you know, with enough money, you can shrink it.

12:40Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah. Yeah. If we could put a supercomputer in your pocket, right. We should be able to do that with this. Well, Dr. Nikki, thank you so much for joining us to help us understand a little more about this. is incredibly valuable. Before we let you go, let folks know where they can find more of what you do. Yes, happy to be here. I haven't been on live in a while, but I'm over at NicoleAckermans.com and that's the same handle on Blue Sky and you can find all the stuff I'm doing over there. Fantastic. Thanks, Nikki. Thanks for having me. All right. Well, we are thankful to get Dr. Nikki on the show right now with us.

13:12And we are also thank you for y 'all because DTNS is made possible by you, the listener. So we want to thank Ken Hayes, Philip Shane, Paul Boyer, and Matt. Thank you.

13:29This episode is brought to you by Capital One. Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI. They already deployed one. It's called Chat Concierge, and it's simplifying car shopping. Using self-reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help buyers find a car they love. It helps schedule a test drive, get pre-approved for financing, and estimate trade in value. Advanced, intuitive, and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One. Hi, this is Brooke DeVard from Naked Beauty. I am always looking for ways to elevate our daily rituals.

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16:19Huyen Tue Dao: All right, there's more news to talk about. Let's get to the briefs. All right, well, Apple CEO Tim Cook told The Wall Street Journal, quote, unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable. We're doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we've been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable. So Cook has worked in supply chains since 1988 for IBM and Compaq before coming to Apple in 1998. So it's notable when he says, quote, this is a hundred year flood. I've never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years.

16:55Cook didn't speculate on how much the prices might rise, but the Wall Street Journal estimates it might be around$200 more for the next iPhone Pro. Cook specifically mentioned dram shortages as something he needs to return to reasonable levels. And he added, we're willing to use our balance sheet to help be a part of the solution to help companies increase capacity. One of those companies might be Intel, as the president posted on his own social network that Intel and Apple have an agreement to build some ships in the U.S. No details were announced by the companies, though.

17:30Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah, it does seem like that might be part of that if it ends up being real. I thought at first I thought it was funny that Tim Cook was like, yeah, that next iPhone is going to be more expensive. Good luck, next CEO John Ternus, who will be watching that one. But I think he was actually trying to prepare the ground so that when there is a price increase, nobody's shocked by it. Right. Everybody expects it now because he has said this to The Wall Street Journal. So it seems a strategy to sort of help set expectations. Yeah, I thought that was I did not know that he had worked in supply chain before.

18:02So it is not coming. It is not just I would say just like typical CEO, fluffy. Oh, everything is fine or everything is not fine. rather everything is not fine it's coming from a place of of experience and and i mean i i think i definitely appreciate the transparency even on the part of using their balance sheet to help be part of the solution i suppose we often talk about apple being a big company and having big balance sheets in not necessarily positive ways but i guess this is also the power of b of of being apple and being able to kind of smooth over some edges so for for their customers it's not a bad

18:33Huyen Tue Dao: thing in my opinion problem with building capacity for the stuff is it's slow it takes years to get a factory up and running. And so Intel would make sense if that were true, because they have been building factories and looking for customers for them. So it might be the kind of thing that times out in a way that Intel's like, well, hey, we're going to have this capacity ready in Ohio. So you want to give us the money to finish that factory, you know, we can get you your chips faster. Yeah, it's been one of those things that's kind of most worrying about the recent slate of X's. we're running out of X, I suppose, DRAM in particular, since there's such a ubiquitous, I mean, I think it's ubiquitous and actually sounds kind of silly to say.

19:12It's so needed by so many different devices and systems. And the pivot, there's no way really to pivot. I just think of a pivot as like a fast thing, but for all of these different manufacturers to pivot to different kinds of manufacturing or different manufacturing centers or different supply chain configurations is kind of wild to see. So and maybe that's just part of the hundred year flood part is that the shortage isn't happening in such a way that they cannot respond in a quick enough way to like offset this for some time. So anyway. Yeah.

19:41Huyen Tue Dao: And it's interesting when when Intel was first talking about building factories in Ohio or TSMC was talking about them in Arizona. A lot of the conversation was it's going to be more expensive to do that in the United States than it would be in Taiwan or China. but now DRAM is so much more expensive storage is so much more expensive that maybe that extra expense is not as big of a deal because the price of everything just shot up so high I guess that's one way to I guess that's one way to bring manufacturing it's an yeah I mean it's an interesting effect that no one anticipated right yeah yeah and that's why I don't know sometimes tech seems just like i i know a lot oftentimes we sort of imagine tech to be sort of logic sort of logical but also has some rigor to it but sometimes stuff just happens y 'all yeah and and especially when you bring in the kind of socioeconomic parts of it like stuff just happens you get lucky or unlucky it feels like there's a little bit of both things sort of maybe coming around like that anyway um side note if you're wondering when the next thin iphone air would come out bloomberg's mark german says it will arrive in spring 2027 yeah who knows what it'll cost all right as of this recording there has been no deal announced to let anthropic bring its mythos and fable five models back online for foreign nationals and therefore for everyone uh meanwhile in the absence of that kind of news lots of other details about what happened have begun to come out axios's maria curie appeared on justin robert young's politics politics politics podcast this week and mentioned that Amazon had contacted Anthropic about the potential jailbreak before they contacted the U.S.

21:21Huyen Tue Dao: government, meaning Anthropic knew that they were going to tell the U.S. government about it and knew exactly what they were going to tell them. Even before that, the U.S. had apparently objected to Anthropic giving access to Mythos, the full version of the model, to chipmaker SK Hynix from South Korea. Yeah, SK Hynix is a South Korean company. It is a South Korean chipmaker, but it's also one of those big South Korean chables that does a lot of other things. And they have some businesses in China. It's like about$1.9 billion worth of business. So not nothing. And the U.S. was concerned about maybe those clients possibly getting access to Mythos.

22:00Huyen Tue Dao: SK Hynix says it has no ties to China as a government, but its access to Mythos was revoked at the request of the U.S. government earlier this month. A source at Anthropic told Wired that the companies view these as separate issues. They don't think the China thing with SK Hynix has anything to do with the Fable 5 stuff. Anthropic announced Thursday that it is opening an office in Seoul in order to pursue collaborations with LGCNS, Naver Cloud, the National AI Research Lab, CAST, Korea University, Yonsei University, Postec, and of course, wait for it, SK Telecom. uh anthropic itself is putting out some information with anthropic co-founder jack clark so different face than dario amode saying that discussions on securing access might end up looking similar to know your customer standards that govern the banking industry so if you've ever run into a situation where they're like oh we need more verification on your id before we can you know open up your account or give you access back to your account that's know your customer standards.

23:03Huyen Tue Dao: And they're considering something similar like that for these kinds of restricted models. Bloomberg has also obtained the text of the letter from U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that detailed the restrictions put in place on Fable 5 on June 12th. If you're really into this story, that's just something good to know. I didn't find anything terribly surprising other than Lutnick threatened some financial penalties and criminal penalties if they didn't comply. But they did comply. So that's either here or there. I guess the tenor of it is interesting to see as well. But yeah, I thought we would have something brewing on releasing this model by now.

23:42Huyen Tue Dao: And I'm going to, while you react, Gwen, just double check and make sure it hasn't happened since we started talking. But we haven't, yeah, we haven't yet. This all just feels like, so I mean, a lot of what's going on is very obviously, this is not surprising, unprecedented. And it's always interesting to see in response to technology, especially new technologies that we don't have any of these frameworks for, especially when you get into the larger geopolitics of it, and even like the day to day human interactions with it. We have no basis for any of this. I don't even know what to describe this as.

24:15And so it's really fascinating to see, like, you know, the last two or three years all been about this weird, you know, cold, not hot war. It's not a cold war, hot war between all the major, you know, model makers on who's doing what faster and which model is ahead of what at this time and how much are they are they costing and what plans they are. But now we're getting into the kind of like true. It's just it's just kind of fascinating to see that the scale, the scale and the speed at which this is happening. Now we're getting into true like consequences, geopolitics and everything. And there's no again, there's no precedent for this.

24:46So it's just fascinating to see how all this plays out and what and I don't know how things shake out. I've never I mean, can you think of any other kind of we'll label it software, software that just by its existence causes this much Sturm und Drang? I can't. Encryption.

25:03Huyen Tue Dao: That's the closest thing I can think of is the battles over encryption, both in the 90s in the Clinton administration and a little bit in the 2000s when people were, you know, printing a encryption key on shirts and saying this is this distribution. Am I not allowed to do this? Yeah. That was the only thing that came to mind is in regards to software anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Did you check on the models? How are the models doing? The models are not available. OK, not available. And I see no news otherwise at this point. The last thing I'll say on this is I think it's tempting to view this as right versus left and very political.

25:41Huyen Tue Dao: And I'm not trying to deny that that is an aspect of this, but I don't think it cleanly breaks down that way. If your analysis is like, well, of course they don't want Anthropic to succeed. They hate them. I don't think that's what's going on. I don't think Amazon turns this over if that's what's going on, because Amazon is a huge investor in Anthropic. I don't think you have Howard Lutnick stepping in to try to resolve the problem earlier with the Defense Department and now stepping in and being involved in this way if he's not concerned about the impact this could have on the economy. uh so i did while there's a lot of personality involved in this i don't think it breaks down cleanly as like and you know one side good one side bad uh it's it's a lot more complicated than that no i totally agree with you there it's and it's very easy to do the lot to do the latter but there are like you know a depend regardless of your political inclinations or leaning there are big implications to again what even just from what we've seen from what or what we've heard that we've seen what we've heard mythos can do um a lot of these have wide impacts and i guess like again towards the how do you um regulate tech is a very hard question especially at this scale and it's i wouldn't say it's neutral it's inherently political but that the the goals and the the desire and the needs to do so i wouldn't i wouldn't say are politically neutral but are just pragmatic, if anything, for any singular entity or government.

27:10It's just, I hate to say the cost of doing business, but it is what happens when tech diffuses into our lives at different levels, at different scopes and scales like this.

27:21Huyen Tue Dao: Yeah. I think a great example of that is something people forget, which is even after the supply chain risk was declared, and that's now being fought out in the courts, other parts of the US government outside of the Defense Department were like, yeah, but we're going to keep using it, right? And even the Defense Department, the Department of War continues to use it because they're in the grace period of six months that was declared as well. So everybody wants to use these models from Anthropic because they're good models. On an entirely different topic, Live With It, the show that reviews product services and platforms we actually live with, it is off on its own now.

27:58Huyen Tue Dao: It has its own YouTube channel. It has its own Patreon. And if you're a DTNS patron used to getting it in the Patreon, do remember that in July, it is going to not be in the DTNS Patreon anymore. So if you want to subscribe to the public feed, that's free. You can go do that. Or you can support Live With It directly at its brand new Patreon, patreon.com slash livewithit. And let us know what you'd like to see on a future show. It doesn't even have to be brand new, just something you really want to deep dive on.

28:32This episode is brought to you by Capital One. Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI. They already deployed one. It's called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping. Using self-reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help buyers find a car they love. It helps schedule a test drive, get pre-approved for financing, and estimate trade in value. Advanced, intuitive, and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One.

29:29literally stop me and ask what perfume I'm wearing, which you know I love. So if you want the makeup, skincare, hair, and fragrance products everyone's about to be obsessed with, shop only at Sephora.

29:44Huyen Tue Dao: As we do, let's finish off with some quick headlines that are just good things to know. Well, amazingly, Grand Theft Auto 6 pre-orders will open on June 25th, indicating it might actually come out on November 19th instead of getting delayed again. Yeah. Still don't know how much it is, though. I guess we'll find out in a week. I'm guessing above$70. If you have suffered to differentiate your Google Calendar items with its paltry 11 color options, suffer no more, my friends. Google announced it has expanded to offer up to 200 custom colors. and even by default, you'll now get 24 that you don't even need the color picker to use.

30:25I am so going to use about 100 of those, I swear. I can't wait. Are you really? Yes, I am. I am that kind of person with my Google calendar. That's great. All right, well, image generator company MidJourney announced the MidJourney scanner, a full-body ultrasound scanner that it says has advantages over an MRI in being quicker, about 60 seconds, with no need for radiation or magnets. It does not use any kind of generative model in the scanning. It also does not yet have any FDA approval.

30:57Huyen Tue Dao: So don't get too excited. But I'm pretty excited. I want this to work. Right. And it was it was I think everybody's like, well, they're using AI. And it's like they're not they are. They are actually going to use some algorithms on the categorization end to help diagnosticians. but the ultrasound algorithm stuff is just an entirely different situation going on. So yes, this will not pass an MRI, but in some cases it might be more useful just because it's quicker and I don't need to like, you know, stick my head or get injected with anything. Yeah. And maybe there's less restrictions if you have metal in your body or things like that.

31:36Huyen Tue Dao: Stuff like that. Yeah. Waymo says it has identified 13 instances where its autonomous cars entered sections of highway closed for construction. It has proactively notified regulatory agencies and restricted freeway operations while it deals with the issues. Most of the time, their cars don't go into construction areas, but there were some situations where there were multiple hazards to avoid and it chose to go into the closed section, which is a bad choice, obviously. So they're going to try to figure out why it did that and stop it from doing it our reviews are out for the hp omni book 3 laptop which generally compares favorably to the macbook neo with long battery life and a sharp 2k oled screen it's available for just more than 500 in most outlets yeah so the price is a little bit more than the neo but honestly uh if well wait no actually it's a little bit less than neo depending you know depending on whether you get the school discount now that i think about it um and yeah and zedinet That particularly was like, if you want a version of this that uses Windows, you know, if you're like looking at the Neo, but you need to use Windows, it's a good option for you.

32:44Huyen Tue Dao: Big thanks to Motang on our subreddit for pointing out that Ars Technica has a detailed article about AMD pulling decade old transparent secure memory encryption or TSME from some of the lower end chips it offers. And not only did they do that, which, you know, maybe you could argue it's not as necessary as it was 10 years ago, but they did it in ways that are hard to detect, almost impossible to detect on Windows and even difficult to detect on Linux, which I think makes people get a bad taste in their mouth. Well, INOS, an AI and biotech company, and National Taiwan University are developing a smell language model that they hope can be used to diagnose disease by analyzing volatile organic compounds.

33:29Huyen Tue Dao: Now, the register, I think, is the one that coined smell language model, but it's too good not to use. That's really cool. It's really, really cool. It's fair. I want to use that too. Yeah, but this is great. I mean, there's been a lot of work done on trying to analyze odors, you know, or volatile compounds and being able to diagnose. I've seen a lot of these at CES over the years. So being able to use an algorithm to try to learn what they mean, I think is an interesting approach as well. finally penske media corporation aka pmc which operates a lot of publications like variety magazine billboard deadline has now acquired the parts of vox media that were not previously acquired by james murdoch's lupa systems last month vox itself got acquired by murdoch but a lot of parts were left as a spin-out company which will now become part of pmc so pmc uh among a few other parts is getting Vox Studios, Eater, The Verge, SB Nation, PopSugar, The Dodo, Punch, Thrillist, and Vox Creative.

34:30Huyen Tue Dao: Wow. All right. Well, we end every episode of DTNS with some shared perspectives. Today, Mohan has an observation on why Apple is renaming its chatbot Siri AI. Yeah, I thought this was a particularly compelling. Mohan writes, Honestly, adding plus to things was a good marketing gimmick as it gave normal people information that it is Disney, but with more. The plus was the but with more part. In that sense, Siri is just Siri. But when you tack on AI to it, normal people will think, oh, hey, this is new. Maybe I should give it a try. That's a really good observation. I've always been I've always thought that about Disney Plus, although as a as a programmer, I would love for it to have been Disney++.

35:16But I mean, that's a really good point. The next one should be Disney++. No, the next one should be Disney++. That's fair. Yeah, I mean, this is the thing, right? Naming things is hard, even for both engineers and marketing folks. And I suppose you always want to kind of signal things to people and whether people respond to that name or think it's hilarious and or otherwise. Max, HBO. I guess it just kind of depends. again, um, luck and whether you just hit the right note with someone. So I don't know. It doesn't, I don't know. I, I, I, at this point, I'm just like, yeah, sure. Makes sense. I mean,

35:51Huyen Tue Dao: maybe I'll start calling the weekend additions of DTNS DTNS plus plus. Cause you're getting more on Saturday. And then if there's a Sunday, it's DTNS plus plus. Oh yes. They, Oh, see, that is nice. Okay. Thank you for that. Thank you. All right. All right. Well, what are you thinking about? Do you have any suggestions, uh, on names or Or just good stories for us. Or do you have some insight? We would love to hear it. Feedback at DailyTechNewsShow.com. Reminder, no show tomorrow because of the U.S. holiday. We'll be back over the weekend with a conversation with a data center employee about what it's like inside the fastest growing industry in the world.

36:25Huyen Tue Dao: And then back on Monday for regular news. Thanks to Mohan for contributing to today's show. Thank you for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You are the folks that keep us in business. please continue to support us or begin to support us at patreon.com slash DTNS. This week's episodes of Daily Tech News Show were created by the following people. Host, producer, and writer Tom Merritt. Host and writer Jason Howe. Co-host Sarah Lane. Co-host Rob Dunwood. Co-host Wen Tui Dao. Producer Anthony Lemos. Producer Roger Chang. Editor Hammond Chamberlain. Editor Victor Bognat. Contributing producers Kevin Tech, Noel Cow, and Brandon Richards.

37:04Huyen Tue Dao: Science correspondent Dr. Nicky Ackermans Social media producer and moderator Zoe Detterding Our mods Beatmaster, WSGOTUS1, BioCow, Captain Kipper, Steve Guadarrama Paul Reese, Matthew J. Stevens and J.D. Galloway Mod and video hosting by Dan Christensen Music provided by Martin Bell and Dan Luters Art by Len Peralta Acast ad support from Ali Gallo Patreon support from Bobby Wagner Our guest this week was Justin Robert Young and thanks to all the patrons who make the show possible

37:42The DTNS family of podcasts. Helping each other understand.

37:49Huyen Tue Dao: Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.

37:55This episode is brought to you by Capital One. Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI. They already deployed one. It's called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping. Using self-reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help buyers find a car they love. It helps schedule a test drive, get pre-approved for financing, and estimate trade-in value. Advanced, intuitive, and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One. Think of a toilet as just an everyday object. Your entire perspective shifts the moment you experience a Kohler Smart Toilet.

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From the publisher

Dr. Niki helps us understand the importance of this BCI advance, plus Apple signals a price increase.


Starring Tom Merritt, Huyen Tue Dao, and Dr. Niki


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