e383 – Notchy McNotchface | Games At Work dot Biz

iPhone & Mac with notches — Photo by Penfer on Unsplash

Back to full co-host strength this week, Michael, Andy and Michael start off this @GamesAtWork_biz episode with the premier of Andy’s new Opal C1 camera and appreciate its features. Andy also shares the prompt he used for DALL-E to create an unsettling image of the Games At Work co-host team rendered as minifigs and dice.

Next up is Disney’s new AR-enabled short film, ‘Remembering’. The team did not get the chance to take in the augmented reality experience in advance of the show, however, did so over the weekend. The AR portion is short — the film is too! — and effectively transforms the area around the television into a woodland area with a waterfall, and a pool filled with leaping dolphins. As a second screen, the experience is a great example of what is possible, and will likely become expected in entertainment, news and information sharing.

Michael, Michael and Andy shift gears to discuss how the iPhone and iOS team at Apple have taken the notch and turned this obstacle into an opportunity. The newly named “Dynamic Island” is the iPhone screen real estate that is taken up by the camera array. This area is used as the center of a space that then bubbles out in an animated way to provide contextual information depending on what the user is doing. AirPod Pros connecting via bluetooth, the Island bubbles out to show that the connection is up and running. Getting close to a destination in Maps, the Island bubbles out to show the upcoming turn. There’s an article from 9 to 5 Mac that speculates how the same user experience may be ported to iPad, if the camera array is placed on the landscape edge. It is not out of the question whether the same bubble out experience could apply to the new MacBook Air, which also has a notch — this could be the case where the obstacle becomes the feature in such a clever way.

The team closes out this week’s episode with the exciting news that there will be a Monty Python based RPG, and muses whether one’s knowledge of budgies, philosophers or the airworthiness of coconut encumbered avians might provide an advantage in this game. Have a look at the other bonus links below to see whether Michael, Andy and Michael picked the right one given their limited time for the episode.

Which of the bonus links should we have talked about? Drop us a line at @gamesatwork_biz and let us know!

Selected Article Links

Opal C1 camera

https://labs.openai.com/s/Kag36pExavazHrw7vA4BQmVg

TechCrunch article: Disney+ releases its first AR-enabled short film, ‘Remembering,’ starring Brie Larson

Gizmodo article: Bizarre Muzzle Microphone Keeps Your Mouth in the Metaverse

Rackit 2.0 Handsfree Harmonica Microphone

Department store Bloomingdale’s is celebrating its 150th anniversary with a new virtual store, designed by Emperia, that will go live during New York Fashion Week, which starts September 9.@Bloomingdales @nyfw #NYFW @emperiavr #fashion #VR #tech https://t.co/RUldAnCMwv
— AWE (@ARealityEvent) September 8, 2022

The Verge article: Apple may have fixed the notch by putting it on an island

Just imagine the Dynamic Island as it would appear as the Dynamic Hud in your #AppleGlasses. https://t.co/5lSQNu0UlY
— Chris Messina (OOO) (@chrismessina) September 8, 2022