Everyone Is Selling Their Recorded Phone Calls - DTNS 5112

Why an app that pays you for call recordings is the most popular app right now. And we dig into why Penske Media’s lawsuit against Google is more significant than previous copyright lawsuits against AI companies. 

Starring Tom Merritt, Jenn Cutter, and Andy Beach.

TOM: This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, September 25, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on the context of those stories, and help each other understand.

JENN: Today, Andy Beach follows up on the AI lawsuit that’s focusing on links, not training data, and people are clamoring to get paid to record their phone conversations.

I’m Tom Merritt,

I’m Jenn Cutter.

TOM: Let’s start with what you need to know with the big story.

[[BIG STORY]]
[[SOLO story of the day. Basic details, monitor commentary and sound when possible.]]

Neon, the No. 2 social app on the Apple App Store, pays users to record their phone calls and sells data to AI firms | TechCrunch
Top Charts - Market Analysis - Sensor Tower
NEON Mobile
Neon - Money Talks - Apps on Google Play
Neon - Money Talks on the App Store

TOM: An app called "Neon", the only app from Neon Mobile, is number 2 on the Apple App Store and number 4 on Google Play, for free apps, according to Sensor Tower.

Neon offers to pay you cash in exchange for recording your phone calls. It then sells your recordings to companies “for the purpose of developing, training, testing, and improving machine learning models, artificial intelligence tools and systems, and related technologies.” You start your call in the Neon app, and if you're calling another Neon user, it records both sides of the call. If you're calling someone else, it only records your side of the call.

Personally identifiable information is removed, and contact info is not stored by Neon. It says it vets the companies it sells data to, and all employees use the service themselves. And recordings are encrypted.

Details on encryption are unavailable as are the list of vetted companies.

According to Neon's website, you get 30 cents a minute when you call other Neon users and 15 cents a minute for others. There's a maximum of $30 per day. And you get paid a $30 fee if you invite friends. The Google Play store listing has the same rates, but interestingly, the iOS app store listing I looked at, says that it's 45 cents a minute and a $25 referral fee.

Jenn, you could make thousands. Would you?

JENN: DTNS is made possible by you the listener. Thanks to
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TOM: There’s more we need to know today, let’s get to the briefs.

[[BRIEFS]]
[[3-9 more solo reads with sound to complete the day in tech news. These are informational with minor commentary.]]

EU rejects Apple demand to scrap landmark tech rules
Microsoft forced to make Windows 10 extended security updates truly free in Europe | The Verge

JENN: The European Commission rejected an official filing from Apple, requesting that the EU repeal the Digital Markets Act, or reform the law and delegate enforcement to an independent agency.
Elsewhere in Europe, after pressure from the Euroconsumers advocacy group, Microsoft will make Extended Security Updates for Windows 10 free to users in the European Economic Area (The EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) after the end of support on October 14th. The rest of the world still has to pay $30, use points, or agree to back up data to Windows Backup. The Extended Security Update program ends October 13th, 2026.

Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme and Elite chips for PCs stretch up to a record 5 GHz — 3nm Arm chips sport new Oryon Prime cores | Tom's Hardware
Qualcomm tries to unseat Apple with 'world's fastest' mobile chip
Qualcomm says its new Snapdragon chips are 'the fastest and most efficient' for Windows PCs
Your Next Android Flagship Phone Will Get These 3 Updates in 2026 - CNET

TOM: Qualcomm announced its second generation of laptop and PC chips, called Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme. The Extreme will be the first Arm chip to run at 5 GHz on two of its 18 cores. Both models of Elite chips will be made on a 3nm process and promise multi-day battery life. Systems with the chips are expected to start shipping in the first half of 2026.

We also got more details on the "world's fastest" mobile chip, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Android Police benchmarked the reference chip at the Snapdragon Summit and on Geekbench, it outperformed Apple's A19 Pro, which is in the iPhone 17 Pro series. Expect the market version to be slightly less impressive, but still good. The first devices are trickling out over the coming days from the usual non-Apple or Google suspects.

The OnePlus 15 gets early reveal, uses Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
Unpatched flaw in OnePlus phones lets rogue apps text messages

JENN: The OnePlus 15 will be one of the first phones to get the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. But in less enjoyable OnePlus news, a vulnerability in its OxygenOS lets any app access SMS data and metadata, no user permission needed. OnePlus changed the stock Android Telephony package, adding more exported content providers without declaring write permissions. The read permission is set correctly, but it isn't properly sanitized against bruteforcing the database one character at a time. Researchers at Rapid7 tried to contact OnePlus on May 1st and continued to follow up until August 16th. OnePlus now says it is investigating the problem, but it remains unpatched.

Australia may have to choose between a Chinese TikTok and one owned by Trump’s billionaire backers | TikTok | The Guardian
Australia Unveils Crypto Fines in Proposed Rules for Industry - Bloomberg

TOM: The US is expected to issue an executive order on Thursday related to the sale of the US arm of TikTok. Australian Liberal senator James Paterson told Sky News he believes Australia should use the US version of TikTok. Australia also drafted legislation that would penalize cryptocurrency companies with a fine of as much as 10% of their annual turnover if they violate new rules. The new rules would bring digital asset and tokenized custody platforms under the Corporations Act, and the consumer protections and licensing requirements that the Act requires. That means getting an Australian Financial Services License and avoiding “misleading and deceptive conduct and unfair contract terms.”

Meta rolls out teen accounts for Facebook and Messenger across the world

JENN: Meta is expanding the availability of its teen accounts, which include parental controls and restrictions on messaging and other activities. The accounts were rolled out first to Instagram a year ago, then Facebook and Messenger in select countries earlier this year. The accounts are now available worldwide and mandatory if you sign up aged 13-17.

Intel Is Seeking an Investment From Apple as Part of Its Comeback Bid - Bloomberg
Intel and Apple hold investment talks, no deal in sight - 9to5Mac

TOM: Bloomberg says that fresh off a $5 billion cash infusion from Nvidia, Intel has been in talks with Apple about a similar investment. It's not likely to lead to Apple using x86 chips again, but there are other opportunities, like packaging Apple chips. The Apple talks are in an early stage.

Billionaire Xiaomi Founder Debuts a $630 Answer to iPhone 17
Xiaomi’s retro handheld phone case is the best, and worst, way to game | The Verge
The Xiaomi Pad Mini is here and might be one of the best small tablets you can buy - PhoneArena

JENN: Xiaomi announced its $630 Xiaomi 17 Pro and Pro Max at an event on Thursday. They have a screen on the back for framing selfies, setting timers, and using controls for things like music and podcasts. Xiaomi also announced a $40 Retro Handheld Console Case that takes advantage of that back screen to make a Game Boy-style game experience. It gives you four face buttons and a circular D-pad, along with a 200mAh battery for an extra three hours of gameplay. Xiaomi also launched an 8.8-inch 3K tablet called the Xiaomi Pad Mini for $429.

Scoop: Amazon confirms new TV OS launching this year
Amazon agrees to make canceling Prime easy, will refund customers $1.5B - Ars Technica

TOM: Ahead of next Tuesday's Amazon announcement, a job listing from Amazon mentioned that the "Prime Video Fire TV organization is seeking an engineering leader that will help in building a Vega OS product." That pretty much confirms what everyone thought, that Amazon will replace Android on FireTVs with its own custom OS. Meanwhile, Amazon agreed to settle a lawsuit from the US Federal Trade Commission, which accused Amazon of using deceptive practices to get customers to sign up for its Prime subscription. Pending court approval, the deal would see Amazon pay a $1 billion civil penalty and provide $1.5 billion in refunds split up among an estimated 35 million customers. The deal also requires Amazon to display "a clear and conspicuous button for customers to decline Prime" and stop using a button deterring cancellations that said, "No, I don’t want Free Shipping." Amazon must also let customers cancel using the same method they used to sign up.

ChatGPT Feature Offers Users a Personalized Daily Briefing - Bloomberg

JENN: OpenAI is rolling out a new ChatGPT feature called ChatGPT Pulse, which gives you personalized news, research, and other updates each day based on your prior conversations.
It's made up of five to 10 visual cards. ChatGPT Pulse will be available to users that pay $200 per month for a ChatGPT Pro subscription. The company plans to roll it out more widely later this year.

TOM: Those are the essentials for today. Let’s dive a little deeper.

[[SEGMENT A - FROM SCHEDULE]]

JENN: Previously, we talked about Penske suing Google over AI overviews. Penske Media, Rolling Stone’s parent company, isn’t the first to sue over copyright concerns with AI, but it is the first major US media house to sue over AI overviews. We sat down with Andy Beach to understand more about what makes this lawsuit different and significant.”

[[PROMO]]

TOM: If you have feedback about anything that gets brought up on the show… Get in touch with us on the socials. @DTNSshow on X, Instagram, Threads!, Blue Sky and Mastodon. For TikTok and YouTube, you can find us at Daily Tech News Show.

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[[HELPING EACH OTHER UNDERSTAND]]
[[Short missives from people with experience. Could be written email or pre-recorded from the person.]]

JENN: We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Yesterday, we discussed the story that scientists had found that people passing along low-quality LLM output was slowing down the productivity gains of using LLMs, and dubbed it “workslop.” Today Andrew from Colorado has some thoughts on that!

TOM: Andrew writes:
DTNS Team,

As a longtime software engineer, work slop really sounds like a much larger section of the working world is now dealing with "copy coding" - where an engineer would get stuck looking for a solution, Google it, and copy-paste the first answer from Stack Overflow/Reddit that they found and hope it worked.

My most recent "work slop" story is from my current project, where I needed to change a bit of logic, and in doing so broke a lot more things than I meant to due to some tests that felt AI generated (bc they just didn't make sense on closer inspection). It took me half the day to properly get things working again. I went to our version control system to see who made that initial implementation....it was me from a few months back.

Always good to get a little humility every now and then. Past me is one of the worst programmers I know.

Andrew from Colorado

[[DISCUSS]]

JENN: What are you thinking about? Got some insight into a story? Share it with us feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com

TOM: Thanks to Andrew from Colorado and Andy Beach for contributing to today’s show. And thank YOU for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron, at Patreon.com/dtns