Dan's away this week, so Marc and Riley are left to argue about: Lyrebird, a Montreal company that can synthesize a voice with just 1 minute of speech; the rise and prevalence of contactless payments in Canada; Invest Ottawa's ploy to attract immigrant tech workers to the city; Bose headphones snooping your audio data.

Speed round:

Recommendations

Links:

• Lyrebird claims it can recreate any voice using just one minute of sample audio | The Verge — Artificial intelligence is making human speech as malleable and replicable as pixels.
• Spending in Canada Up, Fueled by Rise in Contactless Payments | Techvibes — the volume of “tapped” dollars increased by 62% during the quarter
• Invest Ottawa launches new international campaign to attract tech workers | CBC News — "Ottawa is often mischaracterized as purely a government town," said Invest Ottawa CEO Michael Tremblay.
• Bose headphones spy on listeners: lawsuit | Reuters — The complaint filed on Tuesday by Kyle Zak in federal court in Chicago seeks an injunction to stop Bose's "wholesale disregard" for the privacy of customers
• Unroll.me’s CEO is ‘heartbroken’ that users are upset their data was sold to Uber | The Verge
• This building uses emoji cast in concrete as modern gargoyles | The Verge
• Spotify hiring to launch self-branded hardware, potentially a wearable | Android Central
• Amazon launches a new digital subscription marketplace | The Verge
• Britain goes a day without coal-fired power for first time since the 1880s | The Verge
• Holiday Inn customers urged to check credit card statements after widespread hack | Globalnews.ca
• The business of GIFs: then and now | Vox