WEBVTT STYLE ::cue(v[voice="031B49CF-91D5-42A3-A199-045AB830CA59"]) { color: #CB30E0; } ::cue(v[voice="B0638AB2-1B0E-49F2-82D2-56974D4CEFBF"]) { color: #FF383C; } ::cue(v[voice="A90EB14F-8D7D-4506-A509-1DA6AE7136DF"]) { color: #0088FF; } ::cue(v[voice="DDDD35B1-7276-4FB9-A904-A4BF44E14D35"]) { color: #CB30E0; } 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:20.000 [Music] 2 00:00:10.500 --> 00:00:15.900 This is GamesItWork.biz, your weekly podcast about gaming, technology, and play. 3 00:00:15.900 --> 00:00:19.300 Your hosts are Michael Martine, Andy Piper, and Michael Rowe. 4 00:00:19.300 --> 00:00:22.899 The thoughts and opinions on this podcast are those of the hosts and guests alone, 5 00:00:22.899 --> 00:00:28.800 and are not the opinions of any organization which they have been, are, or may be, affiliated with. 6 00:00:33.200 --> 00:00:35.399 This is episode 539. 7 00:00:35.399 --> 00:00:38.000 WICHA, PETA is 25? 8 00:00:38.500 --> 00:00:41.079 [upbeat music] 9 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:46.840 Good morning, good evening. 10 00:00:46.840 --> 00:00:48.920 Good afternoon, Michael Rowe here. 11 00:00:48.920 --> 00:00:50.679 And you know what? 12 00:00:50.679 --> 00:00:55.840 That means we have at least one mandatory Michael on this show. 13 00:00:55.840 --> 00:00:57.640 And to round out the show, 14 00:00:57.640 --> 00:01:02.120 we have our one mandatory Englishman in use. 15 00:01:02.120 --> 00:01:02.960 Welcome. 16 00:01:02.500 --> 00:01:07.939 Hi Michael, I'm back. You can't get rid of me and I'm glad to represent the country 17 00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:05.200 [laughing] 18 00:01:08.579 --> 00:01:12.420 and talk tech in games and stuff and kill things. 19 00:01:09.519 --> 00:01:10.359 Yes. 20 00:01:13.400 --> 00:01:16.000 It's going to be a fun episode today. 21 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:20.000 Both of the other co-hosts are off-gallavanting somewhere. 22 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:23.000 I don't know what they're doing, but I'm sure it's very important. 23 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:29.000 But I find it very important to talk tech with my friends on a Friday afternoon. 24 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:31.000 So this is good stuff. 25 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:33.000 So we have a lot of things in the show. 26 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:37.000 We're going to start off on a little bit of a meh note. 27 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:44.000 You and I both saw this set of articles this week and given our history in this space, 28 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:46.000 face, I figured it was appropriate for us to talk about. 29 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:56.000 And all the machinations going around with their studios and the reality labs, 30 00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:59.000 and metaverse for work and all that. 31 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:01.000 Let's see what it is. 32 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:09.000 They're closing some studios, doing layoffs in their wearables in their reality lab division, 33 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:13.000 and also discontinuing the metaverse for work. 34 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:15.000 Ian, what do you think? 35 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:18.000 You've got both the quest. 36 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:23.000 You probably have used metaverse for work maybe with some of the work that you used to do. 37 00:02:22.500 --> 00:02:48.340 I looked at it yes yes I do there is a shift of glasses and obviously this is terrible for people that have lost their jobs but equally it's not necessarily been as successful as it wanted in the whole in with horizon for instance for the the kind of online space because 38 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:26.000 And you have the glasses. 39 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:29.000 So it seems like a shift to glasses. 40 00:02:50.340 --> 00:02:52.340 the contents not 41 00:02:52.500 --> 00:03:18.500 And they're up against people like Roblox and Fortnite and a generational shift and you've got 10 billion, I think 10 billion Roblox accounts and many many more monthly active uses than Horizon gets and these are companies and they have shareholders and it's not about whether we think it's all a good idea or not. 42 00:03:18.500 --> 00:03:22.500 they'll cut things that the drop of a hat won't be in. 43 00:03:22.500 --> 00:03:33.500 That's what they've done here and it's it's all very brutal and we've seen the same things across across the games industry. There's loads of shutdowns and layoffs and stuff and it's it's not good. 44 00:03:33.500 --> 00:03:37.500 But it will rally round because this stuff's going to happen anyway. 45 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:41.439 Yeah, well, I, what I really hope that happens is, you know, 46 00:03:41.439 --> 00:04:07.920 when any type shift like this, we're a very large employer lays off a large amount of people in an area where there's a passionate following, some of them go off and start something. And I'm hoping they do that because as much as I love my vision pro and we'll get to it in a second, um, competition in the space of VR headsets and VR environments is important. It's what pushes it forward. 47 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:23.000 Yes. And, and though, I mean, the games industry is is renowned for, I'd say, these ships and these layoffs and people going off and foundings on the else and, as you said, out of that, some really unusual new things turn up. 48 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:28.000 And the, the spirit is there because there's a great. 49 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:35.000 Boundless creativity amongst many of the people involved in here and unfortunately they'd been sucked into a big corporate monster. 50 00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:37.879 So hopefully, they'll, they'll. 51 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:42.480 find their way and we're all there to support them. 52 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:55.000 Speaking of interesting things, last weekend in the U.S., Apple and the Los Angeles Lakers, 53 00:04:55.000 --> 00:05:02.759 who are a National Basketball Association team with some famous players, I am not an NBA fan, 54 00:05:02.759 --> 00:05:12.600 but they did their first of a whole series of matches that are streaming live on the 55 00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:41.399 pro. Now, that is phenomenal, technically. I watched the replay because you could get it later as a replay. I didn't watch the whole thing because, again, NBA basketball who cares. If you're a listener who cares about NBA basketball, drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you. But it was a phenomenal experience. So let me describe it a little bit. 56 00:05:43.399 --> 00:05:50.839 Apple has set up four cameras in the arena that they're playing at in Los Angeles. 57 00:05:50.839 --> 00:05:57.000 There's one at the halfway point on the basketball court, 58 00:05:58.519 --> 00:06:00.279 basically right at the judge's desk. 59 00:06:01.720 --> 00:06:05.000 And it's set at probably waist high. 60 00:06:06.519 --> 00:06:13.959 There are two, one each kind of slightly, 61 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:19.639 off to the side and behind the basket where they dump the ball in. 62 00:06:19.639 --> 00:06:21.639 Like my technical basketball terms. 63 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:23.860 Heheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheh 64 00:06:21.639 --> 00:06:23.800 [laugh] 65 00:06:23.800 --> 00:06:27.879 And those are the rim of the backboards are clear, right? 66 00:06:27.879 --> 00:06:35.879 And so you can see the players as they're going up and taking the shot or jostling underneath the backboard, et cetera. 67 00:06:35.879 --> 00:06:41.720 And then the fourth one is in the again, 68 00:06:41.720 --> 00:06:43.060 at the center of the court. 69 00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:50.000 But up at the top in the last row of the stadium. 70 00:06:52.000 --> 00:07:00.000 And so they have directors directing the production in real time. 71 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:05.000 And most of the time, because NBA basketball tends to be, 72 00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:08.000 and this is one of the reasons I don't like it, very fast pace, 73 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:11.000 take the ball, go the other end, jump it in the thing, 74 00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:12.000 grab the ball, go the other end, dump it in the thing. 75 00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:15.000 That's the game, right? 76 00:07:13.500 --> 00:07:15.740 That sounds like basketball. Yeah. 77 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:16.000 Yeah. 78 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:22.000 But they do at times show it from the judges table and sometimes from the top. 79 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:31.000 So you can kind of see the overall play of the game and also see just how huge these athletes are. 80 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:34.000 I mean, they are tall guys. 81 00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:35.000 Let me tell you. 82 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:40.000 And the other thing that they do, this is a 180 arc video. 83 00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:42.600 And so you actually can see. 84 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:54.000 When you're looking at half court, you can look to the right and left and kind of see the play go back and forth as if you were sitting in supposedly the best seats in the house. 85 00:07:54.000 --> 00:08:11.000 And the other thing that they did is both pregame and halftime. They had a talking head kind of with stuff going on behind them. They showed you the halftime events. 86 00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:13.000 And it just was... 87 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:24.000 And it probably because I didn't watch the whole thing, but I didn't see any breaks for commercials and the stuff that usually happens when they go to time out. 88 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:33.000 They would pull back to the midfield camera so you could watch what's happening on the court while the team's off talking. 89 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:35.000 Because all kinds of stuff happens. 90 00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:42.000 I never realized that for lack of a better term, I'll call them guards came out and kind of guard around the basket. 91 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:48.000 And there was a little halftime show going on during every break. 92 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:55.000 And, you know, certain coaches would peel off to the side and talk amongst themselves while other coaches were talking to the players. 93 00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:59.000 It was pretty fascinating as an event. 94 00:08:59.500 --> 00:09:16.980 That's very cool. So it was showing the 180 video. Was it doing any kind of little extra data or a little bit? Because they always show it as showing the little, the little pitch and where all the players are, the core, where all the players are as little dots and stuff. 95 00:09:09.500 --> 00:09:18.500 They did have at the pregame time. 96 00:09:18.500 --> 00:09:23.659 They did have some nice 3D rendered overlays with information about the players and stuff. 97 00:09:23.659 --> 00:09:31.460 Like you see it a normal soccer or other sports match when they're saying this is the line up and blah, blah, blah, blah. 98 00:09:31.460 --> 00:09:35.620 They didn't do like the stuff that I think you used to do at Wimbledon, right? 99 00:09:35.620 --> 00:09:39.440 you would render data into a graphical format into. 100 00:09:39.000 --> 00:10:09.039 Yeah, that's why I asked, okay, so there's been kind of demos of the Formula One things where you get the view from the car but then you get the map and where all the cars are it's projected on the bottom of it across and out at you and we'll get there I mean this is a huge move isn't it and you know NBA is a big franchise and as you said the fact that they didn't have any commercial. 101 00:09:39.500 --> 00:09:54.379 We have some kind of data source. That... Yeah. Yeah. 102 00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:11.000 I'm sure they'll get over that. 103 00:10:10.500 --> 00:10:14.259 Oh, I'm sure. This is a commercial enterprise after all. 104 00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:14.000 And you'll end up having lots of commercials. 105 00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:17.000 Yeah, but that's impressive. 106 00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:21.000 And yeah, let's have some more of that. 107 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:26.000 With some more sports and some more interesting sports. 108 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:30.279 Yeah, well speaking of more of that, speaking of more of that, I saw in my feed this week, 109 00:10:30.279 --> 00:10:49.639 so I'm a subscriber to Applarkate and I saw in my feed this week that retrocade is coming to Applarkade, including a vision pro version where you can put the entire arcade cabinet in your room and play the cabinet. 110 00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:51.679 Yeah, that's very good. 111 00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:57.000 Yes. Yes. 112 00:10:51.679 --> 00:10:56.600 I mean, yes, this is what we want, isn't it? 113 00:10:56.600 --> 00:11:01.600 And aside from, I mean, the retrocade thing, 114 00:11:01.720 --> 00:11:07.080 there's a lot of retro platforms and things to pull in this and stuff on the Xbox and stuff like that. 115 00:11:07.080 --> 00:11:11.240 But the particularly with those arcade cabinets, 116 00:11:11.240 --> 00:11:12.919 our iconic themselves aren't they? 117 00:11:12.919 --> 00:11:16.320 And for those of us that were there at the time, 118 00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:18.960 It's like, oh yeah, there's history back. 119 00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:25.379 Oh, I remember feeding tons of quarters into some of those cabinets. 120 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:24.600 And just, and you know, I guess we're the ones buying this kit. 121 00:11:24.600 --> 00:11:27.600 So it's good to, it's good to pander that. 122 00:11:27.600 --> 00:11:34.000 But obviously that means some other, as I said before, this is about the content and the thing that's interesting and the thing that draws you. 123 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:40.600 And we're crowding to our kids and stand around and watch other people play stuff before we had things like Twitch and stuff. 124 00:11:40.600 --> 00:11:45.399 You would watch somebody who was particularly good at space invaders or defender or back man. 125 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:42.820 - Yeah. 126 00:11:45.399 --> 00:11:47.399 and um... 127 00:11:46.879 --> 00:11:48.200 And if you wanted to play next, 128 00:11:48.200 --> 00:11:52.000 you would put your quarter right up on the cabinet, right? 129 00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:54.000 absolutely. That was the way. Yeah. 130 00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:54.480 And you're marking your, I'm next. 131 00:11:54.000 --> 00:12:03.000 I mean it's and the fact that it's in in kind of the Apple Arcade subscription is particularly good. 132 00:12:01.500 --> 00:12:06.500 Yeah, well, the really cool thing about it is and of course, you know 133 00:12:06.659 --> 00:12:13.460 I'm just waiting for one of my friends to pick up a vision pro any of them any on anyone 134 00:12:13.820 --> 00:12:15.820 Bueller, you look 135 00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:17.259 [laughing] 136 00:12:17.899 --> 00:12:21.639 Because as you mentioned standing around and watching the other 137 00:12:22.220 --> 00:12:28.340 Play or play in the arcade was a big thing and you have this share play environment with with the vision pro 138 00:12:28.500 --> 00:12:31.539 where they've added now, where multiple people in the same physical 139 00:12:31.500 --> 00:12:46.500 space can also come together with their avatars in the virtual space, even though you could do that remotely like we did playing Demio, so I think it's another really cool example of what could happen. 140 00:12:36.500 --> 00:12:39.940 Yeah, like with Debbie, yeah. 141 00:12:46.500 --> 00:13:01.500 So, I don't know if you follow Macbreak weekly or any of those shows, but one of the former, and I can say now, former hosts of that, had given a session at Mac Guardian. 142 00:13:01.500 --> 00:13:27.500 And I got to know him his name was Alex Lindsey, who was also founder of what Onino Media and a show called Office Hours, where every single morning since the start of the pandemic, way back in 2020, and continuing until, I guess it's still going on. 143 00:13:27.500 --> 00:13:31.460 We did weekly like two or three hour sessions on Zoom. 144 00:13:31.500 --> 00:13:38.700 Learning about, you know, content creation tools, video editing, etc. 145 00:13:38.700 --> 00:13:51.500 He is now at Apple, just move their beginning of January to focus on the partner ecosystem, creating 3D content. 146 00:13:51.500 --> 00:13:57.299 Yeah, yeah, so I'm really excited to see what's coming out of that. 147 00:13:52.500 --> 00:13:55.179 - Whoa, that's better. 148 00:13:57.299 --> 00:14:01.299 I actually actually dropped him a note saying, you know, this is probably some of the best news 149 00:14:01.500 --> 00:14:06.500 here about the Vision Pro and the rest of Apple's ecosystem with 3D content. 150 00:14:06.500 --> 00:14:10.500 So I'm really excited to see what's going to go on there. 151 00:14:10.500 --> 00:14:15.000 We just now need them to move it on to to have some more cross-platform stuff 152 00:14:10.500 --> 00:14:15.500 But yeah. 153 00:14:15.539 --> 00:14:20.059 Because it shouldn't be locked into a particular expensive bit of hardware. So it should work 154 00:14:20.620 --> 00:14:29.899 Across things just like the retro cages on phones and iPads. Yeah, but you know, it's all good and it's got 3D in it So it'll go the right way 155 00:14:21.500 --> 00:14:31.360 Well, but he did go to work for Apple, he did go to work for Apple, and yeah, yeah. 156 00:14:31.360 --> 00:14:44.600 So speaking of other quick hits on gaming, another game that I know Michael Martina and I talk about a lot is civilizations, Civilization 7 came out, what, two or three years ago, 157 00:14:44.600 --> 00:14:51.240 I think it was, and you know, I kept looking at it and I kept putting it off and kept putting it off. 158 00:14:51.500 --> 00:14:57.100 I was also glad to find out that that'll be launching next month on Apple Arcade. 159 00:14:57.100 --> 00:15:03.500 So included in the subscription, so really excited about that. 160 00:15:00.500 --> 00:15:07.500 That's, that's amazing. I mean, it's, it's stunning going. Yes. 161 00:15:03.500 --> 00:15:07.500 Because that to me, that is an A-list game, right? 162 00:15:07.500 --> 00:15:13.500 And yep, there are a couple of years behind, they tend to be, but hey, it's there. 163 00:15:13.500 --> 00:15:41.500 Yeah, the fact that it's designed or had the overlays for it so it works with touch and stuff and it's not just a weird port of a mouse system is really good to hear and obviously they put civilization on things like the switch and things like that before so it's hit those mobile, mobile platform, it's kind of mobile isn't it smaller platforms. 164 00:15:41.500 --> 00:16:08.580 So to be there on your iPad or I've got feeling the iPhone for playing on the iPhone might be tricky because it is very intricate isn't it but but even that will have a look the thing is you can try it and see can't we well not yet I mean can you can't you run it as a as a screen somewhere yeah well there we are 165 00:15:49.000 --> 00:15:51.000 Yeah 166 00:15:52.759 --> 00:15:58.000 Well, yeah, unfortunately that one is not coming to the vision pro 167 00:15:59.039 --> 00:16:01.039 Which is a shame 168 00:16:03.399 --> 00:16:06.940 Yeah, well, I don't know some some games you can run as an iPad app 169 00:16:07.919 --> 00:16:11.320 But they have to enable that and and this one did not 170 00:16:12.159 --> 00:16:17.879 Doesn't specifically say that that's enabled. So I'm assuming it won't be there well speaking of 171 00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:23.820 Games and he had put this one in the show show rundown for us 172 00:16:24.480 --> 00:16:33.360 There was a I think it was originally a Kickstarter a device called board and it is a 173 00:16:35.480 --> 00:16:40.960 Physical tablet-like device designed for playing board games in person 174 00:16:41.320 --> 00:16:43.320 You know, we used to have those they were called 175 00:16:43.960 --> 00:16:49.039 boards Yeah, and they usually had a board of some sort 176 00:16:44.500 --> 00:16:47.500 Board games, yes it's a good thing. 177 00:16:49.000 --> 00:17:15.880 that you laid out on the table. This one, it comes with 12 free games and I guess at $700 for a board. It better have at least a couple of few games, but designed to allow people to kind of do both tablet gaming and board gaming at the same time. Had you heard of this when it was a Kickstarter? 178 00:17:13.500 --> 00:17:30.500 I, I thought I had, but then also I'm mixing it in my head with some, some other very similar things that are there to help you do board games whether it's, was it tilt, yeah, tilt, AR was doing, doing that. 179 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:31.000 Yeah, that one I remember. 180 00:17:31.500 --> 00:17:36.500 And well, yeah, I've got that. So I need to dig that out, it's in my office somewhere. 181 00:17:37.500 --> 00:17:43.500 That was, that was very good. And then there were, there were things using physical devices. 182 00:17:43.500 --> 00:18:01.500 So on top of iPads. So there was a range of kids games, it was cars, I think. So you had like name a queen, you actually had a little like name a queen car that you put on your iPad and drove, drove around on it. So you had that tactile thing because that's, that's what you want with the board game, isn't it? 183 00:18:01.500 --> 00:18:13.500 It's the pick in the cards up and it's feeling with the, the presence of the dice as you roll it. And I know we rolled dice and demi out, but it's not the same as rolling dice. 184 00:18:13.500 --> 00:18:29.500 They make some sound, you get a feel. And I, that again, we're back down to content. Is it, are they really good board games or is it just going to be playing the basics? Because nobody's developing for us. 185 00:18:26.500 --> 00:18:34.619 Well, that was interesting. There was one game that they show in a video demo that when I first saw it I was like oh cool. They made ice hockey 186 00:18:35.059 --> 00:18:37.539 Remember air hockey. Sorry air hockey 187 00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:44.000 Yeah, yeah, okay. 188 00:18:37.900 --> 00:18:41.759 But it's it's actually like a mix of air hockey and asteroids 189 00:18:42.859 --> 00:18:47.240 With with little pieces that you put on the on the board 190 00:18:48.019 --> 00:18:52.119 and the pieces seem to be shooting at the other player 191 00:18:53.420 --> 00:18:56.519 But the rest of the mechanic kind of looks like air-hot. 192 00:18:57.500 --> 00:19:00.539 Yeah, I mean the fact that it has pieces. I mean that's the 193 00:19:01.819 --> 00:19:10.460 That's the important bit and it's just it's just how creative people But then if you have this board and you have loads of different pieces because you want to game with 194 00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:03.960 And just step up. 195 00:19:10.940 --> 00:19:21.220 With dragons in it and counting and stuff like that Or you want a color racing game then you end up with a pile and pile of miniatures that you can need to do there And you don't know where they fit because you haven't got the box anymore 196 00:19:21.460 --> 00:19:27.480 So there is that it does save space. We've got loads of board games downstairs loads of things and I keep getting 197 00:19:27.500 --> 00:19:37.099 The one kickstarter and weird games and wonderful games, and it is I think that it's like vinyl coming back isn't it having the box and having the pieces 198 00:19:38.619 --> 00:19:42.460 I really shouldn't be saying this I'm a techie, but it's just you know 199 00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:44.000 That tactile. 200 00:19:43.259 --> 00:19:50.140 Maybe the compute the compute stuff is there maybe for support on weird rules and things like that when you have to look it up on YouTube 201 00:19:50.779 --> 00:19:53.819 But equally, I mean I'd be a pair of no play on it, so I may 202 00:19:53.500 --> 00:20:22.380 Yeah, well, we've talked a lot about, you know, having the content, which really gets into the idea of creating the content, and this past week, I think it was this past week, Apple announced, as they put it, an inspiring collection of creative apps. 203 00:19:54.460 --> 00:19:56.900 Wait out, might take a deeper look at that one. 204 00:20:22.380 --> 00:20:23.500 So they've done a bundle. 205 00:20:24.460 --> 00:20:27.500 of a lot of existing apps. 206 00:20:28.500 --> 00:20:33.500 But they finally exposed what they're doing with. 207 00:20:33.500 --> 00:20:36.500 Oh, God, I want to say procreate. 208 00:20:36.500 --> 00:20:39.500 What was the graphics tool that they bought? 209 00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:55.319 oh I can't remember um yes same it it's not I don't think it's pro creative because I've got that it's the other one big that's the one that's the one gotta pee in it 210 00:20:42.500 --> 00:20:46.500 I'm going blank, but I'm actually going to click through the link. 211 00:20:47.500 --> 00:20:49.500 No, no, it's not procreate. 212 00:20:49.500 --> 00:20:50.500 Pixelmater. 213 00:20:50.500 --> 00:20:52.500 Dixel Mater. 214 00:20:54.500 --> 00:21:20.500 Yeah, and what they've done is kind of gone into the same type of bundle approach as Adobe with their creative suite, with affinity with their creative suite, and others, I guess DaVinci, and what's really interesting about this, I actually have up on the shelf behind me that you can't see due to my background. 215 00:21:20.500 --> 00:21:23.500 And it's a-- 216 00:21:21.500 --> 00:21:23.500 And it's a podcast 217 00:21:23.500 --> 00:21:35.519 audio podcast, a box that is probably about a quarter meter wide, or about, say, 13, 14 inches wide, 218 00:21:35.519 --> 00:21:51.819 about 8 to 9 inches tall, and about 8 to 9 inches deep, which is the box that final cuts studio came in when you bought it. 219 00:21:52.500 --> 00:21:54.759 [laughing] 220 00:21:53.500 --> 00:22:02.140 And I think it, when I bought it, it was probably two grand. 221 00:22:02.140 --> 00:22:07.579 And then they came out with a smaller version, which was even more powerful. 222 00:22:07.579 --> 00:22:12.980 And that box was probably about the size of a box of five and a quarter inch floppy disks. 223 00:22:12.980 --> 00:22:21.019 For those people who remember that technology, so probably about five and a quarter inch square. 224 00:22:18.500 --> 00:22:20.420 [laughing] 225 00:22:21.019 --> 00:22:23.579 And then, gosh, I can't even- 226 00:22:23.500 --> 00:22:30.380 I remember how long it was when Final Cut became a $300 download on the App Store, right? 227 00:22:30.380 --> 00:22:36.779 So I think the first one was two grand, the second one was like $600 and then we went down to $300. 228 00:22:36.779 --> 00:22:53.500 And so what they've done is they've bundled Final Cut Pixelmator Logic Pro, which I also paid for, which I think originally was like $700 or $600, right? 229 00:22:53.500 --> 00:23:10.619 Motion, which I also bought, compressor, which I also bought, and mainstage something I have never bought, which mainstage is for like real-time mixing of stuff, if I remember correctly. 230 00:23:10.619 --> 00:23:21.259 And they've turned that into a package for 130 US, 129 US a year, 12, 99 a month. 231 00:23:21.259 --> 00:23:23.500 and it includes all the iPad version. 232 00:23:23.500 --> 00:23:32.500 And it includes additional content for what I call iWork. 233 00:23:32.500 --> 00:23:41.500 So keynote pages numbers, so your spreadsheet, your text processing and your presentation tool. 234 00:23:41.500 --> 00:23:45.500 I think this is really fascinating. 235 00:23:45.500 --> 00:23:52.500 What I really want to see is what they've added into all those hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of apps that I've already paid for. 236 00:23:53.500 --> 00:23:55.500 What would make me want to turn it into a subscription. 237 00:23:55.500 --> 00:23:57.500 Because right now, I have them. 238 00:23:57.000 --> 00:24:06.000 You do, I don't, but I will do now, because that's very much on my list of things to do, 239 00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:16.839 so to get that many tools to do the sort of things that we all want to do, and also say that kind of tie in. 240 00:24:16.839 --> 00:24:26.839 And so it's pulling more at generi stuff into the normal everyday work tools. It's really intriguing. 241 00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:40.000 And now I'm retired. I'm doing lots of local generation of AI video and stuff like that, and try and work out how to tell the stories I want to tell. 242 00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:49.000 I want to do, you know, there's more writing to do, and obviously, yes, the third book, but I'm learning to draw so I can kind of work out how to do characters and manga and stuff. 243 00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:57.000 So having any of those tools available to just throw it relatively inexpensive. 244 00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:11.000 I've given the cost of each individual one relatively inexpensive thing. I mean, that's the same price as a runway subscription for years. So it's exciting. And I didn't know, I didn't realize until I saw the show now. 245 00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:17.000 I admit, having said I pay attention to everything, I missed that one somewhere, and it's like, oh! 246 00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:27.000 So so you mentioned something just kind of in passing in that that I think some of our listeners might be wondering about a third book. Is there a series that you've been working on? 247 00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:39.000 Yes, yes, so reconfiguring context with two books that I wrote before, it's now a decade ago. 248 00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:51.000 That sounds awful, doesn't it? But there's always been a third one in my head, and the second one finished, the spoiler, they all finish on some sort of cliffhanger. 249 00:25:51.000 --> 00:25:58.000 And so I'm building and researching that, not in any particular way. 250 00:25:57.000 --> 00:26:24.000 A lot of the things that I'm doing, and the way that the creative tools work now, and the way AI works now and the way I'm learning to draw things and learn to play instruments and stuff, is all actually research, as well as beneficial for my brain. 251 00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:06.000 But you're not going to be George R. R. Martin, are you? 252 00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:26.000 that that's a change for how 253 00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:34.359 lead character will lead character Roshy may have to do things, that's a spoiler alert. 254 00:26:31.500 --> 00:26:36.420 Well, we kicked off this show with an incredible title. 255 00:26:36.420 --> 00:26:41.779 But by the way, yes, I am very excited to hear that book three might actually occur. 256 00:26:39.000 --> 00:26:44.000 Thank you. 257 00:26:41.779 --> 00:26:45.579 We kicked off this show with a title all about Wikipedia. 258 00:26:45.579 --> 00:27:01.460 And before the show, you and I were talking about this article and Wikipedia turned 25 this month, and they've created a really cool little site at Wikipedia25.org, which lets you kind of go through a time. 259 00:27:01.500 --> 00:27:11.400 with all kinds of interesting factoid stories, videos, and UI changes that they've done in the 25 years. 260 00:27:11.400 --> 00:27:22.000 And you and I were talking and you said, "Oh yeah, this reminds me when I did a show about their 10th anniversary." 261 00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:24.900 So tell us about that. 262 00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:52.839 Yeah, so 15 years ago obviously now it's very easy to do the math but that's that's a good thing about 25 but on the kill stuff collective which was a Saturday morning kids TV show in the UK where I was resident super geek and I turned up and had a little slot to talk about interesting things, hopefully interesting things, where we did 3D printing and all sorts of I think, you know, this is it was- 263 00:27:53.000 --> 00:28:22.000 it was for 7 to 11 year olds, but so many of those were in the workplace, I should imagine, and yeah, yeah, that's just, that's because, but one of the things was it was Wikipedia's 10th anniversary, so the production team said, well, that's not really interesting, it's just a website of facts and encyclopedia is why kids are going to be interested, and I said, well, you can build your own, how many people can contribute, and it'd be great if we could persuade someone to start contributing. 264 00:27:58.500 --> 00:28:00.180 Yeah, think about that for a second. 265 00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:52.000 So, and during the course of the live show, well, no, the live transmission show wasn't live, but during the course of the show, we watched some stuff appear where, where kids were trying to build pages about the other presenters, because I had a Wikipedia page, and part of the joke was that, so the other present, the main presenter didn't have one, and he was going, well, I got one, and we had our monkey character. 266 00:28:53.000 --> 00:29:23.000 He was, um, causing mischief as well, and kids started to create links between size page and monkeys page, and say, in monkeys, keywords, and science stuff, it all got, it all got knocked out very quickly by the bots and both of Wikipedia's, because it obviously wasn't the real thing, you know, and wasn't detailed enough, but, but some kids were doing it, and who knows, they may be Wikipedia's now, so if they are brilliant. 267 00:29:11.000 --> 00:29:16.000 - Right, that's awesome. 268 00:29:20.079 --> 00:29:21.079 Awesome. 269 00:29:21.079 --> 00:29:26.079 Yeah, it's interesting and part of that, 270 00:29:27.480 --> 00:29:36.359 we have p225.org page, talks about the challenges that they've had over time and how they approach them, 271 00:29:36.359 --> 00:29:39.359 whether it was blackout pages or whatever. 272 00:29:39.359 --> 00:29:41.000 And now with, uh, 273 00:29:41.279 --> 00:29:44.559 kind of almost circling back to the beginning, right? 274 00:29:42.500 --> 00:29:43.339 - Yeah. 275 00:29:44.559 --> 00:29:49.559 With the, with the massive scraping by AI tools to kind of suck in and reuse 276 00:29:51.720 --> 00:29:56.039 their content. Um, it's, uh, you know, 277 00:29:56.039 --> 00:30:01.039 the challenge to how do you keep it created by Wikipedia and it's not by, 278 00:30:02.039 --> 00:30:05.720 AI tools speeding out content and, and flooding the zone. 279 00:30:05.720 --> 00:30:08.079 So to speak with garbage or crap. Um, 280 00:30:08.119 --> 00:30:10.960 So really, really cool to see this. 281 00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:13.839 It's really exciting and really interesting. 282 00:30:13.839 --> 00:30:17.559 I have someone who doesn't have a Wikipedia page. 283 00:30:17.559 --> 00:30:21.039 [laughter] 284 00:30:18.500 --> 00:30:22.299 Yeah, yeah, I'm sure somebody would create one or you I mean, that's 285 00:30:21.039 --> 00:30:27.119 Well, they would have to disambiguate me with a couple other famous Michael Rose. 286 00:30:25.619 --> 00:30:29.779 Well, I'm sure I'll do that That's a that's a challenge to the listeners 287 00:30:27.119 --> 00:30:29.839 But no, it's just fascinating. 288 00:30:32.680 --> 00:30:40.960 So anything interesting tech-wise that you see coming up or that you saw recently 289 00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:45.480 that our listeners might be tantalized. 290 00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:51.200 Well, I did allude to the fact I'm doing some local generation of videos. 291 00:30:51.200 --> 00:30:58.160 So just this month, I think, and I know we've just go not more AI, here we go again. 292 00:30:58.160 --> 00:31:03.960 But I, because I had a bit of time, I thought I'll have a look at how this stuff works. 293 00:31:03.960 --> 00:31:10.400 And I installed something called comfy UI, which is a workflow, doodile thing. 294 00:31:10.400 --> 00:31:15.119 and it let me, it had a template for lots and lots of 295 00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:27.000 different types of AI generation stuff. I'm sure it does other things as well. But it installed without me having to bother faffing around doing anything and all the dependencies and stuff, 296 00:31:27.000 --> 00:31:42.119 all the Python and all that kind of lucky. It installed LTX2, LTX2.0 or -2 or whatever, which is all over the internet and all over the various social media things. And it's a local model to generate 297 00:31:43.559 --> 00:31:45.000 video, proper video. 298 00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:50.079 You know, four to 10 seconds depending on how much memory you've got. 299 00:31:50.079 --> 00:32:03.559 But with sound and with lip sync, it's just, it's, you can kind of see that the next set of models will be the things that we've currently got on, clean and on runway and stuff. 300 00:32:03.559 --> 00:32:08.480 There's that kind of, there's commercial side of stuff with some big players that you pay, 301 00:32:08.480 --> 00:32:12.559 subscription and you have to pay for the cloud and pay for all their processing power. 302 00:32:12.559 --> 00:32:14.980 And then there's the, I'll just run some opens. 303 00:32:15.799 --> 00:32:43.000 And that it is amazing, it's, it's much quicker and cheaper of say to, or it's not quicker, it's cheaper, much cheaper, but it doesn't, it's not sitting there waiting 24 hours like you used to for a 3D render back in the olden days, you know, it's sort of 640 by 48, yeah, it's, it's like, oh no, this takes ages and then you realize it's only actually taking 10 minutes. 304 00:32:34.500 --> 00:32:37.500 I was about to go to that exact sample, right? 305 00:32:37.500 --> 00:32:38.500 Yeah. 306 00:32:43.000 --> 00:33:05.000 So, you know 10 minutes for a few seconds of video, yes, it's going to take a long while to string that all together into a movie, but you know, you kind of do in rashes of staff and you work and know what you might want to do and it's storyboarding by another means and the fact that it talks. 307 00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:11.000 I'll just just think about just just think about Toy Story where when it first came out how long did it take them to render a couple of seconds of video, right? 308 00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:15.000 Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And it's, and it's also, I know it's, I know it's, I know. 309 00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:23.000 I don't know what other people are going to do with it, but I did get my lead character to swear. 310 00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:40.000 So, Roshine swore, she doesn't sweat necessarily swear much in books, but I just, there was an exasperation I wanted, so I just got her to do an F bomb just to see if it would go, oh, I'm sorry, you're not allowed to do that kind of language, it didn't care, it just did it. 311 00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:41.259 Well, it's your local environment. So so depends on what the guardrails are set up 312 00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.880 That's what I mean, but you never know whether they've put them in the model in the 313 00:33:44.599 --> 00:33:46.599 Yeah 314 00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:51.640 model but they haven't, which is good and bad obviously because people will be generating all sorts of things they shouldn't be possibly. 315 00:33:51.640 --> 00:33:57.900 So it was lovely to see her swear and slam her shap, laptop shut. 316 00:33:57.900 --> 00:34:01.920 And it was like, oh, here we go. 317 00:33:58.500 --> 00:34:10.019 Awesome well knowing you I assume at some point there'll be a nice blog post of your configuration and how you got this all working. 318 00:34:11.500 --> 00:34:22.460 Yes, possibly, but I mean it'll be a very quick blog post because it'll just say install comfy, comfy UI, and just off you go. There's many more of these things, but 319 00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:19.000 [laughing] 320 00:34:23.739 --> 00:34:27.579 it was interesting delving down into one of the nodes though, because it just looks, 321 00:34:27.579 --> 00:34:41.420 you know, it's a typical workflow, you think now with some wires and stuff like that and some little blocks. And I thought, "Ah, right, well, it's all sort of black box where it's going off doing this stuff and I happened to click on the main one and went down to the next level. 322 00:34:41.500 --> 00:34:48.460 and just got these massive page wiring and things and prep rammots and stuff and it was like yeah that's complicated. 323 00:34:48.460 --> 00:34:57.980 That's gonna take a little while to figure out what that means. So I'll leave it as little box to let it render stuff for me. 324 00:34:49.000 --> 00:34:51.260 [laughing] 325 00:34:53.639 --> 00:34:54.480 Awesome. 326 00:34:58.039 --> 00:35:03.559 But the thing that I find the most interesting right now with all this change, this really fast change, 327 00:35:03.559 --> 00:35:06.719 and we could spend time talking about like Claude, 328 00:35:06.719 --> 00:35:08.960 but I'm not going to today. 329 00:35:08.960 --> 00:35:19.000 But is the fact that there's a generation of developers and IT specialists and techies and geeks who understand what I'll-- 330 00:35:19.000 --> 00:35:22.199 all that means and what it was built on, right? 331 00:35:21.500 --> 00:35:23.500 Mm-hmm. Yes 332 00:35:22.199 --> 00:35:23.840 And then there's a generation that-- 333 00:35:23.840 --> 00:35:27.800 it's purely a black box. 334 00:35:27.800 --> 00:35:35.320 And that happens with every kind of technology shift, right? 335 00:35:35.320 --> 00:35:38.639 My dad used to work on his car and do everything on it. 336 00:35:38.639 --> 00:35:40.480 I'd encourage you to do a little-- 337 00:35:40.480 --> 00:35:41.679 now it's like it's a black box. 338 00:35:41.679 --> 00:35:42.280 I don't care. 339 00:35:42.280 --> 00:35:44.960 Just make it work, right? 340 00:35:44.960 --> 00:35:47.800 And we see that same thing with this. 341 00:35:47.800 --> 00:35:48.639 and. 342 00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:53.000 Uh, I'm wondering if that black box. 343 00:35:54.000 --> 00:35:57.000 Well, there's tons of sci-fi books about this, I'm sure. 344 00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:02.000 If not knowing what's in that black, black box will be problematic. 345 00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:11.239 I may be problematic, it may just spark some interesting things that we hadn't thought of as well. 346 00:36:11.000 --> 00:36:19.000 Yep. Yes, yes. Here. 347 00:36:11.239 --> 00:36:23.360 I'm trying not to be dystopian here, but obviously there's enough going on in the world to be dystopian about it, but when you generate something and go, "Oh, that's weird." 348 00:36:23.360 --> 00:36:26.980 I generated a Shakespearean act. 349 00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:48.000 I just put some of the words in, see whether it bothered putting any emotion in to it or just really out, and it did put some emotion in different to a proper person, but it was holding a skull because I had said holding a skull, but for some reason it had a great big unicorn horn on it. 350 00:36:47.500 --> 00:36:49.739 [laughing] 351 00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:57.000 But no idea. Now it's done where that came from, but it was like, oh, I wonder if there's a magic unicorn. 352 00:36:57.000 --> 00:37:13.000 Maybe it's made someone ice dream as fallen into this one, and can we smash those plays together and see what happens. So it's things like that, that I'm willing to go with the serendipity of weird things. 353 00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:20.280 Well, and thank you for joining us this week on games@work.biz. 354 00:37:20.280 --> 00:37:27.840 I think we'd like to hear everybody else's opinion on what's cool lately for them. 355 00:37:27.840 --> 00:37:30.599 If so, drop us a note over at our website. 356 00:37:30.599 --> 00:37:41.199 Imagine this, games@work.biz, it matches the show, or you can find us over on Mastodon. 357 00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:35.000 Games at work.biz! 358 00:37:41.199 --> 00:37:42.599 We'd love to hear from you. 359 00:37:42.500 --> 00:37:44.500 Thank you. It's been a pleasure 360 00:37:45.500 --> 00:37:48.079 [upbeat music] 361 00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:53.280 You've been listening to games@work.biz, the podcast about gaming technology and play. 362 00:37:53.280 --> 00:37:56.880 We are part of the Blueberry podcasting network, and we'd like to thank the band, 363 00:37:54.500 --> 00:37:56.900 [upbeat music] 364 00:37:56.880 --> 00:37:59.760 Random Encounters for their song "Big Blue." 365 00:37:59.760 --> 00:38:03.679 You can follow us at our website at games@work.biz. 366 00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:06.579 [upbeat music] 367 00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:28.239 [clapping]