Episode 204 – Hot to Trot Bots

Michael and Michael make a rare recording appearance at their favorite coffee shop, Bean Traders, in Durham, NC, to talk about coffee, robot dogs, and much more.   This week’s episode is fueled by discussions on artificial intelligence, machine learning, power storage & delivery, as well as the future use cases for bots both big & small.  Kicking things off with Dominic Tan’s Domo Arigato poster with 262 robots, Michael & Michael then move on to the physical robots, starting with a robotic arm with a dodecahedron grasping mechanism, designed to capture delicate undersea creatures, like jellyfish.  Continuing on with … Continue reading

Episode 197 – Looking for AR

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 … Continue reading

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 177 – What could possibly go wrong?

This episode has it all — from virtual reality, to augmented reality to mixed reality to real reality. Starting off with UPS’s VR driver training for their truck fleet, journeying to the Apollo astronaut training efforts with the Zeiss Model VI Planetarium Projector and the excitement of Apple’s recent World Wide Developer’s Conference, Michael and Michael discuss the exciting developments caused Tim Cook to say that he’s so excited about it, “I just want to yell out and scream.” Michael and Michael reminisce about the early days of the US Army’s use of there.com to provide a “real” virtual reality … Continue reading