

31 Jul 2025 · 36m · 17 chapters

DTNSB 5072 (Daily Tech News Show) focuses on the U.S. ending the de minimis trade exemption for packages worth $800 or less from all countries, effective Aug 29, 2025. The hosts discuss how this removes a duty-free loophole, expanding tariff application by country of origin even for low-value imports. They also cover related market impacts (Temu/PDD, AliExpress/AliExpress, Amazon) and potential effects on independent sellers on Etsy/eBay and small entrepreneurs relying on low-cost overseas supply chains.
Dr. Nikki Ackerman (science communicator; Utrecht University archaeology modeling story). She explains how computer models and LiDAR helped identify a Roman camp.
De minimis removal will raise costs and disrupt marketplace viability for small sellers; consumers may face higher prices and reduced variety. AI can aid archaeology by narrowing likely sites.
A Roman camp found ~25 km north of the Rhine using LiDAR/elevation models plus Roman camp shape and marching-distance assumptions; artifacts dated to the 2nd century.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes.
Discussion on the implications of the de minimis exemption being eliminated and its effects on businesses and consumers.
“but you also don't have an hour every morning to sift through headlines.”
Discussion on the implications of the de minimis exemption being eliminated and its effects on businesses and consumers.
“We'll talk about the rest of them in the briefs.”
Exploration of how small businesses might adjust to the new tariffs and the potential market shifts that may occur.
“Like part of, part of that is being able to be accessible to people through, through your pricing.”
Analyzing how pricing changes could lead to more sustainable practices in product consumption and creation.
“I don't know if it's safe to call it correcting, you know, settles into the new normal, let's put it that way.”
Learn how ChatGPT can streamline project management and feedback processes.
“Slack threads and script trackers are all in different places.”
Explore Microsoft's strong earnings and shifts in gaming hardware sales.
Explore Microsoft's strong earnings and shifts in gaming hardware sales.
“Well, Microsoft's earning this week were strong, placing the company in the$4 trillion market cap club, along with NVIDIA.”
Discussing the implications of AI integration in smart glasses.
“I mean, I guess just the not elephant in the room, this current economic situation with probably playing into it as well.”
Understanding the new alliance aimed at improving health data sharing.
“And I think it's I think I'm a person who tends to be very critical and maybe even cynical of things like this being said.”
Examining AI's role in environmental mapping and monitoring.
“Apple, Google, Amazon, Anthropic, and OpenAI have all joined with federal officials and major U.S.”
Explore the role of AI in creating innovative tech solutions amidst climate challenges.
“Not everything is a perfect use for AI, right?”
Learn about a startup that creates custom animated TV shows using AI and user inputs.
“And this is kind of a big deal because if this happens as expected, the S26 series, at least here in the U.S., would have their Exynos chip, right?”
Discover the new AI tools that Uber Eats is implementing to enhance user experience.
“But I have believed for a while that someone would come along to be like, you know what?”
Delve into how AI is revolutionizing archaeological discoveries, including a new Roman camp.
“Summarizing consumer or customer reviews, that also makes sense to me.”
Delve into how AI is revolutionizing archaeological discoveries, including a new Roman camp.
“Well, if you have feedback about anything that gets brought up on the show, You can get in touch with us on the socials at DTNessShow on X, Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky and Mastodon.”
Engage with audience feedback and wrap up the episode with thanks and acknowledgments.
“Yesterday, Tom accidentally left out some important stuff, some important words when he wrote that Microsoft Authenticator will stop working on August 1st.”
Discussion on the upcoming changes to Microsoft Authenticator and its functionalities.
“The Authenticator itself will keep working as it's used with Hotmail, Outlook.com and MS35 Enterprise authentication, TOPTs and authorization push notifications.”

Get the gist, explore an idea or ask about something said.
On Daily Tech News Show, what are the key points of this episode?
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.
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2:54Your first three videos are free at heygen.com slash pod. That's H-E-Y-G-E-N dot com slash P-O-D. This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, July 31st, the last day of July 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up in the context of those stories, and help each other understand. Today, Dr. Nikki tells us about using computer models for discovering archaeological history and the de minimis exception is going away for everyone. That's right. I'm Jason Howell. I'm Huynh White Dowell. Let's start with what you need to know with the big story. There were a few big stories this week. We'll talk about the rest of them in the briefs.
3:35But the U.S. Presidential Administration has issued an executive order eliminating the de minimis trade exemption for packages worth$800 or less from all countries. This actually goes into effect, not immediately, it goes into effect August 29th. So you've still got a little less than a month if you want to like cram some shipments in or something. The loophole previously allowed low value goods to enter the U.S. duty free. So, you know, if there was a tariff on a country, if it was less than$800, it wouldn't apply to that. That's going away. This change effectively means all imported goods are going to be subject to country based tariffs, regardless of their value.
4:18Now, in May, you may be wondering, like, wait a minute, didn't this already happen? Well, yes, it sort of did. The administration had banned de minimis shipments from China and Hong Kong. The change now is that this expands globally, regardless of the country of origin. So it's kind of going away for good. shares of PDD Holdings, they're the owner of Temu, dropped after the announcement. You might be asking, like I was, why would Temu shares drop after the announcement of this if things went into effect in May for China and Hong Kong? Well, Temu, yes, is based in China, but still benefited by routing some of those shipments through other countries, using global suppliers to get around those tariffs.
5:00Now that avenue is going to be blocked for good. Xi 'an and AliExpress also facing a similar challenge there. Amazon shares dropped after the announcement as well. Amazon has this happening all over the map, but also has a low cost storefront called Hall that relies directly from shipments coming from places like China. Now the change is also, and I think this is maybe something that we can talk about a little bit, going to impact independent sellers in marketplaces like Etsy, eBay, Amazon Global, who fulfill their orders for warehouses outside of the US. So it's not just the companies that I think often come up in conversations around this de minimis thing like Temu, Shein, AliExpress, those places.
5:49It's also little mom and pop outfits. And I'm going to be really curious to see how this impacts storefronts like Etsy, because a lot of people, you know, they make their business on Etsy. And I don't know. I'm curious about that. It's crazy because I think I've focused so much with Amazon in the store, just because I feel like most of the things that I've bought of Amazon come from China, for better, for worse. But I really think that was an important point to bring up is that, yeah, Etsy, eBay. And looking back, I've bought so many things, especially like sellers on Etsy and eBay, like again, individual people, as you said, just people just trying to like start their own small business.
6:27I have, I think the majority of the things that I've bought off of eBay and Etsy are from Europe, are from Japan. And I, I can't even imagine like how this is going to impact that and what that could do, especially, you know, I mean, and I know like a lot of times people try to buy local, like I think it's, you know, obviously like it's always cheaper to kind of buy more in your area. But I do believe that there have been some sellers that I've, I've gotten a really nice note from them saying, Hey, like really cool to see like someone in America buying my things. And obviously like, you know, customers and transactions are important.
7:02So yeah, that's a really great point to make out to make. I have no idea whether this is going to just make people kind of contract, interact their markets and the regions they serve based on because of this, like out basically ever, but here or what. But it definitely is going to be, it feels like it's going to be a shift if this keeps up. I don't know. Yeah. And the big changes to how this stuff, a lot of like independent makers, creators, entrepreneurs who have an idea for a product or something that they want to explore. And they're able to do that largely because there is kind of an affordable supply chain, let's say, in tapping into these places outside of the US to get lower cost goods.
7:51And of course the import tax not applying and everything. When you're an independent and you're creating these products like that, every penny counts. And so someone, so I mean, I think ultimately this means that there will be not a not insignificant percentage of entrepreneurs on sites like eBay and Etsy who are going to be so impacted by the changing dynamics here that it makes their business not viable. And I mean, I guess that's just part of the game, right? Like this is just how business works on a long enough timeline. You're going to encounter shifting market issues and stuff. But it certainly goes counter to what I feel like we've seen for a very long time, which is that they can be a rich, vibrant place to go for some really interesting, unique, not the kind of stuff that you see on a Best Buy shelf, but something that's really specific and unique that I don't want that kind of uniqueness to go away.
8:50And I hope that it doesn't. No, I really love that point, too. Like, as you said, like, if you're a small manufacturer or a small, small entrepreneur with a big idea, you rely on this current, you know, on the well on the the soon to be past, you know, I guess, set up of this de minimis exception and being able to, you know, yeah, get get more, get your goods or get your kind of products, your your prototypes made cheaply and being able to like actually distribute them because not everybody can afford, you know, like, you know, know, very custom, you know, high price items. Like part of, part of that is being able to be accessible to people through, through your pricing.
9:27Actually on that point, one of the things that, that I've seen is like, so I'm sorry, I'm a fitness nut, but like, um, there are a lot of niches in fitness. I think that's kind of obvious. And I think there was one gal that I actually met at a kettlebell conference. Yes, I went to one. It's not really a conference, but something like that. A whole conference on kettlebells? It was a whole event on kettlebells. But there were like alternate forms of fitness as well. And this one lady is part of like, it's called flow rope. It's like jump rope without the jumping, which I know sounds weird, but it's almost like, um, kind of like, if you imagine like, think of like a nunchuck movements where you kind of are like whipping it around and like, kind of like that, but with a simple jump rope.
10:02And she makes all of her ropes by herself. Like she gets all the raw materials in predominantly from China and she makes them herself. She has her own warehouse. She assembles them. She handles marketing, everything by herself. And she has been very adamant for months now since the tariff announcements that, okay, look, in order for me to make my business viable, I need to either raise prices or that's it. And so I think that's just one small example from my personal life of like, yeah, like who would, who would, you know, how would that business happen? It's such a niche thing. I had to like explain it in an interesting way.
10:36And like just the idea that people like her would not have an opportunity to take an idea and reach people, be able to actually make her business a reality, it's kind of upsetting. And I don't know what that will mean in the future. Does that just mean that we're going to end up kind of being siloed in a sense? I don't know. It's just, I don't know. I mean, or does it mean that when things adjust and the pricing, you know, corrects, and I mean, I don't know if it's safe to call it correcting, you know, settles into the new normal, let's put it that way. Do people adjust from a spending perspective?
11:16Do consumers accept the fact that this thing that used to cost me$20 now costs me$40? That's just the way it is. That's the way that it's been for the last two years. And so does it still matter to me enough to spend$40 on it because I like the thing? But it just, it stinks to have to do that, especially at a time when I I feel like everyone I know is complaining about the rising costs of the world, you know, of everything. And so this, you know, doesn't help that, but it is what it is, I guess. It's just how it all rolls. I did have one thought that maybe out of this, part of this might be, and I've already mentioned this, like the commoditization of certain things on like places like Amazon, like because we're smartphone people.
12:01We talk about smartphones all the time, accessories and the accessory systems. And I think that there are certain parts of our lives that have become so commoditized. We're used to disposing of things very easily, like especially since with the tech churn where I buy a device, I buy all the accessories for it. All of those things get, you know, you know, are out of date by like the next generation. So I end up kind of just either hanging on to them because I don't want to throw them away or disposing of a lot of things. And that's because, again, because things have become like a certain kind of classes of product have become so cheap.
12:32We're used to treating them like commodities. I don't think this is a net positive for the world, but I wonder if anything, maybe the silver lining is that maybe, as you said, in not, I hate saying this because we just had this conversation, but like that there are certain classes of things that maybe should be, we need to think more carefully, or maybe this will maybe tune us as human beings to maybe be more, as you said, like, I don't want people to not have, you know, be able to kind of create new products and new ideas. That's really important, but that we need to be kind of more, I don't know, create more, create the more sustainable ways.
13:03I don't know. Yeah. No, I think that's a really fair point. This probably, I'm guessing, I mean, not being an economics major, full disclosure, but I'm imagining that that probably has some sort of an impact on that. If things aren't so ridiculously low priced that they do become expendable and commoditized and everything, maybe that minimizes certain things, you know, as far as the environmental impact is concerned. and thought of that. Good point. Okay. Well, do you know what is not, not be affected by the de minimis exception is us because DTMS is made possible by you, the listener. We want to take the time to thank Jim Hart, Mike Akins, Norm Fazekas, and welcome new patrons, Jacob, Kwokwi, Robinson, and Jonathan.
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17:00There's more we need to know today. Let's get right to the briefs. All right. Well, Microsoft's earning this week were strong, placing the company in the$4 trillion market cap club, along with NVIDIA. Microsoft's Azure Cloud was a big driver of the company's revenue growth, seeing a 34 % bump from last year. Microsoft revealed that Xbox console sales dropped by 22%, even while gaming revenue rose by 10 % thanks to strong growth in Game Pass subscriptions and first-party titles. Players appear to be spending less on hardware and more on digital content, cloud streaming, and new game releases. Yeah, I guess, you know, at times when people are watching what they're spending and everything, maybe it's just a little bit easier to buy that subscription and not buy a brand new console.
17:47How long has Microsoft's latest console been out? Oh, my gosh. Not being a gaming console nerd guy. I'm not a Microsoft person either. We're so sorry, Microsoft. It's been a while. Well, you know, like, I guess what I'm thinking without having done the proper research on this is, you know, we've obviously this is not very directly impacted by the Nintendo Switch 2 release because that literally just came out. And this is more, you know, this requires more time, more context for what Microsoft's talking about here. But if the console hasn't been out, you know, maybe you've for, you know, has been out for long enough, then that kind of makes sense to me.
18:27Things are going to slow down there. The people who already have the consoles are going to invest more in the things like subscriptions, in the things like games to power the console they already have. Maybe it speaks to a lack of interest or passion driving the current Xbox console generation compared to what PlayStation has and Nintendo Switch has. All that to say, I'm not a deep games knowledge guy. So you can write into DTNS and complain about my thoughts on that. A quick Google search is that the latest Xbox Harbor release was the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, which both launched in 2020.
19:04Okay. So they have been around for long enough. I mean, that's five years. You know? But I think to be fair, yeah. I mean, I guess just the not elephant in the room, this current economic situation with probably playing into it as well. I mean, because that was 2020. That seems to jive with other just general, again, not an economist, general trends of things like, you know, expensive, like large purchases, like a hardware console. Yeah. Maybe just trends as we're seeing in the gaming industry of a real focus on like cloud gaming. Yeah. Yeah, more and more. To kind of, I guess, keep people purchasing, but not, you know, in these kind of large, like, investments, like every two, three, four, five years.
19:45I don't know what the scale is. But yeah, no. Yeah. Interesting. Well, unrelated to gaming and earnings, but still related to Microsoft, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority finds that Microsoft's software licensing practices are harming, they say, cloud competition. They say that is actually driving up costs for rivals like Amazon and Google. Poor Amazon. Poor Google. In the UK market, highlighting Microsoft's, quote, significant market power, the CMA recommends further requirements on big tech cloud providers to make pricing fairer and to give consumers more choice. Now, Microsoft is pushing back.
20:24They say the CMA has missed the mark once again, pointing to its failure to notice Google's increasing cloud presence in the UK as a solid competitor in the space. All right. Well, Meta's Q2 earnings topped expectations while detailing heavy investments in AI infrastructure that coincides with the company's full court press on building its super intelligence lab vision. CEO Mark Zuckerberg first shared a blog post ahead of yesterday's earnings call and then expanded on his thoughts during the call, stating his belief that glasses are the ideal form factor for the future of AI. He said, quote, I think in the future, if you don't have glasses that have AI or some way to interact with AI, I think you're probably going to be at a pretty significant cognitive disadvantage compared to other people.
21:12Meta's Ray-Ban collaboration has tripled in revenue over the past year, according to Essilor Luxottica, who makes the smart glasses for Meta. Zuckerberg loves his glasses. I don't disagree with him. I mean, to a certain degree, I don't disagree with him. I think that the combination of where things are heading with AI, with artificial intelligence, and the potential of having an always on you, always contextualizing your environment device, if people want that or not. Either if people want to be wearing it or if people want to be faced with it when they run into you, which is, you know, more than a couple of times happened while I've worn the Oakley meta glasses where people are like, I don't know, it's kind of creepy.
21:56Like as I'm talking to you, there's a camera staring at me. You know, there's still a ways to go for all this stuff. But I agree with him from the perspective that those two technologies really are very complimentary. And so there's a lot of potential there. I just I feel like we have to look a ways down the road to potentially find a pathway in our future where the majority of people are wearing these things. I'm not saying it's not going to happen, but I'm saying we're a far away. We're probably as far away from that as we are from super intelligence. to be honest. No, I totally agree with you.
22:31And I think it's I think I'm a person who tends to be very critical and maybe even cynical of things like this being said. But I think you're right. If you just gave me that statement, like I cannot agree, disagree with that statement, like just in general, because that's just how tech works. Right. Like as soon as something gets kind of like broad adoption, it like just like smartphones, like this in a sense is nothing like smartphones, not to say that we shouldn't be unplugging more and we don't do a lot of things without our phones, but a lot of our society has adapted to the assumption that most people have a smartphone because things are like QR code based where you do this and you do everything is like digital, like in our, in our palm.
23:07So I think, I think I agree with you. I generally don't disagree with the statement, but yes, I think you're a hundred percent right. There is a big gap in a lot of different factors between society today and this future society where we're all like functioning and functioning in a functional way with AI glasses that are recording and or just sensing everything all the time. Yeah. Zuckerberg continues to have a very utopian view as a lot of big tech leaders that are really, really pushing the AI narrative. Very utopian view, or at least how they communicated is very utopian. And I don't think it takes a lot to look at it through a scrutinizing lens and go, okay, hold up there, buckaroo.
23:52Like I get where you're coming from and you have a lot to benefit and, you know, from coming from that place. But the rest of us have to live with it. And I don't know that everybody is very comfortable living with it, at least at this stage. At least the people that I speak to that have nothing to do with, you know, technology and their regular daily lives. They're the ones that tell me like, oh, like I just, I don't, I'm not there yet. Apple, Google, Amazon, Anthropic, and OpenAI have all joined with federal officials and major U.S. health systems in an agreement to make fragmented health data more useful to patients and providers.
24:34Now, the alliance, which was announced at a White House event yesterday, apparently is all about breaking down barriers in digital health so people can access, use, and share their health information, which we can all agree has become incredibly fragmented and complicated, right? Even when I go into like Kaiser and there needs to be some sort of like health data sharing or whatever, it's always more complicated than it feels like it needs to be. The agreement here doesn't force companies to hand over trade-sensitive data, at least not that I could find out. Instead, it invites tech firms who, by the way, voluntarily chose to take part to help set standards and improve product development under the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services framework.
25:24So to my understanding, this isn't about tech companies agreeing to share patient data. This isn't like, yeah, give us all your data and we're going to improve our models, blah, blah, which I think a lot of people, their immediate reaction to this is that is you're seriously going to give these companies all this information. Rather, my understanding is it's agreeing to meet an interoperability framework that hopefully gives patients more choice to share data through it in a better way than what we have right now, which is clearly not great.
26:27So, yeah. people have options and that we can kind of, I don't know, make the quality of life and these products better overall, like high tide lifts all boats. So from that perspective, it makes sense. Just the idea that makes sense. Yeah. Now, the devil could be in the details. Yeah, details. And, you know, if you go on to TechMeme, you see a lot of response to this, which is like, are you kidding? Blah, blah, blah. And I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm not saying that there aren't reasons to be concerned or to look deeper. But I am also saying that like the health, you know, health data and sharing and the way health records have been done in the past.
27:06I've always felt like there's got to be a better way than the way it is because this is just ridiculous. And so, hey, if you're working towards a better way, I'm for at least exploring it. So there you go. 100 percent. Alpha Earth Foundations by Google DeepMind is a new digital mapping platform that uses information from satellites, radar, LIDAR, and climate simulations to create detailed summaries of every, every 10 by 10 meter patch of land on Earth. 10 by 10 meter patch. This project creates the largest satellite embedding data set yet. And it lets partners like the United Nations and conservation groups track land use, detect deforestation, and monitor agriculture or ecosystem changes with speed and a 24 % accuracy improvement over prior models.
27:55I mean, this just strikes me. There are certain AI efforts that come along that I'm like, oh, this is the perfect use for AI. Not everything is a perfect use for AI, right? Not everything is made immediately better with AI in the mix. But this just strikes me as one of those things like, all right, I bet this leads to some really positive outcomes at a time when climate is hurting. And so that can't be a bad thing, in my opinion. No, I'm with you. I'm all for this, please. More of this. More of this. Yeah. Samsung announced during its earnings call, as you can tell, there were a lot of earnings in the last 24 hours, announced during its earnings call that the Exynos 2600, that's Samsung Foundry's next mobile chip officially announced, will be its first that's made on its two nanometer process.
28:45So Samsung, this is going to give Samsung probably a leg up over its rivals, of course, Qualcomm, MediaTek. They're expected to stick to three nanometer process for their upcoming chips. That could change, but that's what they're expected to do. The Exynos 2600 on the two nanometer process is currently rumored to arrive in the Galaxy S26 series early next year. That's expected to also feature a 10-core CPU and the Eclipse 960 GPU to the tune of a 15 % improvement over Qualcomm's current flagship chip. And this is kind of a big deal because if this happens as expected, the S26 series, at least here in the U.S., would have their Exynos chip, right?
29:31Samsung has stuck with Qualcomm chips here in the U.S. the past few years. mostly. The only phone that has bucked that trend is the recently released Z Flip 7. That's running the Exynos 2500 chip. So it kind of signals, Samsung dips its toe in and out of Exynos in the US. And it kind of seems like with the two nanometer process, like I'm super curious to see what happens with the S26 series, if it's going to be packing this chip. I got a very vivid image of like a Samsung dipping their toe, like in the ocean, out of the ocean, in the ocean. Oh, it's Sorry, I can do that. I can do live sound effects on the show.
30:08There you go. Thank you for the foley. You're welcome. Showrunner, a startup backed by Amazon, is launching a platform for creating custom TV shows and episodes instantly using AI and natural language prompts. Users can describe an idea, upload a selfie, and star in their own AI animated show of differing genres like sitcoms or action series. Early users will have access to AI capabilities that script, animate, and voice content automatically. Branded experiences are also part of the long-term vision for the platform. Sure Runner had previously captured Buzz with an AI-generated South Park episode that went viral in 2023.
30:49I vaguely remember, like I do remember watching the South Park thing and like South Park's a very specific kind of like animation, easy to do. I mean, I've for quite a while now just assumed, and I don't think it's a novel thought, but I've assumed that this is not necessarily, I'm not saying it's a good idea that our content will be created on the fly by us just having ideas. But I have believed for a while that someone would come along to be like, you know what? You want to watch a show about, you know, a watering can that wakes up and drives off a cliff with your vehicle or something? Like you could think it and just say, make me a 20 minute sitcom about this and that it would do it.
31:34And I'm not even saying that it would do it well, but I, but you got to start somewhere. I'm not at all surprised that showrunner is doing something like this. I'd be really curious to see kind of the quality of it, you know, especially because AI generated video gives a lot of people the squirmies. So, yeah. Was there like a sign? Not the same thing at all. And I don't think it was with showrunner, but there was like a sign full episode too that someone generated or I could be wrong about that. Yes, there was something along those lines. I don't know if that was showrunner. I don't think it was, but that idea.
32:06And it was like an ongoing kind of thing that you could tune into live. Yeah, and it was. Riot or something. It was like a 24-hour. Something. Yeah, I'm having some flashbacks right now of this stuff happening a few years ago. And none of it was great. No. Like, I remember, you know, there was a lot of, like, silence and a lot of, like, disjointed dialogue. that it was funny because it was so bad. Yeah, but it was just good enough too that it wasn't just like someone drives two figures. I wonder, there's just going to be a whole brand of kind of video, which is so good, but also somehow so bad.
32:42Yeah, it's like both, too real. Yeah, probably. That might be the kind of subhead for showrunner on the website. So bad, it's good. But Uber Eats, speaking of bad, I don't know about this one, is introducing, there's some good stuff in here, introducing new AI powered features to its platform, including generative AI tools for creating descriptions for menu items. Okay, that makes sense to me. Summarizing consumer or customer reviews, that also makes sense to me. Another feature allows establishments to enhance their food photos with AI tools for improving lighting, resolution, both of those things.
33:22I'm like, okay, all right. And even replating or expanding upon the item shown in the original image. And I just, I don't know about that one. Customers are now able to upload food pictures that they've taken of their food when they rate their orders. They kind of share what their food looked like when they got it. And then there's a new live order chat feature that lets restaurants message customers directly in order to confirm things like replacements. They can clarify dietary needs, address whatever special requests they might have before the food is picked up. And customers can only reply after merchants initiate contact.
33:59So it doesn't work in the other direction. But the generative AI to change the look of the food in the images. is, I don't know, there's something about that that rubs me the wrong way. It rubs me very the wrong way. I very much rely on pictures of food to decide whether I'm going to order or not. And could you imagine that I want to buy, like, I want to order out like a bao, like, right? Like the buns, right? I open it up and the AI generates like Wagyu Chateaubriand covered in gold leaf when I open the bao. And then I order it and I get it. And it's just, I mean, a regular bao is delicious, but could you imagine, like, I don't, I know that's probably not what it does, but that's all you can think of is like that level of like, I guess, improving on reality.
34:42And then you, but you still have to deal with the reality when you get your delivery. Yeah. I mean, there's so much sold in that situation. So often when we're looking at our food, our phone and we're considering what we're going to order, so much is conveyed by the photo of the food that you see. You know, I guess you just can't trust anything on the internet anymore. I guess that's just the way it is. But like, I want to look at the food and know like, Like, oh, that was actually a dish they made someday. So we'll see how that works out. All right. Well, those are the essentials for today. Let's dive a little deeper.
35:16AI isn't just for hallucinating bad images of food or bad answers to your question about bands from the 1970s. Computer models can also usefully find history, like discover history. And we're not kidding about this. Dr. Nicky has the scoop. Dr. Nicky, welcome back. Thanks for having me. Let's talk about archaeology. Yeah, what did these archaeological students do? Yeah, we don't get to talk about archaeology a lot on DTNS, so I'm excited about this one. So later this May, some students from Utrecht University in the Netherlands used a computer model to discover a Roman camp outside what we previously thought to be the most northern limit of the Roman Empire.
35:58So if you're an archaeologist, this is pretty exciting. Yeah, and if you're someone who thinks about the Roman Empire. Yeah. If you think about the Roman Empire every day, you've got a computer model just for you. This camp was found about 25 kilometers north of the Rhine, which is where we thought previously the border of the empire was. Oh, okay. Now, I have heard stories, and we may have even talked about it before, about people using satellite imagery to identify patterns. But that's not exactly what happened here. What was the tech they used? Yeah. I mean, I have friends who in their spare time sit on Google Maps and look around for things that may look like archaeological sites and have been successful.
36:39I mean, in Europe, they're everywhere. That's not what they did here. So they built this computer model that combined a few different sources of data. First of all, just elevation maps of the area combined with LiDAR. So if you're not familiar with LiDAR, it's a remote sensing tech that basically emits laser pulses down to the ground and measures how long it takes for them to bounce back. The Waymo autonomous vehicles use LiDAR. Tesla famously does not like to use LiDAR. But yeah, you may have heard of it. Yes, I was going to say like it's not only used for building maps, but yeah, a lot of we once covered an autonomous boat that used LiDAR.
37:14Oh, yeah. I forgot about that one. So in this way, you can form a 3D map of the surface and then they combine it. So with these elevation maps that we already knew about, but also with some archaeological data. So the typical shape of a Roman camp, especially a traveling camp, which is what they're looking for, is rectangular, like a playing card. So that's a very definitive shape, a distinctive shape. And then also how far an army could march in a day to kind of get the maximum area that they would be looking around. Yeah, I thought that that's one of the most fascinating parts of this story is that they didn't find the camp using the tech.
37:50They narrowed down where it should be, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's so cool. Yeah. So basically the, the, uh, there's almost nothing visible on the surface. Like if you would have gone over this in Google maps, you probably wouldn't have seen anything, but the tech was like, okay, it's very likely, you know, in this area. And so eventually they got out there and they, um, they investigated with a metal detector and they were able to pull up traces of ancient walls, a moat and different entrances. And then they did some trial excavations and they unearthed a few artifacts, but way fewer than they thought would be there, which included some pieces of armor.
38:29So they were able to date it to the second century. And it was only the fifth camp like this that they found in the Netherlands. So compared to like hundreds in Germany, a few, like a bit further South. So good job on the student. Yeah. Right. That's fantastic to be able to say, well, should be there. Let's go look and do a little digging. I don't know if they excluded all the stories where they looked and there was nothing there, but that's fine if they did. It's still impressive. Yeah. But it would be more impressive if they, it was one and done. Sure. Yeah. But that's, that's pretty cool. Cause it is an example of using computer models to deduce something that turns out to be correct.
39:09So this is always, I think one of the ways where models are really helpful is just giving you extra suggestions. And where I'm staying right now near Missivator National Park, there's tons of archaeological sites and the archaeological center here uses LIDAR all the time, even just to map them or to map where artifacts are and things like that. So we don't hear about it a lot, but this kind of tech does get used. And I think with this type of modeling, I might find more and more things. It's exciting. Very cool. Well, Dr. Nikki, thanks as always for bringing this to us, helping us understand it.
39:45If people want to find out more of what you do, where should they go? People can dig into my science at NicoleAckermans.com, which is where this will get posted. And I'm at the same handle on Blue Sky. Yes. Go find the many layers of scientific information. All right. Well, if you have feedback about anything that gets brought up on the show, You can get in touch with us on the socials at DTNessShow on X, Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky and Mastodon. For TikTok and YouTube, you can find us at Daily Tech News Show.
40:23This message is brought to you by Cologuard. If you recorded songs off the radio for a mixtape, it might be time to screen for colon cancer. The Cologuard test is non-invasive, requires no special prep or time off, and you start screening right from your home. It's just three simple steps. Set up, sample, and ship. If you're 45 or older and at average risk, ask your doctor about the Cologuard test. Available by prescription only. Learn more or request a prescription at colaguard.com slash podcast. Your team just added its 67th AI tool and also your 67th security blind spot. The good news? The Vanta agent works like a GRC engineer in the background, finding every app your team uses, scoring the risk, and drafting fixes for you.
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41:22We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Yesterday, Tom accidentally left out some important stuff, some important words when he wrote that Microsoft Authenticator will stop working on August 1st. And apparently we got a lot of emails. Jason F's email was the nicest one. All right. Jason F wrote, just wanted to let you know that a small detail was missed when y 'all reported on Microsoft Authenticator yesterday. The way it was reported and is written in your show notes is that, quote, Microsoft Authenticator will stop working in August. But the linked AP article and all the freaking notifications the app has been sending me is password auto fill in.
42:04Microsoft Authenticator will stop working in August. The Authenticator itself will keep working as it's used with Hotmail, Outlook.com and MS35 Enterprise authentication, TOPTs and authorization push notifications. Thanks for all the work. Sorry. Thanks for the work you all do, Jason. and we should note that Passkey Storage will also continue to work. Thanks, Jason F. Thank you, Jason F. And all the others for keeping us honest. Hey, you know what? We are not robots. We are human beings after all. That's right. Not yet anyways. What are you thinking about if you have any insight into a story or a correction?
42:42Hey, we welcome it. Share it with us. Feedback at dailytechnewsshow.com. Thanks to you, Jason, for writing in. Thanks to Dr. Nikki. Thanks to you, Nguyen, for being here with me and contributing to today's show. Thank you for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron. And it's simple. Patreon.com slash DTNS. We'll see you tomorrow.
43:07The DTNS family of podcasts. Helping each other understand. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.
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Microsoft joins the $4 trillion club with Nvidia, and Dr. Niki talks about using computer models for the discovery of archeological history.
Starring Jason Howell, Huyen Tue Dao, Tom Merritt and Dr. Niki.
Show notes can be found here.
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