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Episode 165 – Virtual Math

By Michael Rowe | March 13, 2017 - 06:06 |March 12, 2017 Podcast

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Phaedra, Michael and Michael get together to discuss some very interesting articles, kicking things off with how 3D pictures are used to explain mathematical concepts in a new pictorial language called Quon. The paper explaining the concept dives into quantum concepts, including teleportation, topological algebra and Bloch spheres, quickly reaching the mathematical limits of the trio.

A Fast Company article on how the Knight Foundation and Google are providing jump start grants to journalists to engage with virtual reality connects with the team, and one of the CNN 3D videos prompts Michael R to share a story about how he flew in one of the large tanker planes as a student.

Closing out the show today, Michael, Michael & Phaedra take a look at the Sococo virtual office space, which provides a sense of place to people who use it to make virtual teams feel more in tune with one another — going to specific spots in the virtual office building to meet and collaborate.

selected links

Harvard Gazette article: Making math more Lego-like — http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/03/making-math-more-lego-like/

Quon 3D language for quantum information — http://www.pnas.org/content/114/10/2497.full

Arrival (movie) — http://www.arrivalmovie.com

Floo network — https://www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/the-floo-network

Weapons of Math Destruction — https://weaponsofmathdestructionbook.com

Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos — https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Variation-Key-Managing-Chaos/dp/0945320531

Diagon Alley — https://www.pottermore.com/explore-the-story/diagon-alley

Alternet article: How Using Big Data to Understand Social Problems Can Create More Inequality — http://www.alternet.org/culture/data-science-inequality

Fast Company article: VR journalists could get $35,000 from Knight Foundation and Google for innovative projects — https://news.fastcompany.com/vr-journalists-could-get-35000-from-knight-foundation-and-google-for-innovative-projects-4032048

CNN VR — http://www.cnn.com/VR

Sococo — http://sococo.com

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Episode 164 – Addictive AR

By Michael Rowe | March 6, 2017 - 06:48 |March 5, 2017 Podcast

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Michael and Michael start this episode off with an excellent roundup of how technology gets that dopamine drip going with an article from The Guardian that focuses on the newly published book by Adam Alter, Irresistible. Starting with the psychological and cultural affinity with liking content, and proceeding quickly to the linkages between gambling and games, the article walks the path to augmented reality and virtual reality — what makes an experience repeatable and desirable to come back to again and again.

Turning their attention to augmented reality, Michael and Michael imagine the the future of not only designing 3D spaces with the Microsoft Hololens, but also how the perspective of the user of such technology is afforded the chance to see directly what could not be physically possible. Not everyone can have a front row seat in the operating (or other) theater, but with AR & VR you can — and this begins to open up whole new worlds of possibility.

Michael M shares his experience from an Uber ride in New York this past week, where the car was outfitted with a Mobileye device that watches for speed limits, distance between the driver’s car and those ahead, as well as lane departure warnings. This aftermarket option provides visual and audio alerts to the driver, and sparked a conversation on the nature of event data recording in automotive black boxes.

The team rounded out the episode with the Sony Xperia Touch Projector, which turns any surface into an interactive environment, prompting Michael R to break out his Magic Cube virtual laser keyboard. Only a matter of time before the sharks with lasers appear…

selected links

The Guardian article: How Technology Gets Us Hooked — https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/28/how-technology-gets-us-hooked

Irresistible by Adam Alter — http://adamalterauthor.com/irresistible/

Mashable article: Why I Flooded Instagram With Likes — http://mashable.com/2014/02/14/lovematically-instagram/

Microsoft Devices Blog: Stryker chooses Microsoft Hololens to bring operating room design into the future with 3D — https://blogs.windows.com/devices/?p=259304?ocid=newsletter_ema_omc_hol_Stryker

Techcrunch article: Mobileye outfits 4,500 for-hire cars in NYC with collision avoidance tech — https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/17/mobileye-outfits-4500-for-hire-cars-in-nyc-with-collision-avoidance-tech/
Mobileye features YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXpiyLUEOOY

Event data recorder — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_data_recorder

A Car’s Black Box — http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2014/09/how-your-car-is-tracking-you/index.htm

Wired article: Sony’s Xperia XZ Premium screen is so high-quality it’s better than most people’s TVs — https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/17/mobileye-outfits-4500-for-hire-cars-in-nyc-with-collision-avoidance-tech/

Magic Cube virtual laser keyboard — http://www.virtual-laser-devices.com/Magic%20Cube_Final.pdf

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Episode 163 – Chat Me Maybe?

By Michael Rowe | February 27, 2017 - 06:00 |February 26, 2017 Podcast

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Hey! I just met you. And this is cra-zy. Here’s my bot. Chat me maybe.

Michael and Michael get together to enjoy some of the material covered in the Feb 22nd edition of the Daily Tech News Show, particularly around text based chat services, and where the medium is going. Michael M dives headfirst down the rabbit hole — imagining how people used to use arcane terminal commands to get things done, when this wasn’t the intent of the story — it is much more around augmenting communication with insight to enhance understanding and using context (location, time, preferences, etc) to get to better/faster outcomes.

This isn’t the 2017 version of Clippy saying “it looks like you are trying to schedule lunch. would you like some help with that?” — there’s much more to it — have a listen and see what you think. And in the meantime, I’ll have my bots 🤖 talk with your bots 🤖.

From the same Daily Tech News Show, there’s a link to an app that got Michael & Michael’s attention — a remake of the classic Tomagotchi reimagined with elected officials in the Netherlands called Kamergotchi where you feed, energize and give ideas to members of the Netherlands house of representatives. Let’s see if this expands to other countries.

Other ideas that are worth spreading include a report on Tesla’s lifetime maintenance and insurance bundled with their cars. This drives the discussion forward with concepts such as:

what is a car’s lifetime?
where does the maintenance cost increases cross the line of the insurance cost decreases?
how modular are cars, and could they become more modular in future, especially given the rate/pace of software enhancements?
how long could one keep a ’57 Chevy or Trabant running with such modularity?

Michael and Michael throw the brakes on the automotive discussion to close the show with a safety design concept designed to appeal to children (and maybe a few adults) who ride bikes — a helmet that looks like Lego / Playmobil hair. Talk about #helmethair !

selected links

Daily Tech News Show (DTNS) 2971 – Scrapping Apps — http://www.tommerritt.com/2017/02/21/dtns-2971-scrapping-apps/

Gartner Survey showing the strength & growth of messaging apps — http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3614818

Games At Work e159 Virtually Secure Twitch See Bots Chat — https://gamesatwork.biz/2017/01/22/episode-159-virtually-secure/

Little Computer People — http://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/little-computer-people

Zondag met Lubach (featuring Kamergotchi with English subtitles) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qNjpTn6RUM&feature=youtu.be

Kamergotchi — http://www.kamergotchi.nl

Tomagotchi — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamagotchi

Mashable: Tesla so sure its cars are safe that it now offers insurance for life — http://mashable.com/2017/02/23/elon-musk-tesla-lifetime-insurance.amp

Boredpanda: Someone Made a Real-Life LEGO Hair Bike Helmet — http://www.boredpanda.com/lego-hair-bike-helmet-simon-higby-clara-prior-moef/

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Episode 162 – Seeing is Believing

By Michael Martine | February 20, 2017 - 06:30 |February 19, 2017 Podcast

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Michael and Michael are excited that it is that special time of year again, the one where you can buy Thin Mints, and Caramel deLites, and all manner of Girl Scout cookies. And they are even more excited about the kickstarter game being developed by the Girl Scouts where the cookies take center stage, and the scouts learn all about the various development platforms: MIT’s Scratch, iOS & Android to create the game. Nice touch, by the way, that the Kickstarter video uses virtual audio reality with positional sound.

Turning from the savory to the visual, Michael and Michael discuss the OxSight augmented reality solution to help low vision people see better — determine the foreground from the background, improve the contrast, zoom in and more. A tremendous use for such promising technology. Be sure to check out the link below to see the videos for yourself. See if you believe Michael R, that this is Geordi LaForge’s visor.

While traveling to the University of South Carolina School of Engineering, Michael M saw some of the older computing technology on display (picture above) and remembered well using his Dataman a few years ago.

Rounding out the show, Michael R would like to issue a rare personal invitation to see him perform with the Durham Savoyards as they present Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Grand Duke March 30 – April 2.

selected links

Girl Scout Kickstarter: Marshmallow Run game — https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/designcodebuild/marshmallow-run-game

Girl Scout cookies — http://www.girlscouts.org/en/cookies/all-about-cookies/Meet-the-Cookies.html

TechCrunch article: OxSight — https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/16/oxsight-uses-augmented-reality-to-aide-the-visually-impaired/

OxSight — http://smartspecs.co

Geordi LaForge — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geordi_La_Forge

Low Vision Rehabilitation | Durham Eye Care with Dr. Henry Greene — http://academyeye.com/low-vision-rehabilitation/

Facebook React Native — https://facebook.github.io/react-native/

Achron — http://www.achrongame.com/site/

CodeCadets — https://www.codecadets.com

Girls Make Games — http://girlsmakegames.com

University of South Carolina College of Engineering & Computing — http://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/engineering_and_computing/