 Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners thanks to all of you including John and Becky Johnston Chris Benito and Steve Iderola Coming up on DTS 3d scanning is saving art and architecture from war and disaster Plus what computer vision is good for and five ways to get around government internet shutdowns This is the Daily Tech news for Friday, May 6th 2022 in Los Angeles. I'm John Merritt and from studio Redwood And from Columbus, Ohio, I'm Rob Dunwood and I'm the show's producer Roger. I like to say We are optimistic without being hype, but we are skeptical without being overly negative That's that's us. We just we just bring it right down the middle for you like a fast ball of tech Want to be extra? Go somewhere else. Yeah, there's plenty of places for that. We're here for the rest of y'all Let's start with a few tech things you should know Bloomberg sources say that the Chinese central government ordered government agencies and state-back companies to replace foreign PCs with Domestic alternatives within the next two years. The government reportedly estimates this will replace 50 million PCs used by the central government The policy will eventually apply to provincial governments as well Zelda Ocarina of Time is among the 2022 world video game Hall of Fame inductees Ms. Pac-Man finally got the nod as well dance dance revolution and Sid Meier's Civilization those are also the other additions to the strong museum's video game Hall of Fame and video agreed to a settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission agreeing to pay $5.5 million to settle charges did not properly disclose that crypto mining was a significant element of its gaming business the charges date back to Nvidia's fiscal 2018 When Nvidia did not disclose to investors its gaming revenue growth was partially driven by crypto mining I mean we we called it gaming, but I think everybody and yeah, that didn't work The UK government said its digital markets unit regulator will be given the power to fine Large tech companies up to 10% of global turnover if they are found to engage in predatory Practices in addition the Department for Digital Culture Media and Sport said it will be able to find tech companies Additional daily penalties of up to 5% of turnover for continued offenses with senior managers also facing Civil penalties now it's not clear when the government will introduce the legislation necessary to enforce those changes But they've got the plan when it happens Microsoft began testing a controller bar in windows 11 Which windows with windows insiders letting users see and launch the three most recently played games Users launch the controller bar through the Xbox button on a controlled On a connected controller rather letting them launch a game without having to reach for a keyboard and I'm off. So that's nice All right, let's talk about the government shutting down your internet. Oh gosh, okay Let's do it it used to be that a government shutting down internet access was Pretty extreme move usually taken in times of severe upheaval But the practice has become more and more common being used during elections Student exams, etc. Sometimes. It's the whole internet more often on on a longer term basis It's blocking certain services rest of world has an article about the steps that you can take to get free information if That service might be affected for you. These are meant to help people plan ahead. So Tom, what's going on here? Yeah, the first one they list seems pretty obvious VPNs Get a good one one. You can trust, you know, find one that's vetted You might even want to get to just in case one of them gets successfully blocked And remember that VPN is only a way to get around blocks and region locks It does not in fact protect your privacy because the VPN operator can still see all your traffic It just shields your traffic from attempts to block it and that helps when you're on open Wi-Fi to protect it at such Rob, what do you this seems like the obvious one, right? It is the obvious and you made a good point You might need to have more than one because if you've got one of the really popular VPNs The government could take those down as well. So you so you want to have that backup That's also a good one just in case, you know, you have some issues there But this is it's getting kind of is getting kind of weird with what's going on in places It generally aren't here to where you know, we don't like what you're saying. We're just going to shut you down I mean, I Real quick. I use Mozilla VPN, you know, I pay for it I you know, it's is there anything that anyone else is using here that they like better I use Express VPN I have Nord VPN. Oh, yeah, these are these are all good options. I think But if your internet is entirely shut off a VPN, it's not gonna help you much So this isn't going to get you internet access, but it can help you use internet-like functionality for things like messaging mesh networks This is another workaround that definitely needs pre-planning, but there's some apps out there. You might have heard of fireside messenger It's an example of a way to communicate by creating a mesh network between the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections on a phone So there are mesh networks where you deploy your own hardware to create a temporary local internet But the fireside just uses phones. So it's pretty easy to set up and use of course They only work when there's enough devices to keep a network going. They are also not any more secure than the internet So you do need to take all the precautions you would normally take with any messenger Yeah, I'm actually a fan of the the mess applications now For the reason that we're talking about having used one But I remember and this is this is probably 10 12 years ago But was on a cruise ship with a lot of friends and family and this is before everybody just got the internet package So I convinced probably eight nine ten of us to actually put, you know You know a mess application on just so that we kind of you know, I had connectivity I think one of my cousins had it, but it kind of let everybody you can at least check, you know You know a message you can check an email here and there without having to jump through a ton of hoops and pay for that Ridiculously expensive service that was on the ship Yeah, I used one of I used a mesh messenger once in an airport You back back when airports had spotty Wi-Fi or maybe had to pay But to message with people so that we could keep in touch while we're just walking around International SIM cards is number three on rest of worlds list This works if you're near a border You might be able to pick up service from a neighboring country Probably only useful in smaller countries or or border border towns and such Number four side loading apps can help you get around blocks on particular services most useful for Android where the operating system permits side loading iPhone jailbreaking not as useful as it once was of course when you're slight side loading on whatever platform Remember, nobody's checking those apps. You need to be responsible for what you install because there's no Safety net out there. You absolutely want to make sure you're installing what you think you're installing when you side load Yeah, but Facebook is an example of this like Russia blocked Facebook from app stores, but people are side loading it So, you know as long as you're getting it from a source you trust then it's probably okay I mean, you know just a question for both of you guys For anyone who's like, well, I think this is a fine app Are there are there triggers that people should be looking out for before they install an app? That's going to harm them in the long run. I would say that you have to absolutely know where you're getting the app from for example There is an Amazon app store for Android You go to Amazon's website to get it don't don't just go to well Here's an APK file for their store, you know, you go to some website that is not Amazon Make sure you know and trust the place that you're actually getting APKs from and that actually will make you a little bit safer than just downloading anything that you find on the internet Yeah, I guess it's the same recommendation. We always give for for clicking links or signing up at websites Make sure that you you know who they are where they came from and also, you know Maybe cultivate some trusted sources. Don't just take recommendations from strangers. That sort of thing The fifth one here is satellite content now You're probably immediately going to think of Starlink and someday that will be a more widespread option It is useful out there, but it's not really available everywhere and where it is available It's not exactly cheap There is a service called knapsack though that broadcasts packets by satellite. This will not let you send But it will let you receive so you could get over a normal TV dish You could use this software to receive YouTube videos news websites So things like that. It's one way so you're not going to do email with this But it could be a way to get information. You wouldn't be able to get otherwise I know some people would think well if you can't send information, is it really worth it? But yes, because if you're blocked from just receiving any outside information other than what your government might be telling you You want to see? Well, what is the rest of her saying? Just being able to receive might actually be, you know Better than just getting no information whatsoever. Yeah, I feel like these are these are five useful things to know in a lot of situations obviously Government shutdowns are what prompted this and those are more widespread But these are useful in disaster situations where maybe connectivity is spotty or are unavailable and stuff like that too, right? Well moving on. Tech in Asia has an excellent article about computer vision including a discussion with Liu Fong associate producer professor rather at the Department of Computer Science at to Japan Institute of Technology Singapore This is a great Article worth a read it will be in our show notes, but if we want to get the gist of it Rob, what do you got? Well computer vision is about more than just facial recognition, which is a lot of us think that it is it's you know In Lee's words it aims to recognize visual inputs and process them as fast as humans can One of the earliest uses of computer vision was optical character recognition or OCR the ability to scan a printed document and turn it Into editable text. This is kind of it though from the 70s until all the way up into the 2000s today However neural networks are helping train algorithms that don't have to be taught what every individual object is but can start to learn to identify Objects so that's that's what's new now. Okay, so Intriguing do we have examples of this? So if you think about like, you know doctors and they're identifying things in MRIs from medical imaging MRIs ultrasounds CT scans You it can be used for security So we would initially think just looking at people but no you can use it to actually count people And then actually do things like not just realize how many people are in a place But did someone leave a bag? Did they leave a backpack those kind of things? Oh and also autonomous cars, there's all kind of work with autonomous cars to where it's just not using LiDAR and radar to recognize that there is an object in front of you It's actually using the cameras to determine what the object is and then you may be able to use Some of that neural network and some of that AI learning to say well, this is a deer as compared to a pothole How do we effectively handle those situations differently? So Is there anything else that that might be coming down the pike? well You know Lou expects that we will lead to other applications So computer vision could help realistically create virtual items from VR and AR rather than 3d items all having to be slightly Cartooning it could also be used for training like in virtual surgeries For medical students are learning to operate every machinery. I'm thinking flight simulators It's probably the thing that most people would think of but yeah You can use this to actually train people to do things that are dangerous or things that are just not something You want to just do every day And you could actually you know be a lot safer like I know I would much rather learn how to fly a plane in a machine You can't crash as compared to flying one me You're learning how to fly one in one first, especially if you're gonna fly my plane I want you to learn that in a machine that can't crash me either well And those are challenges that real we really need to overcome, right? So systems can recognize objects, but don't necessarily understand the context yet So that's right, you know some of this can be overcome. However by combining systems like natural language processing You know for context for example So when you actually just taking what here's what the thing is But you're going to use it like once again you go back to these neural networks and it actually you know pairs the two together So these systems are figuring out what something is as compared to just just or something there Yeah, and there's also things like processing power is still a limit to how far they can progress There's also not enough people working in the field Asia Pacific alone is going to need 47 million more qualified tech workers by 2030 and it's on pace to have So you have governments like Singapore rolling out programs to encourage training of talent in the AI space I like this article a lot simply because it points out that computer vision is something that is more than just the headline of facial recognition or Tesla car couldn't tell a bridge from a white wall You know that that or a truck from a white wall that that sort of thing and and it puts it in context and shows We are making progress. These are the things that we'll be gaining better at this is what the limits are to it And I think that's important in evaluating all these things where people are like do I want computer vision to do anything? Yeah, you do you you want it to be able to to help a doctor more quickly identify a tumor you you want it to Be able to help train people to more safely operate Equipment like Rob was was saying So so it's a matter of developing it responsibly, right? Yeah, when you think about like medical imaging Computers are way better at recognizing stuff and they're I mean they're much more effective If you think about how this stuff works every time it sees a new scan It's never gonna forget that scan and it can it can instantaneously compare that to every other scan that is seen So when you're thinking about a doctor and we definitely want doctors to look at it and to say yes This is you know what the computer is telling me is what I think this is But a human just can't process that amount of information So, you know for you just in just in the medical space these things are way more accurate in there In becoming more and more accurate every day and they really can lead to better diagnosis. Yeah, I won't overshare I promise but Went to the doctor yesterday from just my regular, you know annual checkup and she was like I'm not an expert enough on this. It could be fine, but maybe you should have a specialist look at it So I went to a specialist this morning specialist was like been there. I think that's fine Let's check back with you in six months I would very much have liked a diagnostic aid to tell my physician yesterday like oh, yeah That's probably not a big deal Maybe check back in six months versus having to drive all the way back and you know go through the procedure again So to speak and definitely the other side of it your primary didn't even think that there was anything wrong didn't tell you to go Look at a specialist, but the AI would have caught it. Yeah, that's that's Well, and I mean it's even it's even sort of like, you know a doctor saying it's probably nothing and you kind of go Like good great. I want it to be nothing. Yeah, but an AI to say now We got to do this test that that is that is helpful Yeah for a lot of folks because I think I think in many cases humans want other humans to feel You know sure Yeah, and you know, we're good. We're good. Nothing's wrong, but And it can help avoid, you know invasive test Procedures that have risks of their own, right? So yeah well folks We are looking for ideas of Guests to have on the show maybe from other podcasts or other shows That might expose our show to new audience So let us know who you like out there check out our guest survey You can put in your recommendations at daily tech news show comm slash survey go do it now Vice media is partnering with blue shield Denmark and the Danish UNESCO National Commission on a project called backup Ukraine Tom. I know you've looked into it. So how does this all work? Yeah, so the announcement from vice is that they are working to coordinate volunteers to use the Polycam app To scan objects into a 3d model that then can be stored in the cloud They're They're encouraging people to sign up for an official organization They say don't go into dangerous areas to do this But if you can safely do it and you're part of an organized crew that's allowed to be in these places Will store it in a place that can't be destroyed Data centers are at risk in Ukraine Polycam Does poly metric scanning using a phone's lidar scanner as well as the camera? It's being used for things like sculptures monuments buildings There are also bed people's bedrooms, you know just for history. There's a sleeping dog That's very cute and good good to see these are all available online right now. You can go check them out at poly cam They scans may be useful in reconstruction and restoration For you know buildings and sculptures probably not for the dog in some cases they would be good for creating replicas of if an item was totally destroyed and Polycam isn't new right Sarah? Yeah, you can get the app yourself. It's Freely available free to use in connection with backup Ukraine has other uses as well There's a free tier with unlimited lidar and five photo mode captures Plus limited export formats if you want to pay $7 a month or $55 a year You can get 150 photo mode captures and all export phone formats, but You know in the in the example of Ukraine, which is obviously a very interesting example This isn't the first place 3d scanning has been used for preservation. Yeah, that's right 3d scanning Has been used for historical preservation for a while now There's a company called Cria form that touts working with a city in Hungary They wanted to scan this historic mansion before they began the restoration So they could preserve how it looked before the work was done and then be a benchmark during the restoration itself a company called Faro Faro uses laser scanning to help preservationists identify issues with structural integrity or any other Vulnerabilities to help stop degradation before it begins. They can do some interventions that they might be putting off It can also be used to modernize buildings without compromise. Let's say you want to add air conditioning to a building It can help you figure out where best to put it in fact a five-day scan of Notre Dame Cathedral was done in Paris in 2010 and That was incredibly useful after the fire in Notre Dame in 2019 It is proving essential in helping the restoration there And it's being used as a preventative measure in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam The government commissioned scans of the Saigon Opera House Just in case anything were ever to happen to it a company called VMT solutions scanned that as well as other buildings in the city Including City Hall So we're not just talking about physical items. We're talking about preserving digital records so in wartime natural disaster situations Servers might be destroyed without backups and records could be lost. Yeah, the Washington Post ran a story April 8th about librarians racing to store digital archives on servers outside Ukraine again This is this is why Polycam is offering to store in the cloud because data centers are under threat. So about 1,300 people or so Including volunteers and children But a lot of librarians have been coordinating over Slack and other software to back up everything from Census data to basket weaving instructions that effort is called saving Ukraine cultural heritage online Which turns into the acronym? Sucho s u c h o dot org The internet archive you might be like what about the way back machine can't that store stuff? It does but it doesn't store all images to save space So it's partnering to help store as much as it can but the group also uses an open-source archiving tool called web recorder There's an automated one called browser tricks cloud and they're using the archive web page browser extension Those will capture everything on a website and store it locally and then it can be uploaded to a cloud service to preserve it In ways that archive.org's way back machine does not do so things like calendars 3d tours Images all that sort of thing. They say more than 25 terabytes of information have been backed up so far This is just ridiculously cool technology. I think back to any heist movie over the last 15 to 20 years They always set a device down and it scan the room or scan the object They are about this, you know, they're about to create if you pair this up with 3d printing I mean, we're in the real world now. You can actually do this stuff and like so, you know, Tom You mentioned, uh, you know, Notre Dame, you know, the fact that they actually scanned it They're now able to go back and repair this historic building And make it look as close to what it used to look like as as they can because they scanned it and they know exactly Well, this piece of wood goes here and that piece of, you know, um, you know, marble goals there It is just really awesome technology. There's a lot of you to do these things Yeah, even things like they were talking about how beams come together Uh, can it seems like an easy thing, but they can come together in a lot of different ways And if you want to preserve the original feel of the architecture, you want to know little little things like that I was also thinking about the accessibility of this this these images aren't just used for preservation They can also be used in order to let people see this architecture in ways they couldn't from just a flat 2d picture Or when you brought up 3d printing, I immediately thought oh souvenirs, right? What if you could you could print a version of a of a sculpture at home? And have your own model of it be kind of cool Um real quick rob. What is your favorite heist movie? Um I gotta go with the oceans, you know oceans 11 through 13. No, those are pretty awesome Tom the tom crane affair. Um, the one with uh pierce brosden. I really liked. Yeah, Rene Russo, right? Yeah, good stuff. Yeah well, if you if you've ever been in swayed to Visit a resort or a city or a country based on the experiences of a travel influencer Chris christensen has some words of caution for you This is chris christensen from amateur traveler with another tech in travel minute If you like travel and you've ever been on social media You have probably run across a social media influencer And you may have wondered can I trust what they're saying? And the answer is usually us and sometimes no And there is a new nonprofit consumer advocacy group called travelers united that is apparently trying to be the new Sheriff in town. They are suing a social media influencer over what they claim is misleading and deceptive advertising And they say she talks about a lot of brands that she's getting paid for and doesn't disclose it Which is against the law in the u.s. But also saying that she's making claims about herself That she's the first woman to travel to every country that they say is not true And that she wrote five star reviews for her own book. I don't know if any of that is true I don't know if you care or if it's just me. I've always encouraged travel influencers to tell the truth And apparently i'm not the only one this is chris christensen from amateur traveler Yeah, I don't think any of us are shocked that there might be an influencer out there not telling the whole truth But it is interesting that travelers united is a group trying to hold influencers accountable So that you're more likely to get the truth because the ones who wouldn't won't want to run into this group So are they saying that that the hostel that cost six dollars a night to stay in may not actually be as good as the grand y lea No, it must be it depends on how you spell y lea Uh, yeah, because there's a there's a little shack now the road that calls itself wh y dash Yeah, like why not? Yeah, why not lea? Yeah, um or han Uh, anyway, yeah travelers united.org. That's that's good. It's it's good that there's there's somebody fighting the good fight Out there and I think chris did a good job of saying hey, don't tar everybody with the same brush There's lots of good folks out there giving you good information But you know, let's let's hold the ones that don't play by the rules. Do you tar people with brushes? I haven't I mean, I just I don't neither You know, I just I just want to do it right if I'm gonna do it. No, I don't ask me. I've only heard of it Um, well over in the mailbag nick from australia wrote in feedback daily tech news show com by the way Um and said I always like the promise of fido to get rid of passwords But until yesterday's news this was on the show It seemed like nothing but a pipe dream while I would benefit from passwords going away myself I'm much more interested in it for my less tax Tech savvy savvy friends and family I can easily use last pass and have a different password on every side and have them securely stored in auto filled But for average people last pass can be daunting and overwhelming In a few years I can get them to just use a notification on their phone to sign in securely to anything And it will be a weight off my shoulders Oh I love I love this email, uh nick I Rob, you probably caught this this story yesterday that they're they're making it easier for you to use fido across platforms So you don't have to re authenticate on every platform and nick is like, yeah, I want this But man, I really want this for my friends and family I I understand I uh, I regularly have to Remind people how to reset their password or I'll get folks that you know, it's generally in-laws or parents Hey, what's my password for netflix or what what's this because I somehow am the holder of all of their passwords So I hear that I can't wait till the day where we can just get rid of this stuff because it's really it's when you have You know when you log in because you have something Um, and you are someone it's just way more secure than just typing in A password that if you're not using a password vault, you might use that on every single website I know that my family members don't many how many times I tell them don't use the same password I can guess with you know, what the password is because they always use the same password So and the hang up with multifactor authentication has been people not wanting to go to the trouble Because you have to set it up and then it's a second step when you log in Where and what this does what fido does, you know in short again We have a whole no a little more episode if you want to get the details But in short it does the multifactor authentication for you so that all you have to do is be like Oh, I have the thing and I'm doing the thing. So yes, let me in Someday someday we'll all be on We're getting there we're getting closer like that. Yeah, I know we are we're getting closer. I mean 2fa sometimes Actually ruins my day, but I know it's the right thing to do. So that's what we do Well, uh, thanks to 2fa and also thanks to you rob Dunwood for being with us today Let folks know where they can keep up with everything that you do So I am at rob Dunwood on all the things and you could check me out at my other shows The smr podcast or at smr podcast.com and at the tech john Which is uh, you know, just the tech john.com. You know, it's head over there. Check us out. We talk about tech Something different than what you're probably used to listening to and you know what I usually I try to send you an email On my thoughts on every episode of tech john. So I'll just give you this week's right here great episode again You all are on a roll. These episodes have been smart. They've been informative. They get me thinking You're bringing in all these different perspectives From all three of you not just the fact that the three of you are there, right? But each of you has a different angle and and you you triangulate each other's perspectives and challenge each other So good folks if you're you're not listening to the tech john.com you're missing out Also, if anybody's watching our video version of the show the tech john hoodie is pretty cool I would like one You can get one Appreciate where do I get one rob? Yeah Head over to tech john.com or glass shop and we have all kinds of swag over there. You can get I'm wearing Uh, you know switcher today last time I was on uh tom had one on I appreciate that So I said, you know what let me rep my own show and if we're some of my own stuff Well, speaking of rep in the show, we love the folks that rep our show special. Thanks to toni Tony is one of our top lifetime supporters for dTNS. Thank you for all the years of support Tony Tony toni There's also a longer version of the show called good day internet. We'll roll right into it after dTNS It's available at patreon.com slash dTns If you're if you're not familiar and now you're familiar We're live on this show monday through friday at 4 p.m. Eastern. That's 200 utc you can find out more at daily tech news show dot com slash live And oh man, it's friday and I hope you all have a great weekend. We will see you monday This week's episodes of daily tech news show were created by the following people host producer and writer tom merritt Host producer and writer sarah lane executive producer and booker roger chang producer writer and host rich straffalina Video producer and twitch producer joe coons technical producer anthony lemos spanish language host writer and producer dan compos news host writer and producer jen cutter science correspondent dr nicky ackerman's social media producer and moderator zoe deadarding our mods beatmaster w scottis one bio cow captain gipper gadget virtuoso Steve Guadirama paul reese matthew j stevens and jd galloway modern video hosting by dan christensen video feed by shan way music and art provided by martin bell dan looters mistafa a a cast and len peralta a cast ad support from tachiana matias patreon support from dylan harari contributors for this week's shows include nikah monford scott johnson justin robert young and rob dunwood and thanks to all the patrons who make the show possible This show is part of the frog pants network get more at frogpants.com