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Episode 200 – Eye in the Sky

By Michael Martine | June 4, 2018 - 06:14 |June 4, 2018 Podcast

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Michael and Michael take a second podcast to 200 episodes with this show, and celebrate in a very appropriate way — and with no spoilers for Han Solo movie, nor spiders, and almost avoid talking about things that people put in/on their eyes.

Starting out with a follow on from last week’s show, Michael and Michael explore the GDPR compliant National Public Radio website, which is devoid of pictures, and very nearly looks like you would expect a radio station to be online.

Then, it’s on to drones — one that can follow a car driving around, and another that follows you around in order to prevent the raindrops from falling on your head. If that is not quite enough tracking enablement technology for one show, the pair also discusses the new $699 digital license plates being piloted in California, which can be personalized to show custom e-ink messages when the vehicle is not in motion.

The link that Michael M was afraid was going to show some kind of eye surgery turned out not to be quite so invasive — researchers at Newcastle University have created a technology with 3D printing used to create custom corneas, which are sorely in need by many people awaiting a transplant.

No show would be complete without a good VR/AR story, and this 200th episode does not disappoint. Michael and Michael share some thoughts about the Facebook capability called Venues, and what is done to give the participant in Venues a sense of space and being with a crowd, all via a virtual reality experience. The Microsoft Surface Hub group collaboration space is a big step forward in the evolution of the corporate collaboration solution from Microsoft and SAP that Michael M shared from way back in episode 137. Michael R pointed out that this new Surface Hub can allow for a person to be in the whiteboard — and speak naturally and face to face with people in a room thousands of miles away.

We hope that you are enjoying listening to these episodes as much as we enjoy producing them! Here’s to the next hundred!

Selected Links

National Public Radio’s GDPR link — https://text.npr.org/

TechCrunch article: Skydio’s self-flying drone can now track down cars — https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/30/skydios-self-flying-drone-can-now-track-down-cars/

Gizmodo article: Flying, Hands-Free Umbrellas Just Might Be the Perfect Use For Drones — https://gizmodo.com/flying-hands-free-umbrellas-just-might-be-the-perfect-1826481750

TechCrunch article: Researchers create the first 3D-printed corneas — https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/31/researchers-create-the-first-3d-printed-corneas/

Gizmodo article: California’s New Digital License Plates — https://gizmodo.com/californias-new-digital-license-plates-give-you-the-cha-1826372642

Wired article: With Venues, Oculus and Facebook Push VR Into New Territory — https://www.wired.com/story/oculus-venues/

Microsoft Surface Hub: — https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/business/surface-hub

Episode 137 – Augmented Reality in the Boardroom & Beyond — https://gamesatwork.biz/2016/05/22/episode-137-augmented-reality-in-the-boardroom-beyond/

Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34490192-soonish

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:17 — 20.0MB) | Embed

Episode 199 – Augmented GDPR Reality

By Michael Martine | May 28, 2018 - 10:29 |May 28, 2018 Podcast

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Events have conspired against the co-hosts getting together recently, yet, Michael and Michael have doubled-down on their schedules to ensure the recording and publication of this episode for the US holiday weekend. Michael R starts us off, sharing his experiences at the recently concluded Moogfest in Durham, which was an edu-staycation for him to experience new ideas in music, art and technology close to home.

Maps abound in this week’s episode of Games at Work! Starting with Google’s augmented reality experience with Google Maps, featuring a cute fox animation, that causes the co-hosts to wonder what the fox might say. Animated Dungeons & Dragons maps from Dynamic Dungeons transform a tabletop into a moving environment to lose yourself in — prompting both Michael and Michael to snap a couple pictures of their lead figures.

And what technology-focused podcast would be complete without marking this past Friday as the implementation date for the European GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) law — with everyone’s inbox being flooded with “we’ve updated our terms of service” notifications to comply with the new rules.

It is great to be back in the podcasting saddle, and there is much to share and discuss! What intrigues you in the world of mixed reality, robotics, social computing and games? Drop us a line here or on Twitter, Facebook, or any of our other channels, as we get ready for episode 200, coming up very soon!

Selected Links

Moogfest — https://www.moogfest.com/about

Michael R’s Random Thoughts blog post: Moogfest day 4 and Wrap up — http://michaelrowe01.com/index.php/2018/05/22/moogfest-day-4-and-wrap-up/

Business Insider article: Google created a cute augmented-reality fox — http://www.businessinsider.com/google-showcases-augmented-reality-navigation-on-google-maps-2018-5

Ylvis – The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?) [Official music video HD] —

@jdolcourt tweet on ARCore & ARKit compatibility —

Google demos how its AR software (ARCore) can play nice with Apple’s ARKit in a virtual world. Here, a Pixel 2 and iPhone 8 Plus play the same AR game #io18 @CNET pic.twitter.com/CZogUImTxL

— Jessica Dolcourt (@jdolcourt) May 8, 2018

Facebook for developers blog: AR Studio: Create & Distribute New, Rich AR Experiences with Ease — https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2018/05/01/ar-studio-create-distribute/

Kotaku article: Animated Dungeons & Dragons Boards Look Like The Future — https://kotaku.com/animated-dungeons-dragons-maps-look-like-the-future-1826182730

@andypiper tweet on Animated D&D boards —

One for @carolinabigblue and @michaelrowe01 Animated Dungeons & Dragons Boards Look Like The Future https://t.co/el67pBU6AK

— Andy Piper (pipes) (@andypiper) May 21, 2018

Dynamic Dungeons patreon site — https://www.patreon.com/dynamicdungeons/overview

More lead figures from Michael R —

And some from Michael M —

TechCrunch article: Facebook, Google, face first GDPR complaints over ‘forced consent’ — https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/25/facebook-google-face-first-gdpr-complaints-over-forced-consent/

Wired article: Supreme Court Rules Against Workers in Arbitration Case — https://www.wired.com/story/supreme-court-rules-against-workers-in-arbitration-case/

Laughing Squid article: Comparing the Sizes of Monsters in Video Games — https://laughingsquid.com/comparing-the-sizes-of-monsters-in-video-games/

Alto’s Odyssey — https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/altos-odyssey/id1182456409?mt=8

Honda’s Odyssey — https://automobiles.honda.com/odyssey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:04 — 16.7MB) | Embed

Episode 198 – Goooooooo eTeam!

By Michael Martine | April 23, 2018 - 06:24 |April 22, 2018 Podcast

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Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

Rah, rah, sis, boom, bah!
Wizard, Elf, Forward and Halfback
We’re the best of the pack.
Drink that mana, slice that mob, buff your stats & and win that raid!
No better team have you yet played.
Our eTeam is better than your eTeam — We’re the best in the galaxy!

Goooooooo eTeam!

After a flyby (+/- 5 parsecs) of the Star Wars AR Holochess game for your iPhone and the Dent Reality example of using ARKit to enable grocery shoppers the ability to do way finding in the store, identify what would compliment the ingredients already in your cart, and enable faster than light checkouts as the pregame, Michael and Michael kick off this episode of Games at Work, with the crowd roaring for their favorite high school eSports league. Speculation on eSports having an NCAA equivalent, as according to the post on the NFHS website, over 200 colleges in the US and Canada are not just looking for students with eSports skills, but also offering scholarships.

The film Minority Report has cropped up time and again in our podcast as an example of what the future could bring. In this episode, we have a story that references the film directly and talks about how rat brains have been used to improve on the machine learning of AI systems (vs neural nets) and that microexpressions and “behavioral anomalies” can be used to identify when a peaceful crowded marketplace may shift to something much more dangerous, and signal to security and safety personnel to move resources closer by.

Turning to our new robotic friends, Michael and Michael reflect on an article about people anthropomorphize their devices, in this particular case, a Rooba the owner called Rosie. Would you refuse an exchange for your robot friend, or insist that a repair person/drone/robot come out and fix your robot?

Last, harkening back to the SecondLife days, Mashable shares a story on the fun of Fortnight dance parties. Did I see that avatar do the electric boogaloo?

Selected Links

TechCrunch article: You can now play Star Wars AR Holochess on your iPhone — https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/18/you-can-now-play-star-wars-ar-holochess-on-your-iphone/

Cult of Mac article: See how ARKit will make grocery shopping easier — https://www.cultofmac.com/540037/grocery-shopping-arkit-demo/

Dent Reality — https://www.dentreality.com

TechCrunch article: PlayVS wants every high school to have an esports team — https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/19/playvs-wants-every-high-school-to-have-an-esports-team/

National Federation of State High School Associations partnership with PlayVS — http://www.nfhs.org/articles/nfhs-nfhs-network-announce-partnership-with-playvs-to-begin-esports-in-high-schools-nationwide/

NY Times article: An N.C.A.A. for Esports? Rivals Angle to Govern Campus Video Gaming — https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/sports/esports-ncaa-colleges.html

The Verge article: Grasshopper is an app for learning JavaScript through mini-games — https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/19/17258694/grasshopper-javascript-mini-games

Digital Trends article: Crime-predicting A.I. isn’t science fiction. It’s about to roll out in India — https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/could-ai-based-surveillance-predict-crime-before-it-happens/

Cortica — https://www.cortica.com

The Verge article: iRobot CEO says the future of the smart home is going to mean making friends with robots — https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/19/17256074/roomba-irobot-ceo-colin-angle

Mashable article: Turns out ‘Fortnite’ dance parties are way more fun than fighting — https://mashable.com/2018/04/20/fortnite-battle-royale-dance-parties/

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:55 — 16.6MB) | Embed

Episode 197 – Looking for AR

By Michael Martine | April 9, 2018 - 06:37 |April 9, 2018 Podcast

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Michael and Michael are looking for AR, in all the right places! The Games at Work team starts things off right, with a discussion on the final games of the NCAA basketball tournament, and how your best braketology picks can now hover above your screen in augmented reality (example above). Earlier today, during the Woody Durham Celebration of Life, Michael M spoke with a friend about how technology has enabled the game experience to get better and better over the years, first with radio, then television, then the graphics ribbon to show the score & stats, then to Intel’s current capability to give the viewer an immersive front row seat, to the possibilities of the future, including real time stats for each player hovering above them, adjustable camera angles, and the ability to virtually sit in any seat in the stadium. The future is so bright, we have to wear mixed reality shades to experience it all!

From sports to art — we have the example of Artopia, an app that provides the ability to geocache drawings anywhere on the planet, using your mobile device’s GPS and interface to draw. Michael and Michael easily imagine a situation where it could be that there are multiple layers of reality, where different apps (and maybe different paywalls) allow the user to experience many different things depending on when, where, and how the place is experienced, and with what app.

Aria’s smart glasses provide another way for those with visual impairments to experience the visual world, with a hardware enabled service to provide feedback to the wearer on what they are seeing, through a combination of human agents and AI technology to help the wearer understand their surroundings better. The wearer can contact a person who can help them navigate to their doctor’s office, or use the AI named Chloe to read them the text that is in their field of view. Michael and Michael imagine that haptics and bone conduction could be helpful for the user to be able to use the capabilities of the device in a less obtrusive way.

The pair then shifts gears to more tangible things, such as a PC that you can build with a PC simulator and a robotic tank that will deliver the payload of a cold beer to you when you ask Alexa to send it.

Winding up on the robotic front, the pair take a look at the results from a University of Washington in Seattle paper “Characterizing the Design Space of Rendered Robot Faces” presented at the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction. Remembering the conversation from the last episode on a robotic tortoise teaching children how to not mistreat the robot, Michael and Michael explore what might make for the friendliest interaction between a human and a robot. Both Michaels felt like the less detail/less realism end of the spectrum was potentially more friendly and easy to interact with vs the uncanny valley reaction for those that are more realistic with more detail. Interesting to note that Jibo (discussed in episode 187) was one of the example robot faces used. Also interesting was a comment on the page reminding that some of the best examples of robots had no faces at all — R2D2 and BB-8.

What do you think makes for an excellent human robot interaction that would win high marks for friendliness, trust and intelligence?

Selected Links

March Madness Live app — https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ncaa-march-madness-live/id423246594?mt=8

GoHeels article by Adam Lucas – Hey Woody — http://goheels.com/news/2018/4/8/adam-lucas-lucas-hey-woody.aspx

Intel Technology at NCAA — https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/sports/intel-technology-at-ncaa.html

TechCrunch article: Hide 3D paintings anywhere with AR app Artopia — https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/28/hide-3d-paintings-anywhere-with-ar-app-artopia/

TechCrunch article: Aira’s new smart glasses give blind users a guide through the visual world — https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/27/airas-new-smart-glasses-give-blind-users-a-guide-through-the-visual-world/

Aira — https://aira.io

Bone conduction — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_conduction

TechCrunch article: Build your own PC inside the PC you built with the PC Building Simulator — https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/27/build-your-own-pc-inside-the-pc-you-built-with-pc-building-simulator/

TechCrunch article: This DIY, Alexa-connected robotic tank will bring you a beer — https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/26/this-diy-alexa-connected-robotic-tank-will-bring-you-a-beer/

IEEE Spectrum article: What People See in 157 Robot Faces — https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/humanoids/what-people-see-in-157-robot-faces