Published 5 August 2024
The co-hosts are back to full strength with Andy, Michael and Michael getting together to talk through the week’s stories.
The cohosts start things off with several examples of telepresence. The Open-TeleVision project provides for teleoperation of a remote robot using VR headsets like the Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro. This reminds the team of earlier telepresence examples of an iPad on a mobile platform. Next is a story about Synchron’s brain implant to allow people to control an Apple Vision Pro. This sparks a lively conversation among the co-hosts about the relative utility of such control, and also brings in a story about how Apple Vision Pro gestures may be leveraged across iOS, iPadOS and MacOS.
The co-hosts have another lively discussion about the new exoskeleton hiking pants from Arc’Teryx. This reminds the co-hosts of an earlier episode of AI powered pants.
Turning to AI, the team digs into a ChatGPT choose your own adventure game, where the user can push against the established guardrails. This brings up the prior episode’s conversation on Baldur’s Gate, and how the Larian developers “fuel and reward” player creativity. Then, it’s all about the new AI startup called Friend. Andy references how a significant amount of the initial funding was consumed by purchasing the friend.com domain name. The co-hosts take on the thought of how many of the recent AI startups have had a physical instantiation such has Humane’s AI pin, and the Rabbit R1, even though the AI could be supported through existing devices users carry around with them all the time such as their phones and smart watches. The co-hosts can’t resist the temptation to include other “hello, Friend(s)” references – see the show notes below for some of them.
Wrapping things up this episode is a treatment on a ‘forever mouse’ from Logitech.
What is your perfect idea of an AI hardware device? Would you buy a mouse as a service? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @gamesatwork_biz (our home for now) and let us know!
These show notes were lovingly hand crafted by a real human, and not by a bot. All rights reserved. That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.
Selected Links
Hardware
Hackaday article: Re-Imagining Telepresence with Humanoid Robots and VR Headsets
Games at Work e270: Virtual Bricks
CNBC article: Neuralink rival Synchron’s brain implant now lets people control Apple’s Vision Pro with their minds
Apple Insider article: Apple Vision Pro gestures may spread to the iPhone, iPad, and Mac
The Verge article: Arc’teryx’s new powered pants could make hikers feel 30 pounds lighter
Arc’teryx blog: Arc’teryx and Skip Partner to Introduce Mo/Go(tm): Revolutionizing Mobility With the World’s First Pair of Powered Pants
Games at Work e241: Smarty Pants
AI
Polygon article: We pushed this ChatGPT game to the limits, but playing it the right way is more fun
The Verge article: Your new AI Friend is almost ready to meet you
404 Media article: AI ‘Friend’ Company Spent $1.8 Million and Most of Its Funds on Domain Name
Star Wars Lola (L0-LA59)
Dulcé Sloan’s Hello, Friends!: Stories of Dating, Destiny, and Day Jobs
IMDB Friends TV Series
Ars Technica article: Outsourcing emotion: The horror of Google’s “Dear Sydney” AI ad
The Lost Outpost blog post: Art, and Algorithms vs AI
MIT Technology Review article: A new tool for copyright holders can show if their work is in AI training data
Games at Work e451: Fahrenheit
Mouse as a Service
The Verge article: Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber wants your next mouse to last forever
Ars Technica article: Logitech has an idea for a “forever mouse” that requires a subscription
The Logitech "forever mouse" thing would be funny if it weren't so horrible.
"All Logitech had to do was keep making solid input devices."
Was there some investor you forgot to ask?
That's the problem. You cannot, in capitalism, just keep doing the same thing forever. The same thing forever is not growth, and therefore, is "death".
There's also the paradox of durable goods. That is, if you make them too well, you discourage repeat business because what's bought doesn't wear out fast enough. So, many companies turn to the oldest means to play capitalism on easy mode:
Rent-seeking.
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