Episode 272 — Serenity Meow

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cat playing
Photo by Dimitri Houtteman on Unsplash

Our feline friends feature prominently in this episode, with stories of game design and games inspired by and for cats.  Check out the show, and the links below for the cute cats, and an AR cat hide and seek game for those that are staying at home.

The team talks through several stories about virtual worlds and games as social platforms, bringing people together, and continuing on the themes expressed in last week’s episode.  There is a funny exchange on fast fashion being a driver for digital goods, and augmented reality is held up as a social distancing solution for retail to help people envision products in their own environment.  

Going back to the future, Andy shares a 2007 blog post on “ambient intimacy” reacting to Michael M’s comments on loose-tight relationships — an intriguing read, and a link to Leisa Reichelt’s post is included in the show notes below.

For those that want to envision the future today, Jane McGonigal gave a presentation on how to do this by playing her game of writing 100 facts about a topic.  Then, you rewrite these facts as the opposite and looking for signals of change that would indicate these opposite facts could be true in the future.  Given that only a few months ago, most everyone would agree that an opposite fact of “all schools are closed and students learn via distance education only” would have seemed to be an implausible reality, yet here we are.

Some intriguing ideas out of Silicon Valley are discussed, such as how Zoom is using AI to identify and stop griefing and a Figma representation called “Stay At Home Valley” is a crowdsourced virtual view of the participants favorite establishments in the Valley.

We continue to hope that everyone is staying safe, healthy and well.  The team is looking forward to reassembling again for another episode next week! 

Selected Links

TechCrunch article: We need more video games that are social platforms first, games second — https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/02/virtual-worlds-video-games-coronavirus-social-networks-fortnite-animal-crossing/ 

Leisa Reichelt’s blog post on Ambient Intimacy — http://www.disambiguity.com/ambient-intimacy/ 

Youth Online — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10180827-youth-online 

Convergence Culture — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38860.Convergence_Culture 

Wired article: Zoom Not Cutting It for You? Try Exploring a Virtual World — https://www.wired.com/story/zoom-not-cutting-it-virtual-world-online-town/ 

Stay At Home Valley on Figma — https://www.figma.com/file/VIyGjdIshMAtIKYdUM214Z/Stay-At-Home-Valley?node-id=34%3A70

Silicon Valley TV show — https://www.hbo.com/silicon-valley/ 

Blue Bottle Coffee — https://bluebottlecoffee.com/ 

Los Angeles Times article: Your cat — yes, your cat!  — can teach you about game design — https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-05-08/what-your-cat-can-teach-you-about-game-design

GDC Vault session: What Cats Can Teach You About Empathic Game Design — https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1025752/What-Cats-Can-Teach-You 

TechCrunch article: “Here Kitty!” is an adorable way to pass the time while staying at home — https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/04/here-kitty-is-an-adorable-way-to-pass-the-time-while-staying-at-home/ 

TechCrunch article: AR is the answer to plummeting retail sales during lockdown — https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/06/ar-is-the-answer-to-plummeting-retail-sales-during-lockdown/ 

Tumult blog: Reviving a 16-year old Mac App — https://blog.tumult.com/2020/05/04/reviving-a-16-year-old-mac-app/ 

Institute for the Future — After the Pandemic: Writing the Stories of the Future — http://www.iftf.org/our-work/health-self/afterthepandemic/writing-the-stories-of-the-future/ 

Apartment Therapy: You Can Now Play Classic Arcade Games for Free Right In Your Browser — https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/free-online-arcade-games-36750295 

The Bold Italic article: The Weirdest S*** to Come Out of Silicon Valley in April — https://thebolditalic.com/the-weirdest-shit-to-come-out-of-silicon-valley-in-april-2020-22924462d1f0

Thilo Schön Lego Design — http://www.thilo-schoen.de/lego.html 

Moderation Town YouTube channel — https://www.youtube.com/user/moderationtown?app=desktop 

ModerationTown IMDb — https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1832710/ 

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Episode 271 — Conference Royale

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coffee and conference name tag
Photo by Allie on Unsplash

Happy MayTheFourth everybody!

It’s conference season, and in the news this week are several articles about virtual worlds, MMORPGs and games becoming an accessible way to connect with others.  After a quick discussion on the games to be played this weekend, Michael, Michael and Andy talk about how there would be often be a meta conversation happening during a conference, for example, with a specific twitter hashtag that people would use to exchange ideas, frequently shown on a video monitor on stage.  It is easy to see how games, MMORPGs and virtual worlds can help augment the virtual conference experience with people bumping into one another because of the place where they’re interacting.  Fortnite continues having concerts, recently with Travis Scott drawing over 12M concurrent viewers, and also establishing a Party Royale mode where the objective is not to have a battle, but rather a place to be cooperative vs combative.  Once again, very reminiscent of the Second Life experience.  Ian Hughes’ avatar in SL gets an upgrade, and Animal Crossing is used as a conference venue for Deserted Island DevOps.

In the world of robotics, MIT uses gesture controls to guide and fly a drone through hoops, which also then reminds Andy of the Myo armband and the Nintendo Power Glove.  iRobot reportedly will not launch their lawn mowing robot in 2020.

Contact lenses are back in the news, with new smart wearables designed to monitor diabetes and deliver medicine to the wearer.  How do they get the micro doses of medicine into the contact lens?  Scrolling down in the same article, Mojo Vision (not Mojo Nixon) calls their version of AR “Invisible Computing” because it overlays what you see with relevant information, without needing to wear something over your eyes to block out real reality.

In the time warp games section, a 1994 baseball fighting game reminds Michael M of Arch Rivals, a basketball fighting game from 1989, where players are encouraged to punch their opponent to steal the ball, and score.

We continue to hope that everyone is staying safe, healthy and well.  The team is looking forward to reassembling again for another episode next week! 

Selected Links

Board Game Geek: Civitas Nihilium — https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/273825/civitas-nihilium 

Board Game Geek: Andy Piper Board Game Collection — https://boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/andypiper 

PCGames N article: Fortnite Party Royale is live – a social hub to relax while you queue — https://www.pcgamesn.com/fortnite/party-royale-release-date-map 

PC Mag article: New Use for Animal Crossing: Virtual Tech Conference Venue — https://www.pcmag.com/news/new-use-for-animal-crossing-virtual-tech-conference-venue 

TechCrunch article: MIT muscle-control system for drones lets a pilot use gestures for accurate and specific navigation — https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/27/mit-muscle-control-system-for-drones-lets-a-pilot-use-gestures-for-accurate-and-specific-navigation/ 

Robotshop Myo Gesture Control Armband – Black — https://www.robotshop.com/uk/myo-gesture-control-armband-black.html

Goodreads: Defying Reality — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32027280-defying-reality

Mojo Nixon — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojo_Nixon 

TechCrunch article: iRobot’s Terra lawnmower will not launch in 2020, as company ‘reprioritizes’ — https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/28/irobots-terra-lawnmower-will-not-launch-in-2020-as-company-reprioritizes/ 

VentureBeat article: Researchers develop smart contact lenses to monitor and treat diabetes — https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/30/researchers-develop-smart-contact-lenses-to-monitor-and-treat-diabetes/ 

Mojo Vision — https://www.mojo.vision 

Slate article: Bask in the Joy of Made-Up American Baseball Players’ Names From a 1994 Japanese Nintendo Game — https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/mlbpa-baseball-nintendo-japan-player-names.html 

Arch Rivals — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_Rivals 

Goodreads: Change Agent by Daniel Suarez — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31396262-change-agent 

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Episode 270 — Virtual Bricks

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brick wall
Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pexels

Augmented vision is once again in focus, as the team discusses the new infrared camera equipped glasses to help identify people with elevated temperatures who might be suffering from the coronavirus.  And making a splash with a round of investment funding, the AR swim goggle maker Form becomes the object of attention.  Michael R continues to enjoy his pair, although wishes that there was an interface to the Apple Health app — maybe something for the future!  

The Boston Dynamics robot Spot becomes a telemedicine platform, sporting an iPad to bring the remote doctor to the patient.  This kind of telepresence is not quite new, but the Spot platform is.  The team was reminded of a platform much like the Double Robotics – have a look at the show notes for more.  

In other virtual news, the University of Arizona is welcoming people for admitted students day using a Minecraft representation of the campus, and the Kids Creative Agency in Berlin has created an office noise simulator to help people recreate the soundscape of an office, including the ability to turn on and off the noises that are annoying.

Dance your cares away!  What a great time for Apple to bring back the Fraggles!  Michael, Michael and Andy are all excited about the miniseries starting to stream now on Apple TV+.  As the show wraps up for this week, and Andy treats the listener to a rendition of the Fraggle theme song, it is great to note that Pink Floyd is streaming a concert every Friday.  All in all, it’s just another (virtual) brick in the wall.

We continue to hope that everyone is staying safe, healthy and well.  The team is looking forward to reassembling again for another episode next week! 

Selected Links

Boy Genius Report article: Crazy new glasses might be able to spot people with coronavirus — https://bgr.com/2020/04/16/coronavirus-symptoms-screening-rokid-glasses-perform-fever-readings/ 

TechCrunch article: AR swim goggles-maker Form raises $8.5 million Series A — https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/21/ar-swim-goggles-maker-form-raises-8-5-million-series-a/ 

TechCrunch article: Boston Dynamics’ Spot finds a new career in telemedicine amid COVID-19 pandemic — https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/23/boston-dynamics-spot-finds-a-new-career-in-telemedicine-amid-covid-19-pandemic/ 

Double Robotics — https://www.doublerobotics.com 

Shock Treatment — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_Treatment 

Planet Minecraft: University of Arizona rendered in Minecraft — https://www.planetminecraft.com/project/the-university-of-arizona/ 

The Verge article: Campus is closed, so college students are rebuilding their schools in Minecraft — https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/31/21200972/college-students-graduation-minecraft-coronavirus-school-closures 

I Miss The Office — https://imisstheoffice.eu 

Kids Creative Agency — https://www.thekids.eu/en/contact#about

Engadget article: ‘Fraggle Rock’ mini-series makes a surprise debut on Apple TV+ —  https://www.engadget.com/fraggle-rock-apple-tv-plus-173925198.html 

slash film article: ‘Fraggle Rock: Rock On!’ Trailer: Apple Brings Back The Fraggles: https://www.slashfilm.com/fraggle-rock-rock-on-trailer/ 

Musicradar article: Pink Floyd to stream a concert for free every Friday – starting today — https://www.musicradar.com/news/pink-floyd-to-stream-a-concert-for-free-every-friday-starting-today 

Bonus Links

TechCrunch article: What happens if Magic Leap shuts down? — https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/22/what-happens-if-magic-leap-shuts-down/ 

Schneier on Security blog post: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/04/vulnerability_f.html 

Jalopnik article: Let’s Chat About How Weird This Research Boat Is — https://jalopnik.com/lets-chat-about-how-weird-this-research-boat-is-1842968317 

The Gamer article: Animal Crossing: New Horizons Players Are Using Turnip Bouncers To Keep Order — https://www.thegamer.com/animal-crossing-new-horizons-turnip-bouners/ 

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Episode 269 — COVID Data

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representation of interconnectiveness of data
Photo by Pixabay, 2017

There were just too many COVID links for Michael, Michael and Andy to cover in this week’s episode, so they decided to major on the major, and include the rest in the show notes below.  Data looms large in how life will be, and the first story the team covers relates directly to the APIs that Apple and Google are enabling to provide a way to track and trace where a confirmed infection takes place, and those around that person who will need to be tested.  Other podcasts, such as Security Now go into depth on this story, and the transcript from the April 14th episode of Security Now provides greater insight into the challenges of dealing with this data in a secure way that also respects privacy.

There are some intriguing ways that map data are being used to help people during the pandemic, and while the team did not talk through these articles, you may find the links to what Waze and Apple Maps are doing in the show notes below.

Turning to the world of virtual meetings and a sense of place, Online Town is held high as an example for combining place with a virtual space — something that Michael, Michael and Andy all know very well from their experiences in the 3D Internet days.  The reference point of a virtual city serves as a place anchor so that people know “where” to meet, not just having a numeric ID to dial into.  And while one is in a VR space, the company Holoswitch provides an example of how notifications from the physical world could be represented in virtual spaces.  Joining (and augmenting) the visible world, the example use case given by WorldGaze provides contextual information to the voice assistant, filling in the subject based on where the user is looking, derived from a phone’s front and rear facing cameras.  Check out the YouTube link below – this is fascinating! 

This episode winds down on a pizza oven you can have in your own kitchen — just the thing for stepping up your #StayAtHome meals.

Other links of interest deal with the new iPad Pro trackpad keyboard, as well as other trackpad enabled keyboards for earlier editions of the iPad, and an article on what you can do to make your home based workspace better from Marie Kondo.  Here’s hoping that you too can spark joy while remaining physically distant and simultaneously socially connected.

We continue to hope that everyone is staying safe, healthy and well.  The team is looking forward to reassembling again for another episode next week! 

Selected Links

appleinsider article: EU to pressure Tim Cook about privacy in Apple & Google’s COVID-19 contact tracing — https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/04/16/eu-to-pressure-tim-cook-about-privacy-in-apple-googles-covid-19-contact-tracing 

Security Now podcast transcript from April 14, 2020 — https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-762.txt 

Boy Genius Report article: Waze has new features to help you navigate the coronavirus crisis — https://bgr.com/2020/04/15/waze-vs-google-maps-new-coronavirus-related-features-coming-to-waze-5817860/ 

MacRumors article: Apple Releases Maps Mobility Data Trends Tool to Help Mitigate COVID-19 Spread — https://www.macrumors.com/2020/04/14/apple-maps-mobility-data-trends/ 

Mashable article: Online Town solves the most annoying thing about Zoom parties — https://mashable.com/article/online-town-video-chat-for-groups/ 

Online Town — https://town.siempre.io 

Jitsi Videobridge — https://jitsi.org/jitsi-videobridge/ 

VR Fitness Insider article: How ProxiMat Evolved to Meet the Needs of VR Gamers and Esports Athletes — https://www.vrfitnessinsider.com/how-proximat-evolved-to-meet-the-needs-of-vr-gamers-and-esports-athletes/ 

VentureBeat article: Holoswitch sends your smartphone notifications to you while in VR — https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/12/holoswitch-sends-your-smartphone-notifications-to-you-while-in-vr/ 

Holoswitch — https://holoswitch.com 

TechCrunch article: WorldGaze uses smartphone cameras to help voice AIs cut to the chase — https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/15/worldgaze-uses-smartphone-cameras-to-help-voice-assistants-cut-to-the-chase/ 

Enhancing Mobile Voice Assistants with WorldGaze — https://chrisharrison.net/projects/worldgaze/WorldGaze.pdf 

TechCrunch article: Ooni’s Koda 16 pizza over is the rare kitchen gadget that delivers on its promise — https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/14/oonis-koda-16-pizza-oven-is-the-rare-kitchen-gadget-that-delivers-on-its-promise/ 

iMore article: The iPad Pro is so great that you can run MacOS X 10.5 Leopard on it. But only if you hate yourself.  — https://www.imore.com/ipad-pro-so-great-you-can-run-mac-os-x-105-leopard-it-only-if-you-hate-yourself 

TechCrunch article: Apple’s iPad Pro Magic Keyboard arrives next week, ahead of schedule — https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/15/apples-ipad-pro-magic-keyboard-arrives-next-week-ahead-of-schedule/ 

MacRumors article: Logitech Keyboard Cases With Trackpad for 7th-Generation iPad and iPad Air Now Available — https://www.macrumors.com/2020/04/15/logitech-ipad-keyboard-cases-trackpad-available/ 

Washington Post article:  Marie Kondo has advice for living and working at home in a pandemic — https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/marie-kondo-has-advice-for-living-and-working-at-home-in-a-pandemic/2020/04/13/c6315184-75bc-11ea-a9bd-9f8b593300d0_story.html

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