Episode 361 – Ancient Games & Ancient Texts

fragment of an ancient Greek inscription — Photo by Yusuf Dündar on Unsplash

#ML in @MichaelRowe01’s project, @DeepMind’s Ithaca, @Meta’s BCI thought-to-text tech, mapping your home for VR gaming, movies made from games, “laser” enabled wayfinding for bicycles, ancient games newly available

Michael R describes his greeting card application, and the machine learning classification system he is building. He would love to get more examples of greeting cards for his training data set, so if you have any, please share them!

Staying on the machine learning theme, Michael and Michael marvel at the DeepMind model that augments historians in their efforts to fill in the gaps in ancient texts. DeepMind has developed project Ithaca to restore and attribute ancient Greek inscriptions. You can even give it a spin using the link in the show notes below.

Then, Michael and Michael turn to a brain-computer interface (BCI) example from Meta. This system uses a polymer sheet with sensors that is laid onto the surface of the brain and deciphers the words that the person thinks via, wait for it… machine learning. The co-hosts imagine where this technology could go, with Michael R recollecting the Emotiv headset and Michael M imagining the incorporation of micro expressions and feelings to allow the computer to tune and tailor the exchanges with the user.

After a fun discussion on Amazon’s upcoming God of War game made into a movie, and an exploration of what games could (or should/should not) be made into movies, Michael M brings up Neil Stephenson’s example of reactors from Diamond Age. A blending of movies and immersive games could become much more real in the not-to-distant future, with people following live-action entertainment via a Twitch-like observational manner, or an even more in-depth karaoke/acting style engagement directly with others.

A bright idea for bicycle way finding up next, with a product from Lasercube which uses lasers to project directions on the road right in front of the bicycle. Michael and Michael wrap up this episode with a couple of game news stories, including how Windows will run on the Steam Deck, and the ancient game F-Zero coming to the Switch.

What would you like to do with a BCI? What movies would you like to see made from a game? Let us know over at @gamesatwork_biz !

Thanks for listening!

Selected Article Links

I am working on an app, and I need pictures for greeting cards (all major holidays) how about dropping a few here please #greetingcards
— Michael Rowe (@michaelrowe01) March 12, 2022