Episode 181 – Robotic Rockband

Baby, don’t hurt me.  Or order things on my Amazon Echo when I don’t want them.  Michael and Michael start off this episode talking about the South Park season premiere, which plays a prank on the viewers by the audio dialog of the show launching commands on the viewer’s voice controlled devices (such as Amazon Alexa or Google Home). I for one, welcome our new rockin’ robotic rockband overlords.  And when you watch the video of Nigel Stanford’s Automatica, we think you will too. Michael and Michael wrap up this episode talking about the recently concluded NASA Cassini mission and … Continue reading

Episode 167 – Robotic Physics

  Michael and Michael start this episode with big robots.  As in extra huge robots.  Like Mecha-sized robots.  The articulation of the robot Jeff Bezos piloted was reminiscent of the one that the character Eileen Ripley piloted in the Aliens movies (see video above).  Michael R was also reminded of the NASA Valkyrie robot, and it’s mission to go to Mars ahead of humans to set up the environment for human habitation.  Walking on two legs, and being roughly human-sized, the form factor is well suited to ensuring that the habitat structure such robots would build would be on the … Continue reading

Episode 157 – Through the 2016 Looking Glass

In their final episode of 2016, Michael and Michael explore themes where sci-fi blends with reality. In the TechCrunch IoT Redux article, Michael and Michael kick off the discussion with the state of affairs on all the data emitted from the things on the internet, and quickly go into the realm of the British Channel 4 television show Black Mirror (available on Netflix). It is simultaneously possible to have so much of your life available to you at your fingertips, and what could go wrong with such technical capability — the Kingsman movie being another example from the entertainment world. … Continue reading

Episode 144 – Domo Arigato, Mr. Robot

The Michaels are back this week looking at the related of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality. We also look at two tie in games, one for the 2016 Olympic Games and one for the TV Show Mr. Robot. There’s a lot of news out this week from Intel’s Developer Forum (IDF), MIT’s Interactive Dynamic Video, and the never ending halo affect of Pokémon Go! Show Links: Nintendo 3DS sales up 80% Y/Y on Pokémon Go success Nintendo Classic Mini Atari Flashback McDonals’ step counter for kids in Happy Meal – Sorta Project Alloy Intel to allow ARM to use 10nm … Continue reading