Episode 133 – Game Brains

Episode 133 – Game Brains was recorded on Friday, the 18th of February 2016. Does playing video games make you smarter?  Michael and Michael answer this question with a resounding “maybe”, as they go through a tour of several interesting links, from Google’s DeepMind computer playing Go, to Volvos starting up without keys, to toys that think and 3D printing going back to 1964 with plastigoop. We hope you enjoy the show! Selected links Can Video Games make you Smarter? — https://youtu.be/OOsqkQytHOs Luminosity — http://www.lumosity.com Gmailification — http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/17/google-launches-gmailify-a-way-to-use-gmails-best-features-with-non-gmail-accounts/ Mailbox — https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mailbox/id576502633?mt=8 Airmail — https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/airmail-your-mail-with-you/id993160329?mt=8 Google Now — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Now Connected Toys and the Serious … Continue reading

Crossy Road for the new AppleTV

with the new AppleTV released on Friday, one of the most exciting games I was looking forward to playing was multiplayer Crossy Road, partially because of my memory of playing competitive Mario Brothers on the Apple ][ and partially because my kids just love playing the game and unlocking new characters.  It was with great anticipation for my kids to get the AppleTV set up — which was very easy to do with the iPhone, as was the installation of the app from the AppleTV store.  What proved to be more challenging was getting the iOS device to be recognized … Continue reading

Episode 122 – Motivational Design

Phaedra and Michael M start off the show with a discussion about Phaedra’s experience at the SimTecT conference in Adelaide, Australia.  Phaedra reflected on an interesting question posed to her while at the conference — how motivational design could be used to extract someone from an indoctrinated, calcified way of thinking.  Motivational design leads to humanitarian design and then on to persuasive design, not just for simulation content, but also for how the experience is created and tailored for the user to know when and how to interrupt their flow for maximum benefit and impact. As you pass through the … Continue reading

Episode 116 – Monster Bash

This week we are especially delighted to have two special guests on the show, Eric Mertens from Galois, Inc.  and Aaron Camerata from voidALPHA to share their insight and experience on the Verigames project with DARPA over that past couple of years. Aaron does a fantastic job explaining how playing the game Monster Proof helps improve code quality by players playing the game in his recent blog post “Games…for Science!”  http://voidalpha.com/blog/ce6a4/monster-proof—how-it-works . The concept here is pretty simple — can crowdsourced players playing a game perform formal verification / code testing faster and more cost-effectively than testers following the traditional development … Continue reading