Games At Work dot Biz

Photo by NEOM on Unsplash Published 23 March 2026 e548 with Michael and Michael – Stories and discussion on uncomfortable valley & uncanny valley, Nintendo’s Talking Flower, 8bit Pixel Agents for AI orchestration and a whole lot more. Michael and Michael get things rolling while Andy is away on an article discussing the animated emojis in Microsoft Teams.  Fast Company article author Rebecca Heilweil describes these emojis as the ‘uncomfortable valley’ due to the animations that imbue the emojis shared in Teams with potentially unintended additional meaning.  Check out the link for a comparison graphic showing the similarities and differences between the uncanny and uncomfortable valleys. Switching to robotic animation, Michael and Michael take a look at Nintendo’s Talking Flower, which reminds them of the Alarmo alarm clock.  Next, a digital camera that provides mini quests that are satisfied by taking a picture of “a tiny thing” or “a hidden face”. Turning to AI, the co-hosts check out Pixel Agents, an 8bit representation of agents allowing the human orchestrator to monitor all the agents performing their tasks in a concurrent manner.  Michael R highlights a Mac local orchestrator called Osaurus.  Rounding out this week’s episode is a Washington Post about jobs that AI may take on, a story about ChatGPT assisting with cancer research, and an intriguing video about Devo. Which Pixel People professions would you want to have in your Pixel Agent virtual office?  Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @[email protected] (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 Tech Fast Company article: The uncomfortable valley: Microsoft Teams emoji faces have got to go Wikipedia article: Uncanny Valley Games at Work e308: Feline Filters (for discussion on the Uncanny Valley) The Verge article: Weird Nintendo never went away Nintendo Talking Flower Nintendo Alarmo Games at Work e485: Barbarians at the Rhubarb Bar (for the Alarmo clock) hackster.io article: This Camera Turns Your Day Into an RPG Games at Work e195: Augmented Audio (for Monopoly City Streets) AI Github: pablodelucca/pixel-agents Pixel People wiki https://osaurus.ai Washington Post article: See which jobs are most threatened by AI and who may be able to adapt The Verge article: ChatGPT did not cure a dog’s cancer The Verge article: Go watch this video about an AI system that can predict how proteins fold Devo

Photo by Michael Martine, Chapel Hill, NC March 2026 Published 16 March 2026 e547 with Michael and Michael – Stories and discussion on bot to bot communications, 50 years of Apple, LEGO SmartPlay SmartBricks and a whole lot more. Michael and Michael get things rolling while Andy is away on an article about Meta’s acquisition of Moltbook.  This agent to agent conversational environment reminds the pair of the Google Homes chatting with one another from back in June 2017.  Have a look at the short description in the YouTube video below and hear the conversation from 2017 in e173: Babel Fish.   Next up: Apple’s announcement on the celebrations surrounding their 50th anniversary.  The intersection of technology and the liberal arts continues to resonate across the years.  A tremendous hack by Paul Staal’s design for a Mac mini case that mimics the 2×2 sloped computer brick. This, of course, allows the co-hosts get into the heart of this episode: LEGO!   First, a Duke alumni magazine article about Ruthie Chen Ousley, who works at LEGO Education.  Then, a discussion about the battery and new uses for the SmartBrick.  A video from Brick Fanatics highlights who these sets and bricks are really for (spoiler, not AFOL) and how this provides a new degree of play with surprises and future possibilities as new sensors and experiences are unlocked.   How do you imagine these SmartBricks may be used in the future?  Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @[email protected] (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 AI Ars Technica article: Meta acquires Moltbook, the AI agent social network Games at Work e173: Babel Fish (for two Google Homes talking with one another @seebotschat) HEADLINE: "Study Finds That Execs Are Outsourcing Their Thinking to AI" ALT HEADLINE: "Execs Worry They'll Be Replaced By AI, But They're Doing It Themselves" https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-executive-thinking-survey — Mike Elgan (@[email protected]) 2026-03-08T18:20:28.916Z Apple MacStories article: Apple Announces 50th Anniversary Celebration Gizmodo article: This Custom Lego-Inspired Mac Mini Case Is Retrofuturism Done Right Games at Work e406: AI Lemmings (for James Brown’s LEGO-sized computer) LEGO Duke Magazine article: Brick By Brick The Verge article: You can’t replace the battery in Lego’s Smart Bricks — and many of its sensors aren’t active yet BrickFanatics article: LEGO fans are already finding better uses for the SMART Brick #LEGO #SmartPlay hacking continued: as the Smart Minifigs and Smart Tiles comply with standard ISO 15693 NFC, they can be copied. So this had to be done. The clone works totally fine with the original #SmartBrick. ➡️ https://youtube.com/shorts/kbI0hHGysUM — Mäh W. (@[email protected]) 2026-03-08T19:14:04.937Z

Published 9 March 2026 e543 with Andy, Michael and Michael – Stories and discussion on LEGO’s new Smart Play brick, this is a human brain (cells) on Doom, orc audio for vibe coding, Liquid Death’s Spotify urn for playlist immortality and a whole lot more. Michael, Michael and Andy get things rolling with Michael M’s delivery of the newest innovation from LEGO, the Smart Play brick!   While Michael’s only had a little bit of time to play with the new brick, it is already sparking some interesting ideas.  Check out the show notes below for what others are doing with it, now that the Smart Play brick is out and in the wild!  And of course the audio of the podcast for some of the sounds from the brick! An article about a biocomputing success to play Doom with human brain cells, reminds the cohosts of other biocomputing examples from e504.  The Ars Technica article about identifying anonymous users through LLMs likewise reminds the team of other examples for triangulating identity.  After a story about using the audio from Warcraft III in vibe coding experiences “work, work”, the team takes a look at “Humanity’s Last Exam”, which likely has already been handled by an enterprising AI research team.   Turning next to a Norwegian PSA (that is NSFW and funny) on the slippery slope of digital products and services getting worse and worse, the team then considers a story about a partnership between Epic and Google for a new set of metaverse applications.  In yet another back to the future experience, the Niantic gaming functionality may provide a roadmap to how this partnership may grow. The team wraps up with a Liquid Death promo for how you may achieve musical immortality with a custom Spotify playlist played via a bluetooth urn. What songs would be on your postmortem playlist?  Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @[email protected] (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 LEGO Smart Play r/LegoSmartBrick post: I disassembled a smart brick (note the comments about running Doom on a SmartBrick!) Adafruit post: Some LEGO Smart Brick – BLE Reverse Engineering #LEGO #SmartPlay hacking continued: as the Smart Minifigs and Smart Tiles comply with standard ISO 15693 NFC, they can be copied. So this had to be done. The clone works totally fine with the original #SmartBrick. ➡️ https://youtube.com/shorts/kbI0hHGysUM — Mäh W. (@[email protected]) 2026-03-08T19:14:04.937Z AI New Scientist article: Human brain cells on a chip learned to play Doom in a week Games at Work e504: Can You Digg It? for biocomputing Ars Technica article: LLMs can unmask pseudonymous users at scale with surprising accuracy PC Magazine article: Sick of Babysitting Claude? 100K Coders Are Asking an Orc to Do It Texas A&M Stories: Don’t Panic: ‘Humanity’s Last Exam’ has begun Digital Products & Services https://www.sheetz.com The Verge article: Epic and Google have signed a special deal for a new class of ‘metaverse’ apps Games at Work e98: Something Sweet in Your Neighborhood (for Niantic examples) Boy Genius Report article: Keep Playing Your Spotify Playlists After You Die With Liquid Death’s New Bluetooth Urn Games at Work e26: Business Process Management and Immortality (for digital immortality well before LLMs came on the scene) Michael Martine

Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash Published 2 March 2026 e545 with Andy and Michael – Get to talk about mostly non-AI topics this week, as we look at a cool kickstarter, Titan, that is building out a futuristic gauntlet. Do you want a forearm mounted drone? Is so, go check it out, along with the opportunity for community modules. Very cool! We then dip back into the world of AR and VR, as people speculate how Apple’s rumored AR glasses may benefit from the recent acquisition of Q.AI. We spend some time thinking of how a new App can help identify if you are around someone who has smart glasses on. (Even if Michael get’s the TV show reference wrong – and after an exhaustive search he can’t find the right one). We also discuss Disney’s deal to relaunch the Muppets in VR Ride as a VR app. Moving on to some cool artistic visions we look at both video and photographic way of seeing the world. Before moving back to tech with amazing upgrades to robots on Mars. Millions of miles away NASA is repurposing a chip on a robotic helicopter to improve the location information of a rover. While closer to home, robots are fixing potholes. We end with a story about a fellow geek accidentally hacking over 7,000 home based vacuum robots. Selected Links Electronic Gauntlet Kickstarter AR / VR Apple AR Glasses App warns you if someone is wearing smart glasses Muppets in VR Art https://mastodon.social/@sheepfilms/116132499996224901 https://www.youtube.com/embed/ctPqNSrmknA?si=M9ThvKmyB8YuLByk Olympic from a different perspective Robots Upgrades on Mars Pot hole Robots Vacuum Army

Photo by Masahiro Naruse on Unsplash Published 23 February 2026 e544 with Andy, Michael and Michael – Stories and discussion on rumoured AI devices, addictive predictives, listening through bananas (or mud), and what happens when VR platforms die? Plus the usual assortment or other things. This week’s episode kicks off with a check in on which tech giants are working on what devices, now? Apple stepping back from headsets but working on glasses and pendants, and OpenAI making some kind of smart Pod for your dumb Home? Then, there’s discussion of the challenges of privacy when LLMs get access to private email and chats. Oh, and if you’re not sure if your AI is an LLM or a sentience, then Anthropic can’t answer that. We hope you’re listening to the show in perfect digital quality, but we’re also interested to know if you’ve tried piping it to your ears through any kind of fruit – let us know. Meta’s fully backing away from VR for Horizon Worlds, and in case Blizzard ever stops making the client software for World of Warcraft, Michael tried an open source version. Finally, don’t let hackers get hold of your brainwaves! (it could happen) 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 AI Apple AI Glasses OpenAI and Jony Ive device Thank god Microsoft is shoving Copilot AI crap into everything. One gets the sense this isn't going to be an isolated occurrence. From Bleeping Computer: "Microsoft says a Microsoft 365 Copilot bug has been causing the AI assistant to summarize confidential emails since late January, bypassing data loss prevention (DLP) policies that organizations rely on to protect sensitive information." https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-says-bug-causes-copilot-to-summarize-confidential-emails/ — BrianKrebs (@[email protected]) 2026-02-18T18:24:34.707Z HEADLINE: "Prediction Markets Are Sucking Huge Numbers of Young People Into Gambling" ALT HEADLINE: "All Our Incentives Lead to Bad Outcomes, and Prediction Markets Are Just One Example" https://futurism.com/future-society/prediction-markets-gambling — Mike Elgan (@[email protected]) 2026-02-16T17:06:59.555Z Episode 80 on prediction markets Claude isn’t sure what it is I gave Claude access to my pen plotter Audio Audiophiles can’t tell mud from bananas? AR/VR Meta ditching VR for Horizon Worlds Open Source WoW client Makers Reverse engineering a sleep mask Bonus link Trek-o-rama

Photo by Viktor Keri on Unsplash Published 16 February 2026 e543 with Andy, Michael and Michael – Stories and discussion on Agentic AI and the changing nature of work, agents renting humans, real time translation, artistic roads, e-bikes for your feet and a whole lot more. Andy, Michael and Michael get things rolling with several AI articles.  First up, is a Mastodon post by Alan Pringle that called attention to a HBR article on the influence of AI on productivity.  This then led to a post on productivity acceleration technologies from years past – from COBOL, which was designed to enable business people to write programs, to 4GLs to case tools.  Then, the team discusses a detailed post from Matt Shumer entitled Something Big Is Happening.  The entire post is well worth reading, not only for how history is unfolding in real time, also for the recommendations that Matt makes for people to take onboard right now.  Among the recommendations are to begin the habit of adapting, and experimenting with multiple tools to build resiliency and experience. Wrapping up this section is a new version of taskrabbit that provides an API for Agents to rent humans for specific work called rentahuman.ai .  The future is certainly coming in fast. In the AR VR section, there is a story from Tom’s Guide where the author used her Ray Ban Meta glasses to translate the Super Bowl halftime video in real time.  This feels like the precursor to the next logical step, a dynamic version of the Amazon X-Ray feature where further context can be personalized and served up to the user if they wish. After touching on the assembly of Game Poems and the art of roads in games, the team sprints to the end of the episode with Nike’s Project Amplify, which is an ankle exoskeleton to augment humans running abilities. Looping back to the start of the episode, Andy highlights a BBC show featuring Chris McCausland. What’s been your experience with AI productivity?  What are you experimenting with? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @[email protected] (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 AI "For instance, #engineers, in turn, spent more time reviewing, correcting, and guiding #AI-generated or AI-assisted work produced by colleagues. These demands extended beyond formal #code review. Engineers increasingly found themselves coaching colleagues who were 'vibe-coding' and finishing partially complete pull requests." https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies-it — Alan Pringle (@[email protected]) 2026-02-10T13:47:23.853Z Harvard Business Review article: AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It caimito.net post: Why We’ve Tried to Replace Developers Every Decade Since 1969 Wikipedia article: VisualAge Wikipedia article: Fourth-generation programming language Wikipedia article: Computer-aided Software Engineering shumer.dev blog post: Something Big Is Happening metr.org  theshamblog.com blog post: An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me https://rentahuman.ai taskrabbit AR & VR Tom’s Guide post: I wore Ray-Ban Meta Display smart glasses to watch the Super Bowl halftime show — and understood Bad Bunny in real time Amazon X-Ray The Verge article: YouTube is coming to the Apple Vision Pro Game ON! gamepoems.com  sandboxspirit.com blog post: Art of Roads in Games Art in Rhodes Augmenting Humans NPR article: ‘E-bike for your feet’: How bionic sneakers could change human mobility Nike Newsroom post: Nike Unveils Project Amplify, the World’s First Powered Footwear System for Running and Walking Games at Work e471: Ghost Jobs and AI (for exoskeleton stories) BBC Chris McCausland: Seeing into the Future BBC iPlayer: Chris McCausland: Seeing into the Future Bonus links LEGO Reddit post: I made a working Lego Toaster hackster.io article: The Windows 98 Toaster is Here hackster.io article: This Tiny LEGO Fender Guitar Amp Conversion Really Works Retrododo article: Modder Creates LEGO Game Boy Advance SP & Gets DOOM Playing Even more! Board Game Geek article: I made a touchscreen electronic board game table for computer and tablet board games The Verge article: Toyota made a game engine Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Mihai 👑 on Unsplash Published 9 February 2026 e542 with Michael, Andy and Michael – Stories and discussion on programming language localization, Virtual Boy hardware & emulation, LEGO terrestrial & orbital dwellings and a whole lot more. Michael, Andy and Michael get things rolling with an article on programming language localization, specifically using the Welsh language as syntax.  Next, the co hosts consider Matt Ballentine’s thoughtful post about the the speed of technological change, and the recommendations to capitalize on the innovation that is happening. Then, the team takes a look at the Virtual Boy hardware, newly made available by Nintendo for the Switch and Switch 2.  This reminds Michael R of the View-Master and a Vision Pro emulator for the Virtual Boy.  Next up is a story about a Quest 3 virtual keyboard.  The experience Michael R had back in 2017 with a laser keyboard was a good reference, as is his more recent VR experience in using a hardware keyboard with his Vision Pro. Rounding out this episode are a pair of LEGO stories – the first, a replica of a 1799 house and a of the Project Hail Mary spacecraft.  Check out the links below for the awesomeness. How are you and your team taking the greatest advantage of the speed of change in 2026?  Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @[email protected] (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 AI Hackaday article: YSGRIFENNU CÔD YN GYMRAEG (WRITING CODE IN WELSH) Raku Sacha Chua blog post: Sketchnote: Fun With Dead Languages: Damian Conway Matt Ballentine blog post: Is it really happening that quickly? 2025 edition Wikipedia article: Connections Game & VR Technology The Verge article: Nintendo’s new Virtual Boy is more fun to look at than to play Virtual Boy for Nintendo Switch Wikipedia article: View-Master 9 to 5 Mac article: This Vision Pro emulator brings Nintendo’s Virtual Boy back to life TechCrunch article: Roblox’s 4D creation feature is now available in open beta Gizmodo article: Meta’s Quest 3 Has the First VR Keyboard That Doesn’t Totally Suck Karrello Laser Keyboard Games at Work e164: Addictive AR LEGO Reddit r/lego post: My brother and I collaborated on a 17,000-piece model of a family home Slashfilm article: New Project Hail Mary LEGO Set Gives Ryan Gosling A Close Encounter In Space Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

edited picture from Lars H Knudsen: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-close-up-shot-of-a-llama-7845603/ Published 2 February 2026 e541 with Michael and Michael – Stories and discussion on AI with local Claude (and Clawdbot, Moltbot & openclaw), collaborative agents, 25 cent physical microtransactions ( quarters ), invisibility cloaks, LEGO SmartPlay and a whole lot more. Michael and Michael get things rolling with a series of intriguing innovations in local AI.  First up is a local instantiation of Claude via Ollama – see notes below for the installation instructions if you care to give this a shot.  Then, the team checks out Trae for it’s orchestration capabilities. Michael M makes the mistake of trying out one of these innovations while recording the show and nearly crashes his machine.  Then a discussion on the startup Humans& and how this company is planning for how human + digital combinations will power the future.  The post from Thomas Ricouard illustrates how agents are collaborating with one another.  Michael and Michael stay at the surface level on the whole clawdbot —> moltbot —> openclaw story which has been rapidly evolving this past week while still marveling at the speed of movement. Switching then to the makers making things, there is a fantastic example of how to enable the original microtransaction for current software.  How?  Implementing the hardware mechanism for accepting a quarter to allow the game player to continue.  Next, from MIT, a significant improvement on the umbrella by using a quadcopter and computer vision tracker to create a flying mobile shelter that protects the user from the elements.  And then, a story about an invisibility cloak from Duke in the news this week, which harkens back years – check the show notes below for prior discussions on this capability. LEGO has announced a new innovation – the SMART Play system, replete with SMART Bricks, SMART Tags and SMART Minifigures.  It will be so intriguing to see how this fits in with the LEGO robotics, FIRST LEGO League and more.  The longer arc going back to LEGO Serious Play may provide some hints. Michael and Michael wrap things up with another long arc from the show – Doom running on a plethora of devices and screens.  This time?  Doom on earbuds.  Check out the links and discussion for more. Are you considering trying out openclaw.ai ?  Why or why not?  Have your openclaw (or other) bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @[email protected] (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 AI Tessl blog: Ollama helps Claude Code run locally on open-weight models trae.ai  ollama.com  “ollama run slekrem/gpt-oss-claude-code-32k:latest” TechCrunch article: Humans& thinks coordination is the next frontier for AI, and they’re building a model to prove it Agents are now brainstorming on how to be proactive instead of passive https://www.moltbook.com/post/562faad7-f9cc-49a3-8520-2bdf362606bb — Thomas Ricouard (@[email protected]) 2026-01-30T14:23:57.561Z Scientific American article: Moltbot—what happens when AI stops chatting and starts doing openclaw.ai  More Makers Making Tom’s Hardware article: Gaming PC charges you quarters every time you want to power it on, restoring oldest form of microtransactions — $135 in tools and supplies, plus a lifetime supply of quarters to kick it old school photo by Michael Martine, Jan 2026 Popular Science article: We may not have flying cars, but we have flying umbrellas Games discovered on the Hacker News Show HN: HN arcade National Geographic article: How scientists are making the power of invisibility a reality Games at Work e396: GAN vs GAN (for references to earlier discussion on invisibility cloaks) Forbes article: Duke Researchers Perfect The Original Invisibility Cloak Duke Stories: Beyond Materials: From Invisibility Cloaks to Satellite Communications LEGO hackster.io article: This Switch Controller Is Made of LEGOs LEGO Smart Play sets LEGO Smart Play system Games at Work e130: The Final Countdown (for LEGO Serious Play) Doom hackster.io article: This Whole Doom Thing Has Gotten Out of Hand doombuds.com  Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Aneta Pawlik on Unsplash Published 26 January 2026 e540 with Michael, Andy and Michael – Stories and discussion on mobile controllers, AI playing Anchorhead, Zork & Roller Coaster Tycoon, an isometric NYC, human artistic creativity and a whole lot more. Michael, Andy and Michael get things clicking with some mobile controllers.  Starting with one of Andy’s latest technology acquisitions, the team enjoys hearing about Andy’s experience with the MCON.  And they especially like the “saucer separation” functionality.  The featured image from Unsplash was selected because there were very few TNG images – if you want to see the saucer separation that inspired this week’s show title, have a look at the YouTube video below.  After discussing the Anbernic controller, which has some interesting features like a screen and heart rate monitoring, the team moves forward with AI. Claude features in a couple of the stories – first with an article from Fernando Borretti who details how he hooked Claude into the text based adventure Anchorhead.  The co-hosts have been intrigued by this kind of thing for years, and were reminded of the recent open sourcing of Zork.  Ramp Labs also used Claude with Roller Coaster Tycoon, which struck the team as a great way to run optimization routines across a multitude of data points that make us the game.  Next up was a story about using AI to create a SimCity-style rendition of New York City (New York City!) with astounding detail.  There were a couple of jumping off points of note from this story – Nvidia’s Omniverse digital twin, traffic optimization routines and another being the language in SimCity called Simlish – and a translator is included below for the listeners to enjoy. After all the news on AI – it is refreshing though unsurprising that Hermès selected human creativity, complete with the imperfections that make the artwork more real.  Wrapping up the episode, the team closes with Netflix’s foray into social engagement. What game would you like to have AI set up to play?  Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @[email protected] (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: Mobile Controllers Kickstarter: MCON: The Switchblade of Mobile Controllers by Ohsnap The Verge article: Anbernic’s next wireless controller adds a screen and heart rate monitoring AI boretti.me blog post: Letting Claude Play Text Adventures Wikipedia article: Anchorhead Games at Work e534: Hiding in Plain Sight (for Microsoft’s open sourcing of Zork) Ramp Labs blog post: We Put Claude Code in Rollercoaster Tycoon atari.com Roller Coaster Tycoon cannoneyed.com Isometric NYC (click the ℹ️ in the upper right for description) PC Gamer article: Software engineer creates classic SimCity-style map of NYC—and argues that AI will be good for creatives, actually Nvidia’s Omniverse Games at Work e316: Omni Metaverse (for Nvidia’s Omniverse) The Sims Wiki: Simlish lingojam.com English to Simlish translator Inc article: Hermès Just Made a Bold Statement in the Age of AI acquired.fm Season 12, Episode 2: LVMH Art This is Colossal post: Pam Connolly Weaves Family Snapshots on Vintage Potholder Looms Everything is Social TechCrunch article: Netflix to redesign its app as it competes with social platforms for daily engagement Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Michael R brings back Ian Hughes to discuss the recent changes with Meta’s VR investments, cool content on Apple’s Vision Pro, the new Creator Studio bundle, and 25 years of Wikipedia. While Andy and Michael M are not available we look at how large companies cutting back on innovation can allow new startups and companies to flourish. With Meta refocusing more on wearables, perhaps we will see an uptick in innovative uses for VR. Which is a perfect sequel way for Michael to given his review of the NBA’s recent basketball game on the Vision Pro. The experience seemed to him to be the perfect onramp for Michael M, if it were college basketball. We then review a few older games (Civilization VII and RetroCade), coming to Apple Arcade, before looking at the Board Tabletop Gaming Console. With all this cool tech, Michael introduces Ian to the Apple Creator Studio. Is it worth it? Ian, having recently built an AI server at home via ComfyUI, thinks it may be cheap enough for his pocketbook. Finally we get to Wikipedia’s 25th anniversary, and what Ian did on the Cool Stuff Collective for Wikipedia’s 15th Anniversary. Showlinks: Meta: Shutting studios – https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/01/14/meta-three-vr-studios Shifting to Wearables – https://www.theverge.com/news/861295/meta-reality-labs-layoffs-shift-to-wearables Discontinuing Metaverse for work – https://www.theverge.com/tech/863209/meta-has-discontinued-its-metaverse-for-work-too Vision Pro: NBA on the Vision Pro – https://www.macstories.net/news/immersive-lakers-game-now-widely-available-on-apple-vision-pro/ RetroCade – https://techhub.social/@ellenich/115894673956399018 Games: Board Table Top – https://www.wired.com/review/board-tabletop-game-console Civ VII – https://www.theverge.com/news/861816/civilization-vii-apple-arcade-launch Creators: Creator Studio – https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/01/introducing-apple-creator-studio-an-inspiring-collection-of-creative-apps/ Wikipedia: 25th Anniversary – https://www.theverge.com/news/861935/wikipedia-25th-anniversary-2026 Wikipedia 25th site – https://wikipedia25.org Cool stuff collective – https://citv.fandom.com/wiki/Cool_Stuff_Collective  Comfy UI – https://comfyui.org/en/what-is-comfyui  These show notes were lovingly crafted by a human.

Photo by Michael Martine, Blowing Rock, NC 2022 Published 12 January 2026 e538 with Michael, Michael and Andy – Stories and discussion on CES2026, EuroTech, PhoneTech, AI playing your games for you so you can watch and a whole lot more. Andy, Michael and Michael take a look at many of the announcements from CES, and share a few of their favorites.  CES is the annual Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas, Nevada.  In the phone technology arena, there are several MagSafe examples that magnetically snap onto an iPhone, such as charger that looks kind of like a floppy disk.  Another example is a keyboard, with tactile buttons you can type with in portrait or landscape mode.  The keyboard creates a form factor that is reminiscent of the Danger Hiptop / Sidekick.  Between these examples and others (like a second screen e-reader that snaps to the back of a phone), the cohosts mull what it would be like to stack several of them in sequence. After discussing the Punkt phone, and the Proton suite enabled by the AphyOS, the team turns their attention to several other innovations shared at CES.  Lollypops that play music, a vibrating chef’s knife, and the Lepro AMI AI companion all caught their eye.  The Lepro AMI seems similar, at least in the form factor, to the Gatebox, which was first discussed on Games at Work back in 2017. Next, the team takes a look at a fork of a decompilation of SuperMario 64, where the developer added a physical coin slot and updated the code to allow for micro transactions with physical money.  Then, following on a post from Mike Elgan, the co-hosts consider an article about Sony’s patent to take over a player’s avatar in case they get stuck and want help to continue their game.  It’s kind of like your own personal AI Twitch channel.  The Games at Work team considered a similar story about Microsoft’s gaming Copilot in 2025. Speaking of Microsoft, Michael M got excited about the potential triumphant return of Clippy, only to realize that it was clickbait.   Would you like to have an AI show you how to get past a tricky game boss, or play through it for you?  Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @[email protected] (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 CES2026 www.ces.tech The Consumer Electronics Show Retrododo article: This Adorable Floppy Disk MagSafe Battery Pack Is My New EDC Fave KBDcraft.store Kit Shamshel Mouse Liliputing article: Clicks Power Keyboard is a magnetic thumb keyboard & wireless power bank for your phone ohsnap.com: MCON, the magnetic transforming gaming controller Vice article: The Sidekick Was Pop Culture’s Most Stylish and Innovative Cellphone Belkin iPhone Mount with MagSafe for Mac Notebooks punkt.ch blog post: Punkt. unveils MC03, latest version of its unique smartphone offering giving users full control over personal data and usage. AphyOS Mashable article: The weirdest tech of CES: It gets very weird, very fast Games at Work e520: Cold Fusion Gaming (for the Gatebox virtual companion) tech.eu article: CES 2026 showcases Europe’s hardware renaissance Reverse Engineering Microtransactions into Retro Games Hackaday article: Super Mario 64, Now With Microtransactions AI Sony AI plays video games, so you don't have to! https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/sony-patents-ai-plays-video-games — Mike Elgan (@[email protected]) 2026-01-09T01:30:33.730Z WIPO Patentscope : WO2025080356 – AI GENERATED GHOST PLAYER Games at Work e530: Vibe It!  Ready Player Chum (for Microsoft’s Gaming Copilot) PCWorld article: Microsoft pushes huge Copilot update with features like Clippy 2.0 Microsoft blog: Meet Copilot Mode in Edge: Your AI browser Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Scott Gruber on Unsplash Published 4 January 2026 e537 with Michael M and Andy – ringing in the new year with the amazing power of music to move and heal, LEGO and retro builds and a whole lot more. Andy, Michael and Michael would like to wish all of our listeners a very happy 2026! Michael M and Andy start off 2026 on a good note – or perhaps better said – a series of good notes.  Michael shares some of his vacation reading, beginning with the book, I Heard There Was a Secret Chord by Daniel Levitin.  In this book, Levitin highlights the power of music to move and heal, and provides a Linktree to listen to the songs featured in the book, which is included in the show notes below.  One particular example from the book was the Ella Fitzgerald recording of Mack the Knife in Berlin, and the magic she created in the moment when she forgot the lyrics. Andy highlights an amazing musical creation moment with Jacob Collier’s improvisation with the National Symphony Orchestra.  This reminded Michael of Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander’s book, Art of Possibility, and maestro Zander’s TED talk on the power of classical music.  Michael also brought up David Byrne’s book, How Music Works, and his learning in Puerto Rico on how dancers conduct the musicians as they perform together. Byrne discussed mixtapes in his book, and the modern equivalent of them are the playlist, which is exactly what Levitin’s Linktree leads to. Michael created a mixtape to express musically what he was trying to say in words for his NCSSM convocation speech at the start of the 2025-26 school year. Andy shares a couple of intriguing ways to create music through retro devices and common household products – all of these are in the links below. Moving to the building part of the episode, Andy and Michael start off with LEGO, and this is about to be a banner year for the company with so many new sets coming on the market.  There’s a new LEGO Icons building, which has in it a music store and includes a sousaphone player minifig.  The cohosts touch on the Star Trek Enterprise set which was also just launched, which includes a minifig of Commander Riker with his trombone.  Andy describes the awesomeness that is the LEGO GameBoy with the inventive buttons on the device, and the team then touch on a couple of retro consoles such as the Commodore 64 reboot. The team wraps up this episode with a mention of Andy’s grumpiness on the year end Tech Grumps podcast. What music has inspired you in 2025?  What builds (LEGO, retro or otherwise) are you planning for 2026?   Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @[email protected] (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 Reading I Heard There Was a Secret Chord by Daniel J Levitin Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Die Driegroschenoper – listen to the “Moritat von Mackie Messer” excerpt sung by Bertholt Brecht in the Featured Audio & Video section Games at Work e485: Barbarians at the Rhubarb Bar (for flow, and of course Barbara’s Rhabarberbar) Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander Benjamin Zander’s TED talk: The transformative power of classical music Games at Work e9: Reality is Broken (for Jane McGongial’s book, and Benjamin Zander’s Ode to Joy) How Music Works by David Byrne Listening Wikipedia article: Mixtape Listen to the songs featured in A Secret Chord – https://linktr.ee/secretchord Michael M’s Apple Music Mixtape for NCSSM’s convocation Michael M’s Spotify Mixtape for NCSSM’s convocation Making of Boléro by Linus A Kesson Building LEGO and more LEGO Icons Shopping Street #11371, with sousaphone musician (see picture 13 in photo gallery) LEGO Icons Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D™ #10356 with trombone player Commander Riker minifigs.me  LEGO Gameboy #70246 build and additional new Retro Console #31380 Wired article: Review: Commodore 64 Ultimate The Lost Outpost blog post: Retro-tastic! Other Stranger Things Woe Industries game  TechGrumps 3.3.5: – Bless The TechGrumps (Special holiday special)  Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Alexander Grigoryev on Unsplash Published 22 December 2025 e536 with Andy, Michael R, and guest host newly-retired Ian “Epredator” Hughes – a dive into gaming in 2025, retro computing and games, how to fix old paintings, and what’s coming to the public domain on January 1st. The show kicks off with a number of gaming topics, discussing what the hosts have been playing lately, including the results of the Steam Replay for 2025. There’s also a chat about Commodore (joysticks, and the new Commodore 64 Ultimate), ZX Spectrum, and other retro machines. Netflix has been making acquisitions in the gaming space, where will they lead? Michael is fascinated by the process of restoring old paintings; Andy and Ian have seen a lot more of this on TV in the UK! In the wrap, the hosts cover an incident of apparent smart glasses-induced rage on the subway; and briefly talk about what’s coming into the Public Domain on January 1st 2026. Wishing all our listeners a happy and peaceful break to close out 2025, and we’ll be back with new episodes in 2026. Selected Links Gaming Open Source Cannon Fodder Engine Steam Replay shows high interest in older games Andy’s Steam year in review Michael’s Year in review Uber Eats spoofed by SNL Old new Commodore 64 Joystick Hackster review of Commodore 64 Ultimate ESP32 Rainbow (ZX Spectrum Re-created) Picocomputer 6502 board Netflix buys Ready Player Me Makers A satisfying painting restoration on YouTube UK alternatives: Hidden Treasures of the National Trust The Repair Shop Media Smashed smart glasses Public Domain Day 2026

Photo by David Klein on Unsplash Published 15 December 2025 e535 with Michael M and Andy – adversarial poetry to jailbreak LLMs, iFixit’s FixBot, power of digital twins, putting the breaks on Rewind, Nintendo Virtual Boy and a whole lot more. Michael M and Andy start things off with a most intriguing concept – adversarial poetry. By using ‘memetic language’, researchers formulated prompts with imagery and metaphor instead of direct operational phrasing to trick LLMs into providing unsafe responses. Michael makes the point that AI prompts are becoming more and more like spells or incantations. See the show notes below for a link to the paper for any budding AI poet laureate wannabes. Perhaps Jabberwocky can be used in a snicker snack way. Switching to another AI use case, Andy and Michael discuss the iFixit FixBot.  The FixBot provides expert advice and guidance for repairs, by talking to the human who likely needs both hands to effect the repair.  Next up are a couple of stories on digital twins, and how they leverage game technology.  By taking sufficient data points to create a digital twin, multiple attempts can be made virtually to see the improvement before applying the capability to the non-digital twin.  Andy is reminded of an article that outlines the affinity between the metaverse and digital twin concepts.  Nvidia has a concept of this in their Omniverse capability.  Another example of a digital twin with a game overlay is the Job Simulator Game.  This game is written as a 2050 historical virtual reality environment allowing the player to experience what it was like to have a job in 2020.  This fun VR historical reenactment experience is one of the stories that Tobi Lütke discussed in his recent interview with the Acquired team. Staying on the VR simulation theme, Andy and Michael take a look at the Rats Play Doom game which trains rats in an immersive way to play Doom.   In the last section of the episode, the team takes a look at some metaverse news.  Meta has acquired limitless.ai and is shutting down Rewind on the Mac, and is also shifting more investment from the metaverse to AI.  Wrapping up the episode, Michael and Andy look at the Nintendo Virtual Boy and Xteink 4. What poetry would you write to prompt an LLM? Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @[email protected] (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 AI PC Gamer article: Poets are now cybersecurity threats: Researchers used ‘adversarial poetry’ to trick AI into ignoring its safety guard rails and it worked 62% of the time arXiv paper: Adversarial Poetry as a Universal Single-Turn Jailbreak Mechanism in Large Language Models Gilbert & Sullivan: Hail Poetry The Verge article: iFixit’s FixBot helps with repairs ‘the way a master technician would’ iFixit: Introducing FixBot: We Built an AI That Actually Knows How to Fix Things Digital Twins ComputerWorld article: Digital twin tech is a double-edged sword ComputerWorld article: ‘Digital twin’ tech is twice as great as the metaverse Nvidia Omniverse Job Simulator Game acquired.fm AC2 interview: How to Live in Everyone Else’s Future (with Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke) Games at Work e490: Codename – “Amelia” (for digital twins) Doom Reddit post: Open-source VR framework for training rats to play DOOM Rats Play Doom Metaverse 9 to 5 Mac article: Rewind Mac app shutting down following Meta’s acquisition of Limitless limitless.ai  WSJ article: Meta Plans to Shift Spending Away From the Metaverse Retrododo article: Virtual Boy Accessory For Nintendo Switch/Switch 2 Is Available For Pre-Order My Nintendo Store: Virtual Boy for Nintendo Switch 2/Nintendo Switch Tech The Verge article: This tiny magnetic e-reader sticks to the back of your iPhone Xteink x4 Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Tim Wildsmith on Unsplash Published 24 November 2025 e534 with Michael, Andy and Michael – AI and ML training data, camouflage, ppen source Zork, Deadpool VR, NPH movies and a whole lot more. Michael, Andy and Michael start things off with with an intriguing AI analysis of the heist from the Louvre.  The Ars Technica article takes the examples of mathematical machine learning and human psychology to show how both were defeated what was considered to be ordinary versus suspicious.  This is a terrific reminder on the importance of the training data sets used for AI models and how the “performance of normality became the perfect camouflage”.  Michael R highlights the On Intelligence book, and Michael M brings up visual pattern recognition of the human form which ghillie suits help disguise. Switching to a hackster.io article, the die is cast – or rather the die is 3d printed.  Andy shares his thoughts on this bluetooth enabled die, and mentions how dice have featured prominently in the the podcast over the years.  E132 from 2016 appears to be the earliest reference to dice in the show notes. Next up is Microsoft’s announcement to open source the Zork family of text based adventure games from Infocom.  Zork is another favorite of the podcast, and e78 from 2014 is the earliest reference!  Then the team discusses the Deadpool VR game.  The Kotaku article mentions that  Neil Patrick Harris does the Deadpool voice acting in the game.  This leads the cohosts down the rabbit hole of NPH acting with a number of movies and TV shows. Oh, and the reason for the “I don’t want a McRib” part of the show title was because the Kotaku article kept serving up McDonalds McRib ads to Michael M, while Michael R with his PiHole does not get such ads. What is your favorite NPH movie or tv show?  Have your bots 🤖 drop our bots 🤖 a line at @[email protected] (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 AI Ars Technica article: How Louvre thieves exploited human psychology to avoid suspicion—and what it reveals about AI Wikipedia article: On Intelligence: How a New Understanding of the Brain will Lead to the Creation of Truly Intelligent Machines by Jeff Hawkins IMDb: Now You See Me: Now You Don’t 2025 movie Wikipedia article: Ghillie Suit Bluetooth Dice hackter.io article: Travis Bumgarner’s Dice of Sending Are Bluetooth-Connected Dice for Fairer Digital Roleplays Games at Work e132: Wake Up! (For earliest description of dice) Games and NPH The Verge article: Microsoft makes Zork open-source Games at Work e78: The Show is Already in Progress (for earliest reference to Zork) Kotaku article: Deadpool VR Is A Game For Deadpool Fans And Nobody Else marvel.Fandom.com : Wade Wilson (Earth-616) IMDb: A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas IMDb: Starship Troopers IMDb: Doogie Howser, M.D. IMDb: Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine