e436 — Squishy Purple Doom

purple abstract illustration
Photo by Anni Roenkae: https://www.pexels.com/photo/purple-abstract-illustration-3109850/

Published 16 October 2023

Michael and Michael start off this show with the amazing news that friend of the podcast, Ian Hughes is on his 16th headset as he shared the unboxing of his shiny new Meta Quest 3.  Andy joins in the conversation, fresh from his flight from London, so all three co-hosts are in North Carolina for the recording of this episode!  Staying on the user experience theme, and connecting with a long-running interest of the co-hosts, Michael and Michael talk about a guitar used to control Doom.  Next up is a story about Brilliant Lab’s ChatGPT-powered monocle.  Andy brought his monocle with him from London, allowing Michael and Michael to give it a try.  The co-hosts discuss the Freewrite Traveler writing device.  See “Thyme Lord” Alton Brown’s treatment on unitaskers in the show notes below.

Moving along to AI, this week’s episode has several stories on translations, from glasses that translate speech to augmented reality text, to AI that translates the spoken word to other languages in the style of the speaker. The Content Credentials mark, designed to identify the provenance of AI generated material sparks a conversation on what constitutes generative AI content.  Another AI story describes the design for a generative walking robot made from from Northwestern University constructed of a squishy blob that actually walks.  Check out the video of this purple blob in the show notes.  This story reminded the co-hosts of the AI that figured out the Q*bert game from episode 225.

Switching gears to several automotive stories, the team takes a look at GM’s focus on the open source uProtocol to attract developers.  A story about the IDRA Gigapress expansion to Ford and Hyundai shows how this manufacturing technique is dramatically accelerating automotive manufacturing processes.

Do you believe photo filters should have a Content Credentials mark?  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

UI/UX

Headset number 16

— Epredator (@epredator) 2023-10-10T13:47:47.188Z

Hackaday article: Playing the Guitar of Doom

Stuff article: I strapped a ChatGPT-powered monocle to my face for a week

Games at Work e406 — AI Lemmings

Scientific American article: New Glasses Can Transcribe Speech in Real Time

Freewrite Traveler

AI

Axios article: Prompt: Using AI to change videos from English to other languages

The Verge article: Adobe created a symbol to encourage tagging AI-generated content

Content Credentials

Gizmodo article: ‘Instant Evolution’: AI Creates a Squishy Purple Blob That Uses Air to Walk

Games at Work e225 — Ah ha — it’s AI!

Automotive Innovation

The Verge article: GM now has its own API for software developers to make cool apps for its cars

The Verge article: GM created its own open-source software protocol and wants its competitors to use it

AutoBlog article: Ford, Hyundai follow Tesla’s lead, buy ‘gigapresses’ from casting machine maker IDRA

IDRA Gigapress

Bonus Links

UI/UX

MacStories article: Three Ways to Use BetterTouchTool to Enhance Window Management with a Trackpad

BetterTouchTool

PowerMate Controller on ebay

Ars Technica article: As some carmakers run from Apple CarPlay, Porsche embraces it

Cult of Mac article: Startup Humane will fully unveil its ‘Ai Pin’ in early November [Updated]

Hu.ma.ne

The decoder article: Rewind Pendant is a wearable AI microphone that records and transcribes your conversations

Rewind AI Pendant

Stealth Optional article: Make it so! Apple wants to create Star Trek’s communicator badge IRL

Bonus Link

Brick Fanatics article: It’s now much harder to get a LEGO employee minifigure business card

e434 – Breaking Virtual Bricks

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Welcome back! After a brief break, Andy and Michael R. fight technical difficulties to chat through the latest happenings in the worlds of tech and gaming.

The big updates to Apple’s hardware and software – and voices – are discussed, along with the potential for USB-C now that the connector is (more or less) everywhere. Will you be adding a giant SSD to your phone any time soon?

On the gaming side of things, we dig into the trend for documentaries about classic videogames. Andy remembers Yie Ar Kung Fu rather than Karateka, but it is often interesting to look back at the history of gaming.

LEGO makes an appearance, with a brief mention of LEGO Brick Tales coming to the Meta Quest 3, along with reference to recent news that LEGO’s sustainability drive to improve their plastics hit a blocker.

Finally, we cover the huge Unity license change, and talk about how Michael can re-live his love for the universe for The Expanse, in gaming form.

Have you picked up any shiny new gadgets lately, or tried some new games or software we should know about? Let us know in the comments below, or via the Fediverse @gamesatwork_biz@botsin.space.

Selected article links

Apple Stuff

Bad watchOS UX choices – https://sixcolors.com/link/2023/09/craig-hockenberry-on-the-watchos-10-timer/

A luxurious new case – https://mastodon.social/@hotdogsladies/111130441640625085

CARROT in your own voice – https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/18/carrot-weather-for-ios-17-introduces-a-voice-impersonation-feature-and-more/

The big review – https://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-and-ipados-17-the-macstories-review/

Add an SSD to your phone – https://mastodon.social/@Bas/111104149303059538

Pixel Pals 2 – https://mastodon.social/@christianselig/111104750282466025

Gaming Stuff

Making of Karateka – https://www.pcgamer.com/the-making-of-karateka-proves-the-best-way-to-tell-gaming-history-is-with-a-game-and-the-rest-of-the-industry-must-follow-its-lead

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1163060/The_Making_of_Karateka/

LEGO on Quest 3 – https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/27/23892690/meta-quest-3-lego-bricktales-oculus

LEGO recycled bricks plans – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66910573

Unity … “oopsie” – https://venturebeat.com/games/unity-founder-says-we-fcked-up-with-price-increase-and-company-prepares-to-backpedal/

The Expanse returns, to get Michael excited – https://www.wired.com/story/telltale-games-the-expanse-studio-returns

e433 — Zooming While You’re Zooming

car moving at speed, perhaps even zooming
Photo by Alessio Lin on Unsplash

Published 18 September 2023

Michael and Michael start of this show with the National Public Radio Marketplace series on games and the business of games called “Skin in the Game”. 

Then, they turn to the Apple Wonderlust event from last week, dialing in on the focus on carbon neutrality and the way of communicating that focus.  

Next up, a story from Business Insider for how generative AI is used to create software in minutes for a $1.  The image and part of the story reminds the co-hosts of Smallville, discussed in August’s episode 428.

Rounding out the episode this week are a couple of automotive stories – how hackers are exposing functionality in cars following on last week’s episode.  Also, a story about videoconferencing in cars, which may make a great deal of sense in autonomous vehicles, or perhaps when the vehicle is parked.

Would you want to have videoconferencing in your vehicle?  What software would you have a company comprised of chatbots create for you?  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

Skin in the Game

Skin in the Game series by Marketplace

Gameheads

Here’s Your Change game by Gameheads

Apple Week!

Apple Newsroom post: Apple unveils its first carbon neutral products

This was a big part of Tuesday’s   — Got big praise as well as heaps of snark.

What did you think of this video? 🤔

youtube.com/watch?v=QNv9PRDIhe

— Dave Mark (@davemark) 2023-09-14T11:25:57.814Z

Daring Fireball article: Thoughts and Observations on This Week’s ‘Wonderlust’ Apple Event

The Verge article: Apple’s first ‘carbon neutral’ products are a red herring

Apple’s Polishing Cloth

AI

Business Insider article: AI chatbots were tasked to run a tech company. They built software in under 7 minutes — for less than $1.

Games at Work e428 Is you is, or is you AIn’t my AI?

ARXIV paper: Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior

Cars

The Atlantic article: Car Hackers Are Out for Blood

Boy Genius Report article: See what it’s like to take a Zoom call in the new Mercedes E-Class