Episode 363 – Make A New Plan, Stan

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Photo by Alexander Sinn on Unsplash

A 51st way to leave your lover: AI, iPod Hi-Fi hacks, @PetoiCamp ’s Nybble, @Snap ’s @nextmind acquisition, @LEGO_Group @StarWars dioramas and @JustBornInc ’s iconic Peeps

Andy, Michael and Michael start up this week’s episode in a musical way, beginning with an iPod Hi-Fi hack.  Michael M misremembers the iPod Hi-Fi as the B&W Zeppelin (see show notes below for the difference).  Then the team moves on to Petoi’s robot cat Nybble which uses an ultrasonic sensor to react to its environment.  Next up is Snap’s recent acquisition NextMind, a Paris-based brain-computer interface company who has developed a device to read neural activity in the cortex.  This intrigues the co-hosts with the combination of Snap’s Spectacles with AR and the ability to think about pressing a virtual button via the NextMind device.  

Then, the co-hosts consider a story about an AI agent that could do one of the hardest parts of relationship work for you – breaking up with a partner.  No need to discuss much, just fire up the AI, and set yourself free to paraphrase the song.

The team wraps up with some very cool LEGO Star Wars diorama builds – the trash compactor is a favorite, some Star Wars spinoff shows, and because it’s that time of year, Peeps!

What is your favorite Peep?  Let us know over at @gamesatwork_biz ! 

Thanks for listening!  

Selected Article Links

Cult of Mac article: iPod Hi-Fi hack adds support for … Nintendo 3DS?

C|Net article: Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin iPod speaker review

GamesatWork.biz Episode 360 — Bark < Byte

Petoi Nybble Robot Cat

TechCrunch article: Snap buys mind-controlled headband maker, NextMind

Snap Newsroom: Welcome NextMind

Mel Magazine article: Breaking Up Is Hard, But What If You Had An A.I. Do It For You?

Cult of Mac article: Studio Display adds ‘Hey Siri’ to older Mac models, has 64GB of storage

CBR.com article: LEGO’s New Star Wars Sets Recreate Iconic Original Trilogy Scenes

SlashFilm article: The Never-Aired Star Wars Detours Would’ve Featured New Weird Al Songs

Mashed article: Survey Reveals America’s Favorite Peeps

Peepsfest 

Final Peepfest, photo by Michael Martine, April 2009

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Episode 362- Haptics & Smell-o-vision

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filling vial
Photo by Fulvio Ciccolo on Unsplash

possible use cases, enhanced by chemical haptics, touch, smell & accelerometers.  Corporate metaverse experiments in @TheSandboxGame & Elden Ring trickery.

Michael and Michael start of this week’s episode with a series of mixed reality and metaverse possibilities.  The videos .  Making the virtual experience even more immersive is possible by incorporating touch and smell.  The team of Jasmine Lu, Ziwei Liu, Jas Brooks and Pedro Lopes have put together a paper on how the sense of touch can be used to give a feeling of cooling, warming and more.  Check out the summary of their work on Chemical Haptics in the show notes.  OVR Technology has a similar wearable that leverages the users’ sense of smell.  Michael and Michael speculate how these could be combined together to give a feeling of heat and the smell of burning.  A third example comes from Audi, who are bringing their Holoride technology to market this summer, to create virtual experiences for passengers in moving vehicles.  

HSBC stakes out a claim in The Sandbox for their metaverse experience, which reminds the co-hosts of older 3D Internet experiences.  An ingenious player creatively masquerades as a non-player character (NPC) in Elden Ring. 

What combinations of smell and chemical haptics are most intriguing to you?  Let us know over at @gamesatwork_biz ! 

Thanks for listening!  

Selected Article Links

Apple Developer: Designing Award Winning Apps and Games – WWDC19 – Videos – Apple Developer 

HomeCourt.ai

Fyter

NewScientist article: Artificial touch: The new tech making virtual reality more immersive

Chemical Haptics

NPR article: Vermont tech firm believes to experience the metaverse, you have to smell it too

OVR Technology

The Verge article: New video game company aims to develop therapeutic games

Audi Newsroom: Beginning in the summer of 2022, Audi will become the first manufacturer to transform the automobile into an experience platform for virtual reality

Hypebeast article: HSBC Enters the Metaverse With The Sandbox Partnership

The Sandbox

Kotaku article: Elden Ring Player Pretends To Be NPC And Successfully Tricks Invader

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Episode 361 – Ancient Games & Ancient Texts

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fragment of an ancient Greek inscription
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in @MichaelRowe01’s project, @DeepMind’s Ithaca, @Meta’s BCI thought-to-text tech, mapping your home for VR gaming, movies made from games, “laser” enabled wayfinding for bicycles, ancient games newly available

Michael R describes his greeting card application, and the machine learning classification system he is building.  He would love to get more examples of greeting cards for his training data set, so if you have any, please share them!  

Staying on the machine learning theme, Michael and Michael marvel at the DeepMind model that augments historians in their efforts to fill in the gaps in ancient texts.  DeepMind has developed project Ithaca to restore and attribute ancient Greek inscriptions.  You can even give it a spin using the link in the show notes below.

Then, Michael and Michael turn to a brain-computer interface (BCI) example from Meta.  This system uses a polymer sheet with sensors that is laid onto the surface of the brain and deciphers the words that the person thinks via, wait for it… machine learning.  The co-hosts imagine where this technology could go, with Michael R recollecting the Emotiv headset and Michael M imagining the incorporation of micro expressions and feelings to allow the computer to tune and tailor the exchanges with the user.  

After a fun discussion on Amazon’s upcoming God of War game made into a movie, and an exploration of what games could (or should/should not) be made into movies, Michael M brings up Neil Stephenson’s example of reactors from Diamond Age.  A blending of movies and immersive games could become much more real in the not-to-distant future, with people following live-action entertainment via a Twitch-like observational manner, or an even more in-depth karaoke/acting style engagement directly with others.

A bright idea for bicycle way finding up next, with a product from Lasercube which uses lasers to project directions on the road right in front of the bicycle.  Michael and Michael wrap up this episode with a couple of game news stories, including how Windows will run on the Steam Deck, and the ancient game F-Zero coming to the Switch.

What would you like to do with a BCI?  What movies would you like to see made from a game?   Let us know over at @gamesatwork_biz ! 

Thanks for listening!  

Selected Article Links

The Verge article: DeepMind’s new AI model helps decipher, date and locate ancient inscriptions

DeepMind’s Ithaca

ZDNet article: How brain-computer interfaces are turning thoughts into text

The Ghost Howls blog: Custom Home Mapper lets you map your house and play VR games in it!

Sketchup 

Kotaku article: Report: Amazon Wants To Make A God of War TV Show

Neil Stephenson’s The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer

Gizmodo article: Laser-Projected GPS Directions Should Be a Standard Feature on Every Bicycle

Lasercube

The Verge article: The Steam Deck now runs Windows

The Verge article: N64 classic F-Zero comes to Switch this week with online play

slither.io

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Episode 360 – Bark < Byte

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cute & wistful dog
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mini @PetoiCamp robot dogs & cats, @Microsoft @Meta , @TinyCircuits’s mini GameBoy Thumby & a GameBoy clone and @getcana drinks by the drink

Andy, Michael and Michael start off this week’s episode with a metaverse discussion on Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.  With the hardware and software components already in the Microsoft family, it becomes clear that all the pieces are in place to make a major splash in the metaverse.  An article from VentureBeat opens up a conversation about the use of AI in the metaverse and the difference it will make to create a customized user experience.  

Then things turn to robotics, with a story about mini robot dogs and cats that are very similar to the Boston Dynamics Spot robot.  Available for the relatively low price of $299, these robots can be assembled and programmed with Scratch, C++ and Python, and upgraded with Raspberry Pi  and Arduino chips.  These robots are a very interesting way to get started with developing practical experience with robotics, programming languages and extending into AI via additional chips.  

Next, the co-hosts talk about porting a clone of the popular New York Times Wordle app called Fiver to a GameBoy.  A kickstarter by TinyCircuits called Thumby is a keychain sized tiny GameBoy.  So, the cohosts muse whether Fiver could be ported to the Thumby.  

Wrapping up this episode, the team considers drinks by the drink from a startup called Cana.  This works by purchasing cartridges that install in the beverage machine and you dial up whatever drink you want. Replacement cartridges are shipped directly to you when the ones in the machine are empty, and you pay for the drinks you consume, by the drink.  

What drinks would you pay by the drink to have at home?  Let us know over at @gamesatwork_biz ! 

Thanks for listening!  

Selected Article Links

Bloomberg Businessweek article: Microsoft Makes a $69 Billion Down Payment on the Metaverse 

VentureBeat article: Meta describes how AI will unlock the metaverse

Mashable article: Build your own mini robot dog with this DIY kit on sale

Petoi Bittle Robot Dog

Petoi Nybble Robot Cat

Hackaday article: Squeezing a Wordle Clone Onto the Game Boy

Fiver for Game Boy

Indigogo project: Thumby – The Tiny Playable Keychain

TinyCircuits

Tiny Violin

Eurogames article: Elden Ring remake imagines PS1 port

Halo 2600

Kickstarter project: Jolly Module Arduino UNO compatible electronic module with Wi-Fi

fischertechnik

Cana

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