Games At Work dot Biz

e439 — Nuts About Sound

By Michael Martine | November 6, 2023 - 06:17 |November 5, 2023 Podcast

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Walnuts, some whole, some cracked open. — Photo by Raffaele Ravaioli on Unsplash

Published 6 November 2023

Michael and Michael get together for a lively discussion on AI, VR, Mixed Reality, a bluetooth in a nutshell, and a locked bitcoin wallet among other topics.

The co-hosts start off the episode with the #ProjectPrimrose video of the interactive dress. This is right in line with the stories from the October podcasts. Then they shift gears to AI, with several timely stories. One deals with the problems of deepfakes. Another focuses on the upcoming release of more information about Humane’s AI pin. This spurs a discussion on science fiction morphing into science fact using the Star Trek communicator pin as an example predecessor of the Humane AI pin. Further news about AI security comes from both sides of the Atlantic – the executive order from the US on labeling AI-generated content and the summit in Bletchley Park. Michael and Michael take a moment to discuss the AI generated “new” Beatles song Now and Then.

Moving to VR and MR, the team discusses a story about how VR is helping disabled musicians play instruments. Then, they take a look at a video of a hacked mixed reality Mario experience that allows the gameplay to incorporate both virtual and physical objects.

Speaking of hacking, Michael and Michael check out a video from Penguin DIY that constructs an amazing bluetooth speaker using a walnut shell. Next up is a detailed and surprising story about an encrypted USB drive with a bitcoin wallet on it containing 7,002 bitcoins. Wrapping up the episode are a few interesting tech stories including some big red buttons, a Robotech style mecha and a phone that looks much like a slap bracelet.

What game would you like to play in mixed reality? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!

Selected Article Links

AI

Games at Work e437 Dipping into Dots

NBC News article: Scarlett Johansson demands AI app stop using her likeness in an ad without her permission

The Verge article: Humane’s Ai Pin could cost $1,000 — and require a subscription

Star Trek communicator badge

MIT Technology Review: Three things to know about the White House’s executive order on AI

The Verge article: Watermarks aren’t the silver bullet for AI misinformation

Bletchley Park news post: Bletchley Park to Host AI Safety Summit

The Guardian article: Now and Then: listen to the ‘final’ Beatles song

AR / VR / MR / XR

BBC news article: The musicians with disabilities embracing virtual reality

Inverse article: Super Mario 64 in Mixed Reality is the Best Quest 3 Demo We’ve Seen Yet

I’ve done it. Mario 64 running in mixed reality.
byu/llbsidezll inoculus

Cool Tech

The Verge article: 8BitDo’s NES buttons are a big, red, Nintendo-themed invitation to experiment

The Verge article: The Tsubame Archax is the coolest $3 million mecha on Earth — and soon, the Moon

IMDb: Robotech

The Verge article: The bendy phone is back, baby

Wikipedia article: Slap Bracelet

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:32 — 34.4MB) | Embed

e438 — We will always have Paris

By Michael Martine | October 30, 2023 - 06:45 |November 5, 2023 Podcast

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arial view of Paris — Photo by Rodrigo Kugnharski on Unsplash

Published 30 October 2023

Michael, Michael and Andy get together for a lively discussion on VR, AI, another virtual museum and end on a high note with “a touch of Dutch” applied via generative AI.

Starting off the episode with VR, the co-hosts explore a couple of articles dealing with the new Quest 3 headset and ways of working with it. The TechCrunch article gives examples of experiencing mixed really by taking an Instagram or YouTube video around with you as you do your household chores like washing dishes or tidying up. Another article describes the experience of working in a space with other virtual people. The Inverse article brings up the point that some games are so photo realistic, that bypassers may mistake them for tv shows or movies. This launches a conversation on the pros and cons of photorealism in user experiences, and what brings the most joy and delight.

As the co-hosts turn their thoughts toward AI, they start off by considering an article that describes how artists may use a technique called “data poisoning” to make it more difficult for generative AI models to ingest the artist’s work. The tool is called Nightshade, and it works by changing the art in subtle invisible ways so that if it is ingested into a training data set, it can cause the trained model to have chaotic results.

In another article, the idea of training data is extended with the idea of recursive training on synthetic data. Models that are trained on generated data create skewed output that is increasingly incorrect. This leads to the the coining of the phrase “code hemophilia”. At least Google doesn’t seem to find an instance of this phrase, so maybe coining is appropriate!

As the team turns to things historical, Andy shares another virtual museum – the Internet Artifacts from Neal.fun. Wrapping up the episode, the co-hosts talk about the concept of the 15 minute city and the lovely example from the Netherlands to take a picture of a street and using AI, create a Dutch street plan.

What street(s) have you reimagined in the Dutch style? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!

Selected Article Links

VR

TechCrunch article: I did my expenses in VR and I liked it

The Verge article: Meta actually added a useful feature to Horizon Worlds — and some goofy ones

Inverse article: ‘Spider-Man 2’ Reveals the Limits of a Popular Video Game Trend

AI

The Verge article: Artists can use a data poisoning tool to confuse DALL-E and corrupt AI scraping

MIT Technology Review article: This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI

O’Reilly article: Model Collapse: An Experiment

arXiV article: The Curse of Recursion: Training on Generated Data Makes Models Forget

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention article: What is Hemophilia?

Wayback Machine

Neal.fun Internet Artifacts

Games at Work e347 — Dipping into Dots

Hackaday article: NASA JPL’s Voyager Team is Patching Up Both Voyagers’ Firmware

NPR article: It’s a global climate solution — if it can get past conspiracy theories and NIMBYs

https://dutchcyclinglifestyle.com/

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:23 — 36.5MB) | Embed

e437 — Dipping into Dots

By Michael Martine | October 23, 2023 - 06:17 |October 22, 2023 Podcast

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airport signage with mechanical spinning flaps that make the delightful "pfffllllaaaappppfffff" sound as they reset the text — Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Published 23 October 2023

Michael, Michael and Andy get back together on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean once more to start off this episode with several cool examples of flipping dots artwork. Michael M remembered seeing a Vestaboard last weekend in Durham. Have a look at the links in the show notes for visual examples of each of these.

Continuing with the delight of the vintage clickety-clacking of the spinning flaps, the co-hosts enjoy checking out the newly created retro GameBoy and iPod examples. The iPod even has a haptic click wheel!

Then, switching gears to serious games, the team takes a look at the Trust & Safety Tycoon game, where the player takes on the role of the Trust and Safety team on a social network. This experiential learning through game playing reminds the team of Ian Bogost and his persuasive games. It also brings to the fore the Streisand Effect.

Next up, a couple of stories about UNESCO’s plans to create a virtual museum to spread awareness of stolen cultural artifacts. This provides a launch point for the museum in a box from Andy, the IT Crowd’s story about the Internet in a box from Michael R., and the Widernet effort from Michael M. Thanks to the Wayback Machine for preserving the Widernet website!

The team close out this week’s episode with a discussion on movie special effects.

What is your favorite special effect in film (or otherwise)? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!

Selected Article Links

Fast Follow (from last week)

About using electronic stuff blog post: Flipping Dots Fast.

Breakfast Studio: Featured Flip-Disc Artworks

Vestaboard

Dippin’ Dots Ice Cream

ebay Vintage GE Flip Number Alarm Clock Radio 7-4310A 1970’s 70’s Rare Needs Work

RetroBoy

CrowdSupply Tangara

Serious Games

Kotaku article: New Game Tasks You With Running Twitter, Good Luck

Trust & Safety Tycoon game

Ian Bogost – Persuasive Games

the Games at Work Podcast Game

Games at Work e35: Pirates of Pizzazz

Wikipedia article: Streisand effect

Reuters article: CEO of China’s Weibo tests new real-name policy on his own account

Stolen Art on Display

Guardian article: Unesco planning virtual museum of stolen cultural artefacts

Artnet article: UNESCO Has Teamed Up With Interpol to Build a Virtual Museum of Stolen Cultural Artifacts

Museum in a Box

Wikimedia article: Internet-in-a-Box

The Internet Archive Wayback Machine: www.widernet.org

Film

Slashfilm article: What These Iconic Sci-Fi Movies Look Like Without Special Effects

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:20 — 46.1MB) | Embed

e436 — Squishy Purple Doom

By Michael Martine | October 16, 2023 - 06:17 |October 15, 2023 Podcast

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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!