e399 — It’s CES Week

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Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada neon sign lit up in the dark
Photo by David Vives on Unsplash

Happy New Year once again!  

In this episode, Michael, Andy and Michael all get together for the first episode of the year.  Starting off with a Wired UK article on becoming “metaverse ready”, the co-hosts have an intriguing discussion on the savings and speed that comes from rendering 3D objects.  This reminds Andy about Webspaces, a new kind of website that uses HTML to create 3D worlds in addition to 2D pages.  

CES 2023 was in full swing the previous week in Las Vegas, and there was a surge of articles about the various and sundry innovations announced at this year’s event.  First up, Diver-X’s with IRL haptic feedback for objects you hold in-world.  Then, a detailed report from MacRumors about the Apple mixed reality headset.  From the automotive world, an announcement from Mercedes-Benz building 10,000 electric vehicle charging points throughout Europe, North America and China.  BMW showcased i Vision Dee to bring augmented reality to the entire windshield, and also e-ink exterior displays allowing for changing the vehicle’s appearance.  The cohosts marveled at the 16 inch foldable Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold.  Samsung announced an AI powered oven with a camera to allow users to livestream their cooks while they are in progress.  Michael R remembers the June Oven which also has a camera.  

Be sure to check out the links below for more details on each of these innovations!  Bonus for 2023: Michael R did not go to CES, so no CES sickness for him this year!  

The cohosts wrap things up with a cool (very cool) story from LEGO enthusiast Brickcrafts who built a LEGO snow plow train, and tested it with some very fluffy snow. 

Does your bot have a question for the Games At Work team for the new year?  Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know! 

These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot.

Selected Article Links

Wired article: It’s Not Too Early To Become Metaverse-Ready

This is the home of Webspaces, a new kind of website that uses HTML to create 3D worlds in addition to 2D pages.
Webspaces are made up of static HTML files.
webspaces.space/introduction.h

cool, but no VRML 🙂

— Chris Heilmann (@codepo8) 2023-01-06T10:33:08.369Z

Webspaces

Games at Work e104 — CES, Sales and Sentient with links to Michael R’s CES 2015 blog posts

Engadget article: Driver-X’s gloves are a cheaper way to get hands on in the metaverse

Diver-X

Wikipedia article: Racer X 

MacRumors article: Apple’s AR/VR Headset Said to Feature Digital Crown, Waist-Mounted Battery Pack, and More

Reuters article: Mercedes to launch vehicle-charging network, starting in North America

Ars Technica article: BMW is developing a full-screen head-up display for 2025’s Neue Klasse

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold

Mashable article: CES 2023: Samsung’s new AI oven will let you livestream your bakes

IKEA Hacking – IVAR/SKADIS Hook #3DPrinting

June Oven

The Drive article: This Little Lego Snow Plow Train Actually Works

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e398 — Stable Diffusion Genius

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horse in a stable with diffused light
Photo by Jacob Jolibois on Unsplash

Happy New Year!

In this episode, Andy and Michael M get together to reflect upon 2022 and prepare for 2023.  First, the co-hosts touch on the very special audio episode of the behind the scenes BCS webinar, and Michael R’s drop in on .  Then, they marvel on how far has come in the past year.  How might you know whether the show notes were written by the bot?  Perhaps the multiple uses of the word the might be the clue.  The the the the.  Or maybe not.  Seriously though, determining whether an AI wrote some text, generated an image, or composed a 3d model will likely become more and more difficult with the advances to be made in the coming 12 months.  Interesting Engineering gives several amazing advances from 2022, among them, a way to 3d print wood.  

Closing out for the last recoding of the year, and turning and eye to 2023, Andy and Michael discuss Robin Sloan’s writeup.  It resonates strongly with them – to remain curious, to try new things and keep an open mind.  A marvelous message to carry into the new year.

Does your bot have a question for the Games At Work team for the new year?  Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know! 

Selected Article Links

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT webinar: Behind the scenes at the Games at Work dot Biz podcast (AGM)

Games at Work: A Very Special Episode

Michael Rowe on Weeks End show

Apple Machine Learning Research paper: Stable Diffusion with Core ML on Apple Silicon

MIT Technology Review article: How to spot AI-generated text

TechCrunch article: OpenAI releases Point-E, an AI that generates 3D models

Interesting Engineering article: We can now 3D print as much wood as we want without cutting a single tree

Interesting Engineering article: 22 best innovations of 2022: IE celebrates a year in engineering

hackster.io article: Finally an Open Source Capture Cartridge for the Original Game Boy

TechCrunch article: Meta acquires Luxexcel, a smart eyewear company

Within

Robin Sloan post: A year of new avenues

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A Very Special Episode: BCS Webinar

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images of Ian Hughes, Michael Rowe, Andy Piper and Michael Martine from the BCS Webinar YouTube recording.
BCS Webinar with Ian, Michael, Andy and Michael recorded 12 Dec 2022

In A Very Special Episode, Andy, Michael and Michael were thrilled to be the guests of Ian Hughes on an unscripted webinar on the Games At Work podcast.  Ian is the Chair of the BCS IT Animation and Games Development Specialist Group.  The video webinar was recorded Monday, 12 December, and this is the audio feed of the video for the Games At Work listening audience.  If you’d like to see why the cohosts say that they have “faces for radio”, have a look at the YouTube recording in the show notes below! 

In this 58 minute free ranging conversation, Ian leads the discussion with the Games At Work cohosts, getting a detailed look at the origin story and what it takes to make a podcast that has continued weekly for nearly a decade.  Michael, Andy and Michael each share personal insights about the podcast, guests that have come on the show (such as Ian himself!), and what makes the endeavor tick.  Spoiler alert: it is a combination of curiosity, dedication and camaraderie that make the difference for this podcast.

Learn whether there was a radioactive spider somewhere in the distant past.  Discover what “pressing the big red button” means in the context of this show.  Understand what goes into the audio engineering on a (nearly) weekly basis for over a decade.  Engage with the cohosts with your ideas, and get them to talk about news stories you find interesting.  Reminisce about the DogearNation podcast – but do not go to the website! All this and more on this Very Special Episode, as the team runs up to major milestone episode 400.

This set of show notes lovingly handcrafted (not by ChatGPT or another bot).  Drop us a link or an idea for the upcoming episodes over at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and maybe it will be on the historic episode 400!

Selected Article Links

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT

BCS webinar: Behind the scenes at the Games at Work dot Biz podcast (AGM)

Feeding Edge blog post: What does it take to make the long running Games At Work dot Biz podcast or any other for that matter? 

Games at Work e397 – Chatty Bad AI (reflections on the BCS webinar)

dogearnation podcast graphic image
dogearnation podcast graphic image

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e397 — Chatty Bad AI

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speech bubble
Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

Andy, the continuity cohost, is joined this week by Michael R.  After reflecting on the BCS behind the scenes webinar on the podcast, the cohosts get things started with a few games, notably Star Wars Galaxies.  Then, continuing on the ChatGPT theme from last week, Andy introduces an article where the subject is a bot, supported by people, who step in from time to time when the bot needs a little human intervention.  The surprising thing is that the human assistants to the bot started using the language of the bot in their everyday lives.  

In addition to talking about Lensa, the pair also discuss Riffusion, which generates spectrograms from a prompt which may then be played as an audio file.  Super cool – give it a try! 

The New Stack lists the top 5 internet technologies for 2022.  Generative AI, Fediverse, Cloud IDEs (early in the year), Open Metaverse and Decentralized Storage.  Of these topics, the Games At Work team have discussed each at some point this year, with the possible exception of storage.  

Are you a bot?  Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know! 

Selected Article Links

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT webinar: Behind the scenes at the Games at Work dot Biz podcast (AGM)

I love that is still going.

Star Wars Galaxies emu Dark Rebellion uses integrated D20 systems for ‘complex and immersive adventures’

massivelyop.com/2022/12/11/sta

— Theo Priestley (@tdp) 2022-12-13T23:47:09.900Z

Wikipedia article: Star Wars Galaxies 

Ars Technica article:  Amazon Games branches out, announces it will publish the next Tomb Raider

TechDirt article: Getty Images Watermark Shows Up In Latest Square ‘Final Fantasy’ Game

The Guardian article: Becoming a chatbot: my life as a real estate AI’s human backup

these kids are so used to bots being at the end of the submit button, more so that i was used to experiencing at that age, so i keep that in mind and respond to such reports along the lines of "hey i want to help, but this is not how you talk to people to get it." and they often apologize, genuinely! i get a lot of "i didn't realize this was a person" which is incredibly mature once you get past their original message calling my mom gay because their bot code doesn't work lol 2/5

— jenn schiffer (@jenn) 2022-12-02T20:45:16.757Z

"Out of 100 avatars I generated, 16 were topless, and in another 14 it had put me in extremely skimpy clothes… I have Asian heritage…My white female colleague got significantly fewer sexualized images. Another colleague with Chinese heritage got results similar to mine."

Incredibly important story from Melissa Heikkilä about how the viral AI avatar app Lensa repeatedly undressed her without her consent, and its grotesque fetish for Asian women.

technologyreview.com/2022/12/1

— Karen Hao 郝珂灵 (@karenhao) 2022-12-13T01:10:25.596Z

TechCrunch article: UPDATED: It’s way too easy to trick Lensa AI into making NSFW images

Riffusion

https://www.riffusion.com/?&prompt=madonna+and+elton+john+lullaby+duet&seed=51211&denoising=0.75&seedImageId=og_beat

The New Stack article: Top 5 Internet Technologies of 2022

Corel Gallery Clipart Mastodon Bot

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