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reading glasses in focus on top of a stack of papers representing a detailed contract — Photo by Mari Helin on Unsplash

Published 22 January 2024

Andy and Michael M are back in studio to talk tech. While missing co-host Michael R, Andy and Michael M talk about AI, humanoid robots that make coffee and fold laundry, the uncanny valley, Apple’s Vision Pro, Michael R’s Wasted Time Pro app and take a moment of zen in an emoji garden.

Staring off with some old and new games, Andy and Michael talk about the success of Hogwarts Legacy from WB Games versus the decade of Rockstar published games. Turning to the classics, Andy shares a website that has a series of old Mac game demos, and the co-hosts take a short stroll down memory lane.

After considering a Pascal poster, the pair ponder the relative security of code written by AI agents from a Schneier on Security article. Next is a thorough treatment on humanoid robots – and some discussion on the uncanny valley, as well as the fit for purpose opportunities for advancement on things like wrists and knees that do not need to be fully replicated.

In a bit of “inside baseball”, Michael and Andy talk about a recent article on the shrinking podcast industry, followed by the usual plea to subscribe, like and share.

Then, it’s the moment that everyone’s been waiting for – the chance to order your own Vision Pro, provided of course that your shipping address and locale is in the United States. Michael and Andy give a flyover of a plethora of Vision Pro articles. Among the stories from the past week include promotional videos from Apple, initial reviews, stories about third parties that will and will not support the Vision Pro ecosystem, and the fact that you will have Wasted Time Pro available at the launch of the Vision Pro.

The team wraps up the episode with a moment of zen that wreaks a bit of havoc with the audio recording – Drawing Garden. This web page allows the user to create a garden simply by moving their cursor across the page, replete with sound effects.

What is the first Vision Pro application you would you want to try out? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!

Selected Article Links

New games, old games

Kotaku article: Hogwarts Legacy Just Broke A 14-Year Games Industry Streak

Classic Macintosh Game Demos

Code, AI, Robots

For Niklaus Wirth, 1934-2024.
Apple's classic Pascal poster, remade as a nice clean vector image. Print at any size with the PDF link.
http://www.danamania.com/print/Apple%20Pascal%20Poster/PascalPosterV3%20A1.pdf

— Nanoraptor (@NanoRaptor) 2024-01-04T20:31:16.603Z

The Register article: RIP: Software design pioneer and Pascal creator Niklaus Wirth

Schneier on Security article: Code Written with AI Assistants Is Less Secure

The Verge article: BMW’s South Carolina plant is testing humanoid robot workers

TechCrunch article: Elon’s Tesla robot is sort of ‘ok’ at folding laundry in pre-scripted demo