AI chatbots to speak with the dead, impact of COVID-19 on weak ties & social serendipity, Minecraft social responsibility, Mayfair Windows sfx, Fitness+ celebrity walks, USPS Star Wars droid stamps, and Babylon 5 remastered Continue reading →
Comments Off on Episode 152 – Friends, Romans, Geeks, lend me your code!
In this episode, so soon after the recent US election, Phaedra & Michael M discuss the nature of civic engagement, and how the model of open source software could lend itself to bringing more people into the civic process. Showing up is always the first step, and the model for commits made to open source software could be applied to policy, whereby contributions by citizens could be upvoited or downvoted for inclusion in emerging policy. The pair bring up the idea of cities with personality — if you’re in Chicago, you know how that city’s personality was expressed after the … Continue reading →
Episode 133 – Game Brains was recorded on Friday, the 18th of February 2016. Does playing video games make you smarter? Michael and Michael answer this question with a resounding “maybe”, as they go through a tour of several interesting links, from Google’s DeepMind computer playing Go, to Volvos starting up without keys, to toys that think and 3D printing going back to 1964 with plastigoop. We hope you enjoy the show! Selected links Can Video Games make you Smarter? — https://youtu.be/OOsqkQytHOs Luminosity — http://www.lumosity.com Gmailification — http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/17/google-launches-gmailify-a-way-to-use-gmails-best-features-with-non-gmail-accounts/ Mailbox — https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mailbox/id576502633?mt=8 Airmail — https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/airmail-your-mail-with-you/id993160329?mt=8 Google Now — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Now Connected Toys and the Serious … Continue reading →