e454 — I don’t remember a thing!

A chess pawn on a mirror, with a king in the mirror’s reflection
Photo by Ravi Kumar on Unsplash

Published 19 February 2024

Michael, Michael and Andy are back in studio with an AI and robot powered episode.  The co-hosts start things off with the world’s “most responsible” AI chatbot, Goody-2.  According to the website, this chatbot is so safely constructed and curated that it will not answer anything that may remotely be conceived as problematic or controversial.  Moving along to another fit for purpose large language model (LLM), the team considers Chess-GPT.  Andy shares a fun Spotify playlist centered on playing chess with Diana Ross.

The team discusses the just-announced OpenAI text-to-video capabilities of Sora.  Michael R recalls his paper on creating movies directly from textual screenplays.  Also on the same general theme, Apple Research have shared details on Keyframer, a generative AI tool that allows 2D objects to be animated.

Switching gears to robots, the team continues with the AI theme and highlights an article by the Hustle with several robots aimed at helping children.  The very cute sounding (and looking) Snorble, Grok rocket and Doll take center stage.  These are followed up by the humanoid robot from MagicLab piercing a marshmallow and roasting it in a video.

The co-hosts wrap up this episode with an all-inclusive article from the Verge calling out that the metaverse is not dead yet.  

What ideas do you have for the confluence of AI + robots + metaverse?  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.  All rights reserved.  That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

Selected Article Links

AI

Wired article: Meet the Pranksters Behind Goody-2, the World’s ‘Most Responsible’ AI Chatbot

GOODY-2

Adam Karvonen post: Chess-GPT’s Internal World Model

Spotify Playlist: playing chess with Diana Ross

Wikipedia article: Elo rating system

Games at Work e301 – Grinch Bots

The Verge article: Apple’s latest prototype AI tool can animate images using text descriptions

Ars Technica article: OpenAI collapses media reality with Sora, a photorealistic AI video generator

OpenAI’s Sora

Domo Arigato

the Hustle article: Bots for tots: AI-powered children’s toys are talking back

Snorble

Grok toy

Doly

Interesting Engineering article: MagicLab’s humanoid can toast marshmallows, fold clothes and dance

metaverse

VentureBeat article: The metaverse is back. But let’s not call it the metaverse

e453 — Vision Pro a Pro-Pro

Apple Vision Pro on a stand - Photo by Mylo Kaye on Unsplash
Photo by Mylo Kaye on Unsplash

Published 12 February 2024

Michael, Michael and Andy are back in studio to talk tech.  Immersive engagement, user experience, advertising and strategic partnerships form the backbone of this episode.

Starting off, as one would expect, the team starts things off with Michael R’s experiences with the Vision Pro from the past week.  Among the stories Michael shares, he talks about his productive work use cases.  Listeners will be relived to know he did not wear the Vision Pro while driving!  

Next up, the team considers the Brilliant Labs Frame, from the same company that produced the Monocle, discussed in episode 436.  Then, discussion turns to search innovations, which brings up an interesting story from London, where tube stations had been temporarily renamed as part of an advertising campaign for Google’s circle to search feature.  Speaking of search, Lycos still exists, while Alta Vista had been acquired by Yahoo.  Open source Stract gets a mention for listeners to try out.

Then, some exciting news with several North Carolina connections.  Disney and Epic Games announce a partnership to “expand the reach of beloved Disney stories and experiences” according to the press release.  This is on the heels of the recent news of Disney’s second Storyliving neighborhood: Astoria in Chatham County, North Carolina, which will take advantage of Disney’s Imagineering placemaking.  But wait, there’s more from Disney… and Fox and Warner Brothers – a new sports streaming service.  

Closing out this episode is a Kickstarter that streams poetry – the Poem/1 AI rhyming clock.

What do you think about the confluence of metaverse and physical placemaking?  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.  All rights reserved.  That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

Selected Article Links

Michael R’s a Vision Pro Pro

Six Colors article: Apple Vision Pro review: Eyes on the future

Inessential by Brent Simmons post: Why NetNewsWire Isn’t Available for Vision Pro

MacRumors article: Apple Vision Pro Apps to Check Out

Apple Vision Show

More AR topics (non Vision Pro)

Brilliant Labs

Games at Work e436: Squishy Purple Doom

IanVisits article: Five tube stations now have new circular tube maps

Google The Keyword blog post: Circle (or highlight or scribble) to Search

Lycos

Wikipedia article: AltaVista

Stract

Metaversiality (kinda like Wessonality, but different)

The Verge article: Fortnite is winning the metaverse

Disney press release: Disney and Epic Games to Create Expansive and Open Games and Entertainment Universe Connected to Fortnite

Storyliving by Disney – Asteria

Chatham County Economic Development Corporation post: Storyliving by Disney Announces Asteria, New Residential Community in North Carolina

Wikipedia article: EPCOT

Celebration, Florida

Southern Village, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

CNBC article: ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery to launch joint sports streaming platform this year

Variety article: Warner, Fox, Disney to Launch Streaming Sports Joint Venture

The Verge article: ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. are putting together a juggernaut sports streaming app

The Atlantic article: What We Discovered on ‘Deep YouTube’

Wikipedia article: William Hertling

Avogadro’s Number: 6.022 * 10^23

Bonus

Kickstarter post: Poem/1: AI rhyming clock

tinyprinter.club

Wayback Machine: bergcloud.com/littlepriner/

poem.town

e452- Before and After

Andy Representing at #FOSDEM24
Andy Representing at

While Andy is at FOSDEM and Michael M. Is traveling for business, Michael R. Goes deep on his experiences with the new Apple Vision Pro.   He explains his history with Apple products, and is excited that the VP of Developer Relations at Apple sent him a note as a launch product app.

He begins with a little back ground on his history of using Apple products, from Macintosh SE, to iPod, all the way to today’s pickup of the Apple Vision Pro. You also get a little history of the Wasted Time app, and all various features and capabilities that were part of the app over the years.

After the history lesson Michael takes you thru his expectations for the Apple Vision Pro, including editing this episode in Ferrite and deploying native Vision Pro code to the device instead of the simulator. After talking about the various reviews and early experience videos, he heads off to the Apple Store for his demo and pickup time.

After a quick review of the in store demo experience, Michael takes you thru a deep dive of his experience with the device after about 2.5 hours of usage. This is not a review, but you will find out which apps worked well in 3D, which did not, and how the persona setup went.

So sit back, follow our links, and enjoy the show!

Links:

Before:

Wasted Time for iOS – https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wasted-time/id580499021

MKBHD – Hand’s on Video – https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/31/new-vision-pro-tidbits-and-mkbhds-full-hands-on-video/

https://youtube.com/watch?v=dtp6b76pMak%3Fsi%3DmMyoMsAgoukENhbG
MKBHD Hand On Video

twit.tv – Hands on Tech – https://www.youtube.com/@HandsOnTech (Must be a Twit Subscriber to see the VisionPro hands on video)

Ferrite – https://www.wooji-juice.com/products/ferrite/ for podcast Editing

Avatar in 3D – https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2009/dec/11/avatar-review-james-cameron

Converting Titanic to 3D – https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/titanic-3d-nab-producer-jon-landau-james-cameron-312631/ 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=iEnCKEfSgUM%3Fsi%3D1OupVmKH7QeXlgk8
Count Floyd’s 3D House of Beef

After:

Persona –

Wasted Time Pro for visionOS – https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wasted-time-pro/id6475795413

Why you should do the store demo – https://www.cultofmac.com/845317/vision-pro-store-demo/

Apps pre-purchased:

Juno  – https://apps.apple.com/app/id6476961640 – YouTube replacement by Christian Selig

PCalc – https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pcalc/id284666222

Carrot Wather – https://apps.apple.com/us/app/carrot-weather-alerts-radar/id961390574

Microsoft Apps – https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-365-blog/announcing-microsoft-365-apps-available-on-apple-vision-pro/ba-p/4042505

Max – https://apps.apple.com/us/app/max-stream-hbo-tv-movies/id1666653815

Disney+ – https://www.disneyplus.com/welcome/applevisionpro

Zoom – https://apps.apple.com/us/app/zoom-one-platform-to-connect/id546505307

Apple Arcade Games – https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/apple-vision-pro-apple-arcade-game-support/

e451 — Fahrenheit

Immersive light show experience at the Chicago Botanic Garden Dec 2023
Picture by Michael Martine, Chicago Botanic Garden, Dec 2023

Published 29 January 2024

Michael, Michael and Andy are back in studio to talk tech.  Immersive engagement stories from Microsoft, Disney, Apple and Samsung lead off the topics for this episode.

Staring with Microsoft, now Microsoft Teams supports 3D and VR sessions.  Then, the team turns to Disney for a very foundational (heh) innovation.  Lanny Smoot, Disney Research Fellow and Imagineer says “Being an Imagineer is using technology in the service of making people happy”.  As the inventor of (among many other things) the latest version of the extendable light saber, he is also the inventor of the HoloTile, a surface that allows people to walk on it in any direction without moving across the floor.  See the embedded video below – which Disney shared only a few days ago and has already racked up over a million views.  The Samsung Galaxy Ring will be available later this year.

Turning to the world of AI, the team discusses Nightshade, an application from the University of Chicago makers of Glaze, discussed in August 2023.  This application allows artists and makers to disrupt scraping of their content.  Coincidentally and kind of related, food bloggers are also incorporating nightshade (notice the lowercase N, as this is the plant and not the app), in very small white on white text to confuse the scraping done by cooked.wiki.  And staying on the AI and food theme, but with one more twist, Michael M shares the announcement video for Hava, which uses visual recognition AI to identify food and present users with insights into diet satiety and satisfaction.

This episode contains a more detailed discussion on the Apple Vision Pro, which if you haven’t yet put in your order for one, they are reportedly sold out.  Michael R shares experiences and thoughts in preparing code for the Vision Pro, especially with the enormous number of applications that will function in VisionOS right from the product launch.  While people are saying Happy Birthday to the Vision Pro, it should be noted that it is also the Mac’s 40th birthday.  

The team rounds out this episode with thanks to Ingenuity, which has flown 72 flights above the martian surface.

What is your favorite immersive experience from the past 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.  All rights reserved.  That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

Selected Article Links

Immersiveness

The Verge article: Microsoft Teams now supports 3D and VR meetings

Microsoft Teams is now on visionOS. At this point, it almost feels like Microsoft is supporting this platform with more native productivity apps than Apple 😅

/via apps.apple.com/us/app/microsof

— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) 2024-01-21T00:57:39.415Z

TechCrunch article: Disney offers an elegant solution to VR’s movement problem

The Verge article: Samsung’s smart ring might signal the start of a new wearable era

AI

Cult of Mac article: Nightshade app ‘poisons’ AI models copying your art [Awesome Apps]

Games at Work e427: DeepBarbie Fakery

Alec Muffet Dropsafe blog post: BREAKING: food bloggers are adding nightshade and other poisons to online recipe pages to defeat “cooked.wiki” and other advert/revenue-stripping robots

hava.co

Happy Birthday, Vision Pro!  (and Happy 40th to the Mac!)

Mashable article: Apple’s Vision Pro is sold out

GitHub Gist – Counting number of top iPad apps marked as available on visionOS

USA Today article: It’s Apple Macintosh’s 40th birthday: How the historic computer compares with tech today

Space

Ars Technica article: NASA loses, and then recovers, contact with its historic Mars helicopter

Hackaday article: SO LONG AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FLIGHTS: INGENUITY PERMANENTLY GROUNDED AFTER 72 FLIGHTS