This week Ray Hollister, Tom Braun, Kevin Clark, and Aaron Edelson we introduced a new segment of the show that we’re calling “The Deemable Dozen”, the top twelve tech news stories in under 12 minutes, and then talked about how Gizmodo reporter Mat Honan’s digital life was destroyed, and then we did the Two Step Verification, baby. (You’ll have to listen to understand.)

…all that and more on this episode of Deemable Tech.

Deemable Tech – Episode 10 – The Two Step Verification, Baby

The Deemable Dozen:

1. Sprint reduces iPhone 4S to $149.99 and Apple prices matches.
2. 3 guys try to buy cheap iPads off Craigslist and get robbed instead.
3. Google Nexus Q production postponed, but you’ll get it for if you already placed a pre-order.
4. Before Apple went nuclear on Samsung, Apple offered Samsung a licensing agreement: $30 for every smartphone and $40 for every tablet.
5. Google Listen is dead! Long live all the other podcast apps in Google Play!
6. Microsoft asks everyone to stop calling it Metro; call it Windows 8.
7. Square and Starbucks partnered up,  and ordered Orange Mocha Frappuccinos for everyone!
8. Everyone else in the mobile payments industry except for Square or Starbucks (including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, Google, Intuit, ISIS, PayPal and several banks) joined the Mobile Payments Committee of the Electronics Transactions Association.
9. OUYA ended its Kickstarter campaign 8.65 million over their goal! Now OUYA has started accepting preorders.
10. Apollo 13 was really saved by a hippy at MIT?
11. WikiLeaks is under attack.
12. Mat Honan got hacked.

Links we mentioned on today’s show:

• http://www.androidcentral.com/5-better-podcast-options-android-now-google-listen-dead
• http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/all/
• http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&topic=1056283&answer=185839

Bumper Music

• Black Eyed Peas – I Gotta Feeling (8-Bit)
• The Beatles – I Am The Walrus (8-Bit Remix)

This morning I received an email forward with a lovely little critter inside:

Subject: Oh…my…gosh

This is revolting, and if I could find a way to bring up the one I drank I would…Oh boy, there is not a thing safe left to eat or drink anymore. GROUND BUGS FOR FOOD COLORING? YUCK!!! http://xfinity.comcast.net/blogs/news/2012/03/27/report-starbucks-frappuccinos-dyed-with-crushed-up-bugs/

Read the article to the bottom, guys. Besides being absolutely stomach churning (in our opinion) it is not okay for the health. 

 

According to the article on the Xfinity News Blog, Starbucks has changed the recipe for the Strawberry Frappuccino, and it now includes the tasty little morsel above, called the cochineal bug. The cochineal extract ” is a red dye made of ground up bodies of cochineal insects.” The article goes on to explain that “this change was apparently made in an effort to reduce Starbucks’ use of artificial ingredients.”

The story is true. This Dish Is Veg was tipped off by a barista that the Strawberry Frappuccinos were no longer vegan.

Now, if that grosses you out, get ready for this: we’ve been eating these crushed up cochineal bug shells for decades! Starbucks isn’t the first company to use cochineal extract to dye food red; it has been being used in food for thousands of years. Ever had a Dannon’s Activia yogurt, a Good N’ Plenty, a Pixi Stick, or a refreshing glass of Tropicana Ruby Red Grapefruit juice? Didn’t those bugs taste yummy? These are just a tiny sample of the thousands of products on America’s grocery shelves that contain carmine or cochineal extract.

Cochineal extract has no detectable flavor and it is safe for human consumption, except for a small number of people who are allergic to it. Any food that has “Artificial color” listed as one of the ingredients and is red to purple in color most likely contains cochineal extract. The FDA did not require it to be listed in the food ingredients (remember cochineal extract has been around since before the United States, let alone the FDA, even existed) until a law was passed in 2009 requiring companies to include it. So, while it certainly isn’t kosher or vegan, cochineal extract is at least as safe to eat as peanuts or strawberries.

Unfortunately, because of the squeamishness of the subject, even though food companies have used cochineal extract for decades (Hershey’s, Nestle, and Old Orchard Juices to name a few), some companies have started switching to Red #40 which is a completely artificial chemical that has, at least anecdotally, been linked to depression, hives, hyperactivity, and abdominal discomfort. (Of course, there hasn’t been substantial research into whether there is a direct link, and there probably won’t ever be because there isn’t any money to be made in finding out that it is harmful.)

So, sometimes the solution might be worse than the problem. For me, I’ll keep my crunchy bug shells. If I didn’t notice them before, they won’t bother me now. Mmm…now I’m craving a Strawberry Frappuccino.

Here’s what the gang at Sourcefed had to say about the news: