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

Photo by Fallon Michael on Unsplash Published 17 November 2025 e533 with Andy, Michael and Michael – rings to chart the heavens and control your home, repurposing smart TVs, retro La Machine and Vectrex hardware made newly available, new Valve Steam hardware and a whole lot more. Andy, Michael and Michael start things off with a 400 year old ring that unfolds into an astronomy tool.  Check out this amazing technology in the show notes below.  If you want to have such a ring of your own, the design team from Black Adept have them available for sale!  Sticking with the theme, the next powerful ring follows the Tron Master Control Disk concept.  This interesting design expression reminded Michael M of the Mini circular dashboard display. Next up is a great way to repurpose an old TV.  The team explores an article with instructions for making a smart mirror using two way glass and a Raspberry Pi.  You may want to ensure that the TV has the automatic content recognition features turned off.  Andy remarks on the continuing evolution over the years of the Magic Mirror software that enables this to work.  After talking about the bright idea of using the circuity of a smart lightbulb to serve as a Minecraft server, the cohosts look La Machine. Then the team takes a look at the recent announcements from Valve.  New Steam hardware has captured their imagination.  The Steam Machine, Steam Frame and a new Steam controller provides great excitement for the platform.  Wrapping up the episode, Michael R takes a look at the World of Warcraft new in game currency used for building houses.  The blog post announcing this from Blizzard has 2,817 replies when these show notes were written!   What legacy hardware would you most like to have again?  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 Maker A 400-Year-Old Ring that Unfolds to Track the Movements of the Heavenshttps://www.openculture.com/2025/11/a-400-year-old-ring-that-unfolds-to-track-movements-of-the-heavens.html — Ronan (@[email protected]) 2025-11-06T12:16:00.036Z Open Culture article: A 400-Year-Old Ring that Unfolds to Track the Movements of the Heavens hackster.io article: Welcome to the Grid IMDb post: Tron movies and tv shows Photo by Nicole Logan on Unsplash Boy Genius Report article: You Can Use Your Old TV As A Smart Mirror – Here’s How Raspberry Pi Magic Mirror^2 documentation Games at Work e479: Listen Up Outlaws! for smart tv automatic content recognition Tom’s Hardware article: Hardware hacker installs Minecraft server on a cheap smart lightbulb — single 192 MHz RISC-V core with 276KB of RAM, enough to run tiny 90K byte world La Machine Gaming Hardware (and Software) Games Industry article: Valve announces 3 new Steam hardware devices: Steam Machine, VR headset Steam Frame, and a new Steam controller PC Gamer article: Valve announces the Steam Frame: ‘a new way to play your entire Steam library’ Eurogamer article: How did Valve design its new Steam Machine? It started with the fan, of course Kickstarter: Vectrex Mini The Verge article: World of Warcraft is getting a new kind of fake money Blizzard blog post: Developer Insight: Hearthsteel Virtual Currency and Housing in Midnight Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Chris Charles on Unsplash Published 3 November 2025 e532 with Michael and Michael – Halloween Spooktacular edition with AI whale communications & implications, robotic vacuums that phone home, ad supported TVs and a whole lot more. For the Halloween spooktacular edition of Games at Work, Michael and Michael start things off with an article about AI decoding whale’s communications, and the potential for the recognition of whales’ rights.  There have been multiple discussions about the promise of understanding non-human communications over the years on Games at Work, and a couple of these are included in the show notes links below. Next up is a series of articles the benefits and challenges of internet of things powered hardware, and the challenges they present.  First, a discussion on the remote software feature removal, in the case of the Futurism article, when the owner blocked the transmissions from his IoT vacuum, that the software running the bot was changed to make it stop working.  Then, there is a story about free TV hardware that requires an ELUA to run a second screen of advertising.  After considering this free, ad supported TV, the co-hosts muse what other hardware might be made available at no cost, and with an advertising stream.  Changes to streaming television to insert more advertising has become more common.  Michael and Michael explore the idea of an IoT refrigerator with a screen might become an ad supported platform, and that to access certain functionality, the screen may require the user to watch an advertising video.  After the cloud outage from last week, there have been articles that discuss how the hardware behaves without the constant internet connection.  An example of this is the malfunctions from an internet connected bed. Sticking with the robot and advertising theme, Michael R highlights Sandwich’s immersive commercial making use of the new Blackmagic camera to capture an immersive video for Robot.com.  After touching on Apple’s Family Sharing and CarPlay capabilities and Windows 11 immersive ultra wide mode, Michael M wraps up the show with a quick point on The Simulation Hypothesis book and the LEGO Arcade Machine that opens up to have a minifig’s gamer room inside the cabinet. What ad supported free hardware would you accept? What data streams would you not allow your IoT devices to hear / see / say? 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 Inside Climate News article: AI Is Decoding Whales’ Communications. Could That Be a Turning Point in the Push for Their Rights? Games at Work e466: AI’s Perfect Vacation from May 2024 for machine learning decoding the sperm whale alphabet Games at Work e495: Personal Planetarium from December 2024 for talking with animals via AI, Sandwich Vision Technology Futurism article: Man Alarmed to Discover His Smart Vacuum Was Broadcasting a Secret Map of His House Games at Work e235: Bots on Batuu from June 2019 for discussion on vacuum bots Games at Work e260: 1984 Tesla for Sale from February 2020 for discussion on remote software feature removal Creative Bloq article: You can now get a TV for free… and I’m worried this is the future of tech Ars Technica article: Samsung makes ads on $3,499 smart fridges official with upcoming software update Ars Technica article: AWS outage reminds us why $2,449 Internet-dependent beds are a bad idea More Technology Six Colors article: Hello, Robot: Sandwich launches “immersive commercial” 9 to 5 Mac article: Mother describes the dark side of Apple’s Family Sharing when a relationship ends Daring Fireball article:  CarPlay Seems Essential for Rental Fleets The Verge article: Windows 11’s Vision Pro-like remote desktop is now widely available on Quest 3 Two More Things The Simulation Hypothesis 2nd Edition by Rizwan Virk LEGO Arcade Machine 40805 Two Bonus Game Things The Register article: This is Doom, running headless, on Ubuntu Arm… on a satellite Engadget article: Board is a $500 board game console with 12 original titles Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Epredator created AI Generated image Michael R and Ian “Epredator” Hughes get together for a chat about #gaming, #VR, and #technology. We talk about some of our favorite comfort games, how they are procedurally generated, and how the gaming business model has bifurcated between ongoing money grabs and lovingly created indie games. Show Links Games: Battlemarked https://battlemarked.com On Steam – https://store.steampowered.com/app/3124340/Demeo_x_Dungeons__Dragons_Battlemarked No Man’s Sky https://www.nomanssky.com Where to buy – https://www.nomanssky.com/buy-now/ Return to the Mines of Moria https://www.returntomoria.com Where to buy – https://www.returntomoria.com/buynow AI: AI in Gaming: How Artificial Intelligence is Powering Game Production and Player Experience The AI-Powered shift to “living games” AI, Simulation, and The Generative Adversarial Network

Photo by Kindel Media from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-robot-toy-on-gray-concrete-floor-9026299/ Published 29 September 2025 e530 with Michael and Michael – an AI extravaganza with vibe coding, AI gaming chums, rating LLMs via Infocom games, robots for construction, self assembling space habitats and a whole lot more. Michael and Michael get things moving this episode with an AI extravaganza while Andy is away.  The co hosts start things off with a vibe coding assistant to help you with your QBasic programming needs.  Next up, the pair consider a couple of stories dealing with assistants who can help users be more effective in playing games.  There is a real Goldilocks zone for the assistant to help the player remain in a state of flow, where the game is neither too easy due to the assistant’s help, nor too frustrating to play.  Michael R gives an example of his trying to get to Orc Town to progress in Mines of Moria.  Continuing on the theme of AIs playing games, Michael and Michael take a look at TextQuests, where a variety of LLMs take up the challenge of playing Infocom text based games.  With all the discussion on AI slop in the news, the article from Computerworld about the mathematical inevitability of hallucinations is particularly timely. Michael and Michael move from AI to robotics and take a look at the construction bot from Dusty Robotics, which prints out a life size blueprint directly on the floor.  Michael M shares a space habitat construction solution from Aurelia that uses magnets to self assemble in orbit.  Michael R shares a story about the engineering feat of moving a viking ship without damaging it, which reminded Michael M of the challenge of moving the Cape Hatteras lighthouse.  Check out the links below for all the details. What would your ideal game chum be like?  What do you think about the current state of AI chum?  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.io AI Coding Assistant for Microsoft QBasic Engadget article: Google is turning Gemini into a gaming sidekick with a new Android overlay PC Gamer article: Microsoft’s new Gaming Copilot AI tool promises to be ‘your personal gaming sidekick’ but it mostly seems to do the work of a Google search, with the potential for ‘hallucinations’ Games at Work e488: Fight. For Your Right. To Pla-aaay! for Jane McGonigal and flow  The Gamer article: How To Find Orc Town In The Lord Of The Rings: Return To Moria 404 Media article: AI-Powered Animal Crossing Villagers Begin Organizing Against Tom Nook TextQuests.ai  Wikipedia article: Infocom OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flawshttps://www.computerworld.com/article/4059383/openai-admits-ai-hallucinations-are-mathematically-inevitable-not-just-engineering-flaws.html — Charlie Stross (@[email protected]) 2025-09-21T17:14:32.576Z Computerworld article: OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws Rule 34 by Charles Stross Accelerando by Charles Stross Games at Work e306: Weak Ties for Accelerando  hitchhikers.fandom.com: Infinite Improbability Drive Washington Post article: AI firm Deepseek writes less secure code for groups China disfavors Robots Dusty Robotics Aurelia: Tesserae: Self-Assembling Prototypes Magnatiles This is Colossal article: A Feat of Engineering Transports the World’s Best-Preserved Viking Ship to Its New Home National Park Service article: Moving the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Two More Things Six Colors article: Apple Announces a New Set of Immersive Film Releases Random Thoughts post: My AirPods Review Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Ravi Sharma on Unsplash Published 15 September 2025 e529 with Michael, Andy and Michael – stories about AR glasses & snarky AI wearables, Carrot Weather, Rabbit OS2, shaking to summarize, Doomscrolling and a whole lot more. Michael, Andy and Michael get things moving this episode with all things AI.  After starting with a parody about camera less phones which generate pictures, the team moves to an article about Amazon’s project Jayhawk AR glasses for their drivers.  Next up is a new gesture for Firefox users on iOS – the ability to shake to summarize.  After an article on AI audio manipulation, Andy and Michael M are reminded of how Denmark is providing a defense against deepfakes by updating copyrights to provide individuals the right to their own appearance and voice. Following up on a plethora of stories in recent episodes on AI powered wearables, this episode takes on the Futurism article about the Friend pendant.  Apparently, this companion has a bit of a snarky personality by design, and that got the co hosts talking about Carrot’s weather application.  After mentioning that the Rabbit portable AI device gains a new OS upgrade, the team takes on a couple of game topics, including iPod click wheel game preservation and a Doomscroll game to try. Would you rather play Doomscroll or just doomscroll manually?  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 These iPhone features are getting ridiculous! (By Simon Meyer on IG (simonmeyer_director) — John – 🎞️ Film Nerd 🎞️ (@[email protected]) 2025-09-09T19:45:34.929Z The Verge article: Amazon drivers could be wearing AR glasses with a built-in display next year Amazon Accelerate Sept 16-18, 2025 Meta Connect Sept 17 – 18, 2025 The Verge article: Firefox launches ‘shake to summarize’ on iPhones AskVG post: How to Disable and Remove All AI Features in Mozilla Firefox Firefox article: Ready to shake things up? News & Observer article: An NC senator’s words were manipulated by AI in an ad. Now she’s suing The Guardian article: Denmark to tackle deepfakes by giving people copyright to their own features Futurism article: New AI Necklace Listens Constantly and Uses All That Data to Complain About You Friend Carrot Weather rabbit post: rabbit overhauls r1 experience with rabbitOS 2 Games at Work e502: Humane Rabbits Games Retrododo article: The Complete Range Of iPod Clickwheel Games Has Finally Been Preserved Ironic Sans post: Doomscrolling: The Game Doomscroll

ChatGPT 5 generated image of a banana in the midst of an atom cloudgenerated 31 August 2025 Published 8 September 2025 e528 with Michael, Andy and Michael – stories about AI image editing with Nano Banana, GAN enabled LLM evolution with R-Zero, MentraOS open source smart glasses, automotive software, Making Monsters, Kazeta and a whole lot more. Michael, Andy and Michael get things rolling with the Nano Banana image editing software from Google.  While the generated and altered images are very sophisticated, there are still a few tells that the photos came from AI.  An example from the Washington Post article calls out the “AI gibberish” replacement of numbers on the phone keypad – while the replacement of the human in the phone booth with a water buffalo replete with smart ring is ultra realistic.  Andy’s ChatGPT generated nano banana is a fun visualization for an atom-sized banana, even though he was “AI-splained” by the chatbot that “a banana at that scale couldn’t exist in any realistic way.” Ha!   The team touches on a couple more AI stories dealing with with the Fast-VLM video captioning model and a generative adversarial network method of self evolving reasoning LLM with R-Zero.  Next is a springboard for the MentraOS open source smart glasses operating system that reminds the team of Andy’s experience in 2024 with the Brilliant Labs Monocle.   Then the co-hosts talk about automotive software – and the challenges posed by the need to troubleshoot and correct for the intersection between evolving software and existing hardware.  The frequency for software updates for a vehicle, phones and more requires a level of testing and integration that can be very frustrating when things don’t work as expected.  Understatement of the year, I’m sure. Wrapping up the episode are a couple of games – a kickstarter called Making Monsters, Office Job, which has a television sized screen and suitcase sized mouse and Kazeta for cartridge gaming. What’s been your most frustrating automotive software experience?  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 Washington Post article: Masterful photo edits now just take a few words. Are we ready for this? Nano Banana AI Image Editing 9 to 5 Mac article: You can try Apple’s lightning-fast video captioning model right from your browser FastVLM-webgpu on Huggingface Spaces Venture Beat article: Forget data labeling: Tencent’s R-Zero shows how LLMs can train themselves R-Zero: Self-Evolving Reasoning LLM from Zero Data paper on arXiv Unacceptable situation to wear camera glasses of the moment: while doing a bikini waxhttps://futurism.com/wax-center-meta-glasses — Mike Elgan (@[email protected]) 2025-08-31T17:06:05.260Z MentraOS Open Source Smart Glasses OS on Github Games at Work e453: Vision Pro a Pro-Pro (for Brilliant Labs Frame) Games at Work e436: Squishy Purple Doom (for Andy’s experience with Brilliant Labs Monocle) Automotive Software TechCrunch article: BMW, I am so breaking up with you BMWblog post: Apple’s iOS 18 Update Is Causing BMW Digital Car Key Problems: Solutions Inside from October 2024 Games Making Monsters on Kickstarter Games at Work e455: Star Trek vs Douglas Adams (for Spore) Felix Fisgus post: Office Job from 2022 hackster.io article: Alesh Slovak’s Kazeta Turns Mini-PCs Into ’90s Throwback “Cartridge”-Based Games Consoles Kazeta Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Daniel Hooper 🌊 on Unsplash Published 1 September 2025 e527 with Andy, Michael and Michael – stories about AI restaurant experiences, historical LLMs, zoetropes and a whole lot more. After Michael R gives his impressions of the PhotoDome app, the team starts things off with a story about the AI powering Taco Bell’s drive through point of sale experience.  In the past few days, there have been a multitude of stories about the attempt to order 18,000 cups of water from the Yum Foods franchise.  Check out the conversation in the podcast and the referenced articles in the show notes below.  Continuing on the AI and restaurant theme, the team considers another article that reports on nonexistent specials that the restaurant has to deal with.  While discussing the Wired article about which jobs AI is eliminating first, Michael M (mistakenly!) references a zoom seminar on the subject from Stanford University’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Digital Economy Lab.  This seminar is scheduled for 29 September, so there’s still plenty of time to register for it at the link below!  After touching on a couple of articles dealing with ChatGPT scanning conversations and instituting parental controls, the team switches to an AI use case that is very close to home for Andy’s educational background as a historian.  Check out the GitHub link to TimeCapsuleLLM below and give it a whirl for yourself!  The team wraps up this episode with two interesting links – the trailer for the upcoming game The Expanse, and a fantastic piece of vinyl zoetrope technology from Atliens (please check out the link to see the visual for the alien abduction visuals – so cool!) What is your favorite vinyl zoetrope?  We’d love to share it with the Games at Work audience!   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 PhotoDome reprise Random Thoughts blog post: PhotoDome for visionOS PhotoDome Games at Work e526: Beans and Bricks (for the initial discussion on PhotoDome) AI The Verge article: Taco Bell’s AI drive-thru plan gets caught up on trolls and glitches AI Business article: Taco Bell Expands AI Voice Ordering at Drive-Thrus Nationwide BBC article: Taco Bell rethinks AI drive-through after man orders 18,000 waters Wikipedia article: Troll Futurism article: Local Restaurant Exhausted as Google AI Keeps Telling Customers About Daily Specials That Don’t Exist Games at Work e522: Pointing at Doomed Fish (for how Google’s AI Overview oversimplifies) Wired article: AI Is Eliminating Jobs for Younger Workers Stanford University Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence paper and seminar: Canaries in the Coal Mine? Six Facts about the Recent Employment Effects of Artificial Intelligence Futurism article: OpenAI Says It’s Scanning Users’ ChatGPT Conversations and Reporting Content to the Police The Verge article: OpenAI will add parental controls for ChatGPT following teen’s death Games at Work e524: Googlenight AI (for discussion on publishing exchanges with ChatGPT) Ars Technica article: College student’s “time travel” AI experiment accidentally outputs real 1834 history Github: haykgrigo3/TimeCapsuleLLM Software atliensofficial.com post: Leaving The World Behind Vinyl Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Michael Martine, Chapel Hill, NC August 2025 Published 25 August 2025 e526 with Andy and Michael M – stories about focus – finding things that are missing, reducing distractions with apps like Focus Friend and Brick, viewing photo collections and a whole lot more. Andy and Michael M get things rolling while Michael R is away, starting with an update from Andy’s recent presentation at FrOSCon 2025.  Then the pair focus on an always on AI smart glasses concept, replete with all of the privacy and security considerations.  Next up is an AI powered image search that resulted in the discovery of a long missing hiker.  This reminded Michael of crowdsourced image searches powered by humans for search and rescue, and found the story of Jim Gray which was part of e44 back in 2013.  Next in view is Vivo’s  announcement of their mixed reality headset, followed quickly by a Vison Pro photo viewing app called PhotoDome. Continuing on the concept of focus, Andy and Michael take a look at the Focus Friend app, which has a friendly bean shaped avatar that knits and unlocks prizes while the user remains focused on their task, and gets sad when interrupted.  This reminded Andy of the Brick app, which he learned about from the hiro.report.  The Brick app and physical tile creates the necessary friction to have the user bring the phone close to the Brick tile to “unbrick” the phone.  The lengths required to create such friction to improve productivity spark a further discussion on the challenges that immersive software create for person to person connections and the increase in loneliness. The team wraps up this episode with a callback to 2023 for software restricted Polish train repairs and software enabled subscriptions to increase automotive performance. What apps, systems or techniques have you used for creating focus?  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 FrOSCon 2025 media.ccc.de Decentralising Freedom: Open Source for Sovereignty AI TechCrunch article: Harvard dropouts to launch ‘always on’ AI smart glasses that listen and record every conversation Wired article: A Hiker Was Missing for Nearly a Year. Then an AI System Spotted His Helmet Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences UC Berkley technical report UCB/EECS-2010-142 : Searching for Jim Gray: A Technical Overview Games at Work e49: Crowdsourcing & Crowdfunding AR / VR 9 to 5 Mac article: Vivo’s Vision Pro clone costs $1,400 and weighs 398g Vivo press release: vivo Unveils First Mixed Reality Headset and New Imaging Strategy at 30th Anniversary PhotoDome on Apple Vision Pro is a delightful way to revisit photos and albums. Combining XR concepts and interfaces with the rest of my computing life is why I'm so excited about visionOS. The developer of this app did an amazing job https://apps.apple.com/us/app/photodome/id6748567431 — Joseph Simpson (@[email protected]) 2025-08-22T11:50:24.588Z PhotoDome Focus: Beans and Bricks Tedium post: Me And The Bean Focus Friend by Hank Green IMDb: Mr. Bean Brick hiro.report BBC Research and Development feature: Where is the social internet taking us? Repairs and Upgrades TechDirt article: Train Maker Sues Hackers For Exposing Dodgy Efforts To Make Train Repairs More Difficult Games at Work e444: Glitch in the Matrix BBC article: VW introduces monthly subscription to increase car power Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash The Michaels take some time to talk about AI, Apple and Gaming this week, while Andy is out. While we are not an all Michael podcast, we did see a few Mike posts on Mastodon from Mike Elgan. We start with one of our favorite topics Lego Bricks! Robots are able to create using BrickGPT, creating new builds from a prompt. Speaking of prompting we then look at what may be behind Perplexity’s offer to buy the Chrome browser from Google. The day before we recorded, Apple re-enabled the blood oxygen sensor on newer models of Apple Watch, while we look back with nostalgia on VCR tapes. Well, at least using the VCR tape metaphor as a means for rediscovering videos in our ever growing Photo libraries. Michael R confesses to having been on the TestFlight for the new Cassette application. We spend some time marveling at a newly created translucent Game Boy from Natalie the Nerd. We also take a deeper dive at a 1000 Wooden Pixel creation from Ben Holman. We wrap up with a review about the Scott Pilgrim verses the World video game from a few years back, and decide we should re-watch the movie. Has it really been 15 years! Selected Links The all Michael show section: From Mike Elgan’s Toots: AI Tool for manufacturing using Lego bricks Perplexity offer for Chrome Direct links: AI tool faster efficient AI Startup Perplexity offers to buy Google’s Chrome Browser for a whooping $34.5b Apple news: Apple Brings Back Blood Oxygen to Apple Watch Cassette App uses VCR Metaphor for Video Memories Cool Makers: Natalie the Nerd’s See Thru Game Boy Ben Holman’s Pixel Board Gaming Nostalgia: Scott Pilgrim Game Anniversary

Googlenight, AI virtual book cover Published 11 August 2025 e524 with Andy and Michael M – stories about AI generated goodnight stories, Med-Gemini, GPT-5, skeuomorphism, scrobbling, seeing through doors and a whole lot more. Andy and Michael M get things rolling while Michael R is away with some Google Gemini generated goodnight stories.  Andy generates a story about a 3D printer that prints a new red car in just a few moments.  Aside from a few inconsistencies, it’s actually a pretty good story and images.  After an example of Med-Gemini hallucinating a non-existent body part, the team virtually goes to Versailles to interact with the statues via AI.  Speaking with the statues reminded Michael of speaking with the plants at the Chelsea Flower Show discussed in e488.  Andy shares insights on GPT-5. Then, the team turns to skeuomorphism with the Macrowave app as a prime example.  This leads to a small segue to scrobbling with Last.FM.  Andy and Michael wrap up this episode with the Eufy FamiLock S3 Max that allow you to “look through” your door and see who is on the other side. What skeumorphistic elements are your most and least favorite?  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 Goodnight, AI The Verge article: Google Gemini can now create AI-generated bedtime stories Andy’s Google Generated AI bedtime story: Pip the Magical Printer The Verge article: Google’s healthcare AI made up a body part — what happens when doctors don’t notice? Google Research Blog Post: Advancing medical AI with Med-Gemini Smithsonian Magazine article: You Can Now Have a Conversation With the Statues at Versailles Using Artificial Intelligence RHS Chelsea Flower Show Games at Work e488 Fight. For Your Right.  To Pla-aaay! 404 Media article: More than 130,000 Claude, Grok, ChatGPT, and Other LLM Chats Readable on archive.org CNet article: GPT-5: Here’s What’s New in ChatGPT’s Big Update Where is your Ed At blog post: AI Is A Money Trap Build things skeumorphisticaly #Macrowave, our native macOS & iOS app that makes it easy and fun to share system audio with friends to listen to music together will be available for everyone on August 7th. https://apps.apple.com/app/macrowave/id6746954963?ct=mastodon — Lucas ✦ (@[email protected]) 2025-08-05T01:02:26.443Z Macrowave – Private P2P Radio Macrowave Last.FM Scrobbling The Verge article: This smart lock lets me see through my door Eufy FamiLock S3 Max Where’s Michael M next week? NCSSM.edu article: ’87 alum set to open academic year with Convocation address Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Pete Godfrey on Unsplash Published 4 August 2025 e523 with Michael R and Andy, possibly arriving via carefully-arranged starlings? – stories about AI again, obviously; iPadOS 26; games, old and new; and, an innovative method of data transfer. Andy and Michael R are back together this week, while Michael M takes a turn being away! We kick off with some AI-related topics, with ChatGPT successfully passing the anti-bot Turing test, CAPTCHA, and then some discussion of AI tools being allowed in Meta’s hiring process. Could the North Koreans be on their way? Seamlessly gliding (almost like… liquid glass), there’s a discussion of iPadOS 26 public beta, and all the window-y goodness that’s coming to all in September. Under the heading of games topics, the hosts cover a number of links, including the existential crisis experienced by games characters in a Matrix game, an incredible clay animated music video that revisits the 1980s and 1990s, and then, a brand new game all about the life of… a fly. Yes, a fly. The last segment covers a different kind of flying creature, and looks at the potential for birds to become digital data carriers. Well, starlings anyway. Are you switching to bird tech any time soon? Have your bots drop our bots a line on Mastodon at @gamesatwork_biz and let us know what you’re reading and what you’re thinking about! 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 on ChatGPT’s Casual Clicking – https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2025/07/openais-chatgpt-agent-casually-clicks-through-i-am-not-a-robot-verification-test/ 404Media on Meta job interviews – https://www.404media.co/meta-is-going-to-let-job-candidates-use-ai-during-coding-tests/ BBC: US woman gets 8-year sentence for stealing identities to give North Koreans jobs https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2l2yn5zmxo https://ultracode.ai/ Apple iPadOS 26 public beta – https://sixcolors.com/post/2025/07/first-look-ipados-26-public-beta/ Gaming Characters panic inside Matrix game – https://futurism.com/demo-video-game-characters-panic-code-matrix Music video GUNSHIP – Tech Noir 2 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlUJTtBphb0 Time Flies game – https://timeflies.buzz Birds! Yes, birds! (can we pretend this is a Maker section?) Full video – storing PNGs in birds – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCQCP-5g5bo Tom’s Hardware coverage – https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/storage/yes-you-can-store-data-on-a-bird-enthusiast-converts-png-to-bird-shaped-waveform-teaches-young-starling-to-recall-file-at-up-to-2mb-s

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash Published 28 July 2025 e522 with Michael M and Andy – stories about AI in multiple forms: bees that listen, a cat that chats, and then some fun with animating fish you draw, a GameBoy you build and a whole lot more. Andy and Michael M get things rolling while Michael R is away with a story about Amazon acquiring Bee, the wearable AI company.  After a quick reference back to earlier wearable AI examples, the co-hosts turn to Lumo, the AI cat chatbot (catbot?) from Proton.  This sparks a rich conversation on search, and the need to find that receipt or email about the upcoming event.  A 404 media article covers Google’s AI Overview, and Michael shares how he routinely passes over the sponsored links, which is where the AI Overview currently resides.  Andy noted that Google announced Web Guide this week, and the pair give that a once over.  Andy also harkened back to his SearXNG aggregator and udm14.com.  Next up, the co-hosts show that we can still have fun things, starting off with an(other) iteration of Doom.  This is followed up with Draw A Fish, a simple and fun experience where your drawn fish is animated by the site and placed in a fishtank for you to watch and feed.  Then, a delightful experience on Pointer Pointer, where the service gives you a picture with people pointing where you have your cursor. Andy and Michael wrap things up with another LEGO video game exemplar – this time it’s the Nintendo Game Boy, which sadly doesn’t play a game, but looks very realistic down to the custom LEGO buttons.  And of course the pair is excited to see Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues when it comes out.   Will Spinal Tap 2 go up to 12?  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 The Verge article: Amazon buys Bee AI wearable that listens to everything you say Bee.computer Games at Work e502: Humane Rabbits (for the Humane AI Pin, Rabbit Agent, R1 and more) 9 To 5 Mac article: Proton throws shade at Apple Intelligence privacy as it launches AI chatbot Proton post: Introducing Lumo, the AI where every conversation is confidential Vivaldi post: #10 Andy Yen (Proton) – For A Better Web Search 404 Media article: Google’s AI Is Destroying Search, the Internet, and Your Brain SearXNG Tedium post: One Extra Click Google’s The Keyword post: Web Guide: An experimental AI-organized search results page udm14.com  We Can Have Fun Things Draw a Fish Pointer Pointer The Verge article: Here is Lego’s official Nintendo Game Boy — with lenticular display Entertainment Weekly article: Rob Reiner applauds Paul McCartney’s ‘really funny’ improv skills in first look at Spinal Tap sequel IMDb: This Is Spinal Tap (1984) IMDb: Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (2025) Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by benjamin lehman on Unsplash Published 21 July 2025 e521 with Andy, Michael and Michael – stories about expressive robots (Shoggoth Mini, Apple ELEGNT, SpiRob & facehugger), newly reengineered Commodore & Sinclair computer reboots, Seagate’s 30TB drives and a whole lot more. Andy, Michael and Michael get things rolling with a story about what went into creating the hero image for last week’s show notes.  The team then turns to the Shoggoth Mini robot, and how it uses it’s antenna so expressively.  Inspired by Apple’s ELEGNT robot lamp, and SpiRobs’s tentacle system, Matthieu Le Cauchois started building the Shoggoth Mini.  Check out the links below for the videos and images to see how this robot interacts.  After touching on a robotic instance of a facehugger from the Aliens movies, the co hosts turn back to the future. If you are nostalgic for a Commodore 64 computer, it is your lucky day.  Newly reengineered C-64s are available in several different models, and you won’t even need a cassette recorder or a floppy disk drive to load the software.  Unless you really want to.  After touching on a new version of the classic Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the co hosts marvel at the newly announced Seagate 30TB hard drives for $600.   Rounding out the show for this week are an article on dropped customer service calls and some 1985 retro MacPaint art. What kind of emotion would you want your robot to show, and how would the robot express the emotion?  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 Generative Video – A How To The Decoder post: Google’s Veo 3 video generation model launches on Gemini API with a hefty price tag original photo by Michael Martine, Sandwich MA June 2025. Veo3 animation July 2025. Robot Maker Matthieu Le Cauchois blog post: Shoggoth Mini Apple Machine Learning blog post: ELEGNT: Expressive and Functional Movement Design for Non-Anthropomorphic Robot Arxiv paper: SpiRobs: Logarithmic Spiral-shaped Robots for Versatile Grasping Across Scales Games at Work e500: fünfhundert smooth operator (for discussion on the Apple Pixar robotic lamp) Wikipedia entry: Horseshoe Crab Robotshop community forum post: the Facehugger Technology Old And New Sixcolors post: Commodore, Apple, and the Early Computer Days Commodore  Mini-ITX post: We can build your Mini-ITX PC inside a Retro Commodore 64 Keyboard Chassis… ESP32 Rainbow post: ESP32 Rainbow ZX Spectrum Reborn TidBITS post: Seagate Ships 30 TB Hard Drives for $600 Seagate press release: Seagate Ships 30TB Drives to Meet Global Surge in Data Center AI Storage Demand IMDb entry: The Cannonball Run (another big drive) The Atlantic article: That Dropped Call With Customer Service? It Was On Purpose Three sample MacPaint images from the decryption.net.au blog Internet Archive: Zen & the art of the Macintosh : discoveries on the path to computer enlightenment Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

original photo, by Michael Martine, Sandwich MA June 2025. Animated by Google Veo3 July 2025 Published 14 July 2025 e520 with Michael, Andy and Michael – stories about AI advertising, still photo animation, anime agents, Pollen Robotics, Unity tokamak fusion reactor digital twin and a whole lot more. Michael, Andy and Michael get things off to a fast start with an article all about AI advertising.  And how including AI inside does not correlate with positive impressions.  The Google Veo3 capability to turn still image prompts into short videos is next in focus.  The hero image for this episode was made using Veo3.  On deck next are the open source Reachy robots from Pollen Robotics newly available on Hugging Face, along with associated demo code and AI models.  Then, on Kickstarter, the co hosts consider an AI 3D character pod.  The Dipal D1 on Kickstarter trumpets itself as the “world’s first curved 3D AI Character Pod”.  The intrepid Games at Work team digs up the Gatebox example from 2017 and the associated episodes shared in the links below.  This even includes a discussion from 2018 about “cross-dimensional” human-AI agent marriages, which foreshadows the game “Date Everything” from the Wired article.  The next article is absolutely right in the wheelhouse for Games At Work:  South Korean scientists used Unity to create a digital twin of a toroidal fusion reactor.  And using the game engine’s physics engine, these scientists may have unlocked how to unleash fusion energy. Rounding out this episode is the upcoming LEGO launch of a new Arcade Machine.  This fun kit has a number of cool easter eggs in it, and the team’s looking forward to building it. What is your impression on “AI inside” advertising?  How do you think game engines may be used to further science (weird or otherwise)?  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 Futurism article: Something Hilarious Happens When Potential Customers See That a Product Has AI Features Terrence Eden’s blog post: Gadget Review: Thermal Imaging Camera – Topdon TC004 Mini Axios article: Google AI’s new trick: Turn any image into a brief video Google’s Veo3  TechCrunch article: Hugging Face opens up orders for its Reachy Mini desktop robots Hugging Face blog post: Reachy Mini – The Open-Source Robot for Today’s and Tomorrow’s AI Builders Hugging Face Reachy Mini Spaces Pollen Robotics Reachy Mini Wall-E Eve (LEGO version, of course!) Pollen Robotics Reachy 2 Wikipedia entry: Alien: Romulus (with face hugger poster – not as bad as spiders, but close!) Kickstarter: Dipal D1 – World’s First Curved Screen 3D AI Character Pod Games at Work e159: Virtually Secure (for initial Gatebox discussion) Games at Work e218: Virtually Married (for “cross-dimensional” human-AI nuptials) Weird science through games Popular Mechanics article:  A Video Game Engine Just Broke a Huge Barrier for Nuclear Fusion. This Could Be the Key to Unlimited Power. Computer Physics Communication volume 309, April 2025: Development of novel collision detection algorithms for the estimation of fast ion losses in tokamak fusion device Unity Wired article: A Game Called Date Everything Literally Lets You Date Everything—Except People Date Everything I integrated my Pixels dice with Home Assistant! If you have Home Assistant with Bluetooth support, you can install my HACS component too: https://github.com/jaxzin/gamewithpixels-ha — Brian Jackson (@[email protected]) 2025-07-04T06:46:49.876Z Federal Trade Commission corner The Verge article: Appeals court strikes down ‘click-to-cancel’ rule LEGO The Verge article: Lego’s latest buildable arcade machine is packed full of fun hidden details LEGO Arcade Machine 40805 Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Mike Stimpson on Unsplash Published 30 June 2025 e519 with Michael, Andy and Michael – stories about AI conversations with pets and people, LLM data retention, AI slop, Clippy-esque prompts, AI workloads in space and a whole lot more. Michael, Andy and Michael begin with an AI story about the possibility for translating what your pet has to say.  There have been similar stories, and certainly it is only a matter of time before there is a breakthrough to help humans talk to the animals.  Next up, a video from John Oliver on AI slop for the masses, that interestingly enough starts off with cats.  The team then moves on to what LLMs know about those that use them.  A couple of articles from Schneier and Geeky Gadgets illustrate the challenges emerging with current data retention policies.  Andy asked ChatGPT to write his bio back in 2023, and the hallucinations from that experience is in the show notes below. After a conversation on the future of Computer Science, the team considers AI workloads in space using the Syntilay example of designing shoes.  Then, a Mastodon post on the newest prompts from Microsoft Word reminds the cohosts of the fan favorite Clippy.  Next, there’s an AR example of advertising popup blockers where the cure may be worse than the disease of the number of ads and their content. Wrapping things up for this episode, Andy, Michael and Michael take a look at the Microsoft Xbox branded Meta VR headset and The Confrontation LoTR tabletop game.   What is your favorite AI slop example?  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 Boy Genius Report article: AI could finally help us talk to our cats Games at Work e495: Personal Planetarium for translating animal communications Mashable article: John Oliver finds a creative way to get revenge on AI spam Schneier on Security post: What LLMs Know About Their Users Geeky Gadgets article: OpenAI’s ChatGPT Data Retention Policy Explained : Is Your Data at Risk? Games at Work e406: AI Lemmings (for multiple versions of Andy’s bio) Andy’s fun with ChatGPT from 2023 – multiple versions of his bio The Atlantic article: The Computer-Science Bubble Is Bursting Coolest Gadgets article: Reebok Co-Founder’s Startup to Design AI-Generated Shoe in Space Syntilay AI designed shoes me: there’s nothing worse than opening a blank document microsoft word: hold my beer — Hadas Weiss (@[email protected]) 2025-06-27T09:12:48.909Z PC Gamer article: Software engineer creates a real-life ad block using Snapchat’s AR smart glasses, but ultimately ends up making something far more distracting than ads VR The Verge article: A week in Xbox VR with Microsoft and Meta’s new $399 headset Tabletop Gaming Wargamer article: This special edition Lord of the Rings board game comes with its own damn table Gamefound: The Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation Ultimate Edition Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Boris Langvand on Unsplash Published 23 June 2025 e518 with Andy, Michael, and Michael – stories about Atari adjacent AI, a new Emotiv experience, Midjourney video magic, Bondi blue, visionOS persona improvements, the Nex Playground and a whole lot more. Andy, Michael and Michael begin with a couple of Atari AI stories.  First up, there’s a Hackaday article dealing with randomly generating Atari games, replete with a link in the notes below to the Github repo to check out.  Next is a Futurism article detailing how ChatGPT loses to the computing might encompassed by an Atari 2600 console.  Continuing on the ChatGPT theme, the co-hosts check out a post on the recent ChatGPT worldwide outage, and what happened as a result.   Then, the team turns to a discussion on the recent Emotiv kickstarter, the MW20 Neuro Earphones, and are reminded about the Emotiv Insight.  Rounding out the AI section, Michael, Andy and Michael enjoy Ian Hughes’ Midjourney experiment to create a short video of Roisin Kincade from his book Reconfigure.  After considering a cute iMac G3 inspired Apple Watch charging stand, the team charges into a conversation about the recent updates to visionOS 26, paying special focus to the Persona function.  Michael Rowe has a nice before-and-after view of his Persona posted in his blog, and Michael M finds the AI generated Dutch master painting of Michael from back in e240.  Check out the links below to see for yourself! A new to the cohosts gaming console called Nex Playground (not Next – that was a different company!) has a modular form factor, and makes use of a camera for the gameplay.  The Creative Bloq article references Homecourt as the origin for the Nex Playground — “the eye in the sky does not lie!” is a common refrain from sports analytics enthusiasts.  It is intriguing how sophisticated the AI motion detection has come in this consumer space. What games can you imagine playing where your body is the controller?  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: Randomly Generating Atari Games Finite Atari Machine GitHub repo Futurism article: ChatGPT “Absolutely Wrecked” at Chess by Atari 2600 Console From 1977 Robert Caruso’s LinkedIn Post: 🧠🤖 Atari 2600 Pulls Off the Upset!! Wikipedia article: TRS-80 Color Computer ChatGPT goes down — and fake jobs grind to a halt worldwide https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/06/11/chatgpt-goes-down-and-fake-jobs-grind-to-a-halt-worldwide/ – texthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=889fSJTRZlg&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA – video — David Gerard (@[email protected]) 2025-06-11T15:59:42.031Z Pivot to AI post: ChatGPT goes down — and fake jobs grind to a halt worldwide Kickstarter post: Emotiv MW20 Neuro Earphones: Hi‑Fi Audio + Brain Insights Emotiv Games at Work e37: Sticky Games (for Emotiv reference – perhaps the first?) IMDb: Minority Report Loving midjourney new video generation. Ran the opening still from http://reconfigurebook.co.uk through it and Roisin really came to life. I last did this in 2023 with Runway. As I wrote https://www.feedingedge.co.uk/blog/2023/07/25/reconfigure-the-movie-nearly/ — Epredator (@[email protected]) 2025-06-18T23:02:57.523Z Feeding Edge post: Reconfigure – The Movie, nearly Midjourney post: Introducing Our V1 Video Model Apple The Verge article: Charge your Apple Watch on this tiny iMac G3 replica Wikipedia article: iMac G3 iColorpaltte Bondi blue Six Colors article: visionOS 26 keeps pushing Apple’s newest platform toward the future Random Thoughts post: WWDC 2025 – Liquid Glass (for the AI Dutch master version of Michael Rowe in the initial visionOS) Games at Work e240: Game of Life (for Michael R’s generated portrait) Games Creative Bloq article: Nex Playground review: an Apple-like active games console for the family Nex Playground Homecourt.ai Games at Work e327: Virtually Athletic Nintendo Wii Sports CNET article: I Downloaded Crazy Taxi on My iPhone for Free Before Sega Discontinues It Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Hasnain Sikora on Unsplash Published 9 June 2025 e517 with Michael, Michael and Andy – stories about Atarino microcomputing, AI through movie and television metaphor, AR running, screens and zombies, Skyrim Grandma, and a whole lot more. Michael, Michael and Andy start off with another teeny tiny computer after last week’s Pico Mac Nano.  This coin-sized “Atarino” computer is the size of a postage stamp!  Next, the co-hosts take a look at a Wall Street Journal article on the current state of AI through movie and television metaphor.  Then, they consider an IGN article predicting AI prompting providing the capability of creating a game like Breath of the Wild with a small development team. The Sightful Spacetop AR display prompts an interesting discussion about how cramped spaces like airline coach seats could actually be made productive.  A Runner’s World article continues the AR crossover, using examples such as Can You See Me Now and Zombies, Run!  The team turns the crank to wrap up this episode with i-Zombie, Skyrim Grandma and the excitement of the new Playdate games. What do you think the next micro computer might be?  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 Microcomputing Hardware Ars Technica article: Polish engineer creates postage stamp-sized 1980s Atari computer Retrododo article: Polish Engineer Creates Atari Computer The Size Of A Coin Wikipedia entry: Atari 8-bit computers AI Wall Street Journal article: The AI Experience Is Going From ‘50 First Dates’ to ‘Cheers’ IMDb entry: 50 First Dates IMDb entry: Cheers Wikipedia entry: grok Dextero article: AI company files for bankruptcy after being exposed as 700 Indian engineers IGN article: AI Prompts Will Soon Let a 10-Person Team Build a Game Like Breath of the Wild Where the AI Is Doing All the Dialogue and You Just Write Character Synopsis, Tim Sweeney Predicts Games at Work e515: Seeing Through Walls for AI NPCs AR PC World article: Sightful Spacetop review: Impressive AR display… until the bugs show up Sightfult Runner’s World (Apple News Link) article: Adventures in the Running Metaverse Blast Theory post: Can You See Me Now? Zombies, Run! Games Novelty Automation Tim Hunkin post: i-Zombie Tim Hunkin post: Making i-Zombie GameSpot post: Skyrim Grandma Ends Streaming Retirement To Play Oblivion Remastered Playdate post: Season Two, OUT NOW. Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by insung yoon on Unsplash Published 2 June 2025 e516 with Michael and Michael – AI prompts, browsers, model collapse & automation along with a teeny tiny pico Mac nano, and a whole lot more. While Andy is away, Michael and Michael start off with an article from Ars Technica that explains the system prompts for Anthropic’s Claude 4 models.  This leads into a discussion on prompt engineering, and how solutions like Ollama allow users to download LLMs and create their own prompts.  After a quick sidebar on AI browsers like Opera, the team takes a look at Sky, an AI automation app.  This app shows a great deal of promise as a desktop AI assistant, and will be very interesting to try out once it is generally available.  Then, the team turns to a story on AI model collapse.  And next up is a blog post about consenting to updated terms and conditions. Round things off for this episode, Michael and Michael enjoy a teeny tiny Mac classic – the Pico Mac Nano – a new take on 3D monitors and a local North Carolina story about Pokemon card game competitions. What would you want to run on a Pico Mac Nano?  Sky’s the limit!  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: Hidden AI instructions reveal how Anthropic controls Claude 4 Wikipedia article: Prompt Engineering OLlama Games at Work e429: Promptly Engineering The Verge article: Opera’s new AI browser promises to write code while you sleep Opera AI Browser MacStories article: From the Creators of Shortcuts, Sky Extends AI Integration and Automation to Your Entire Mac Sky.app  Phrase of the moment: "model collapse" https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/27/opinion_column_ai_model_collapse/ — Mike Elgan (@[email protected]) 2025-05-29T14:44:13.236Z The Register article: Some signs of AI model collapse begin to reveal themselves "Technology should only ever do exactly what we have explicitly given it our consent to do" This blog post 👉🏻 https://www.anildash.com//2025/05/27/2025-05-27-internet-of-consent/ by @anildash is just superb! 👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻 And the last sentence, a massively poignant call-to-action that won't leave people indifferent, specially, those who can't understand #ConsentMatters #Respect #FairUse #SocialWeb #OwnTheWeb — Luis Suarez (@[email protected]) 2025-05-27T20:26:57.215Z Anil Dash blog post: The Internet of Consent Hardware TechRadar article: Someone just built the world’s smallest working Mac – and at this price, I desperately want one Pablo Picasso Wired Article: 3D Is Back. This Time, You Can Ditch the Glasses Pokemon The Assembly article: More Than a Card Game Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Mihály Köles on Unsplash Published 26 May 2025 e515 with Andy, Michael and Michael – the Fortnite Darth Vader NPC, IO, both from Google and Open AI, AI hardware, an intriguing Vision Pro use case, infrared contact lenses, Car Play Ultra, Microsoft’s GamePass set of retro classic games (Pitfall said to be coming!), and a Warhammer typing game. Andy, Michael and Michael start off with stories about Darth Vader in Fortnite. One article deals with how players have gotten the Darth Vader NPC AI (non-player character) to say questionable things and another on the rights Fortnite secured to do so. The team then turned to a summary of the top 15 announcements from Google’s I/O 2025.  The cohosts were impressed by the fact that Google created a NotebookLM from the content of the conference.  Less impressive was how interacting with the NotebookLM did not create the personalized results expected.  Moving along to a different IO; the OpenAI acquisition of Jony Ive’s company, the cohosts note that reimagining what it means to use a computer (AI or otherwise) is an enormous undertaking.  Rethinking how spatial computing could be used, Michael R walked Andy and Michael through a  use case to see through walls, floors and ceilings in an intuitive and easy way.  Another example of superhuman visual powers are contact lenses that provide the wearer with infrared vision.  According to the article, these lenses work even better when the wearer closes their eyelids to help block out more of the (previously) visual spectrum to allow for the infrared to be more easily discerned. Rounding out this episode, the cohosts take a slightly deeper look at Car Play Ultra beyond the Aston Martin experience described last week, enjoy the Microsoft Game Pass offering for retro classic games, as well as the Warhammer typing experience.  Perhaps some of these user experience and interaction mechanisms from such games will surface in the IO AI computing device.  What do you think is the next computing paradigm – both in hardware and software?  How will the user experience become so transparent, that all that is left is creativity, augmented in the flow of the creative process? 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 That’s Mr. Vader to you Wired article: Fortnite Players Are Already Making AI Darth Vader Swear Kotaku article: Fortnite In Legal Trouble After Adding AI Darth Vader AI The Verge article: The 15 biggest announcements at Google I/O 2025 Google I/O: About I/O Google created a NotebookLM notebook with everything they announced at Google I/O. So instead of slogging through thousands of hours of video and other content, you can just ask NotebookLM questions, listen to a podcast, or get a FAQ, etc. https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/953b658a-579b-4b3c-b280-43b3781babf3 — Mike Elgan (@[email protected]) 2025-05-21T03:29:11.088Z Wall Street Journal article: What Sam Altman Told OpenAI About the Secret Device He’s Making With Jony Ive OpenAI post: Sam and Jony introduce io Cafe Zoetrope – where the io introduction video was made HP IQ Games at Work e371: Legacy Games & New UX (for early discussion on Humane in 2022) Super Vision UX Reddit post: How I use my Apple Vision Pro to retrofit Unifi Access Points in finished homes The Guardian article: Seeing infrared: scientists create contact lenses that grant ‘super-vision’ Classic Games The Verge article: Microsoft adds over 50 ‘Retro Classics’ to Game Pass The Verge article: Warhammer’s free new game makes typing grimdark Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by WTFast on Unsplash Published 19 May 2025 e514 with Michael R and Andy – generative ads & LEGO, Aston Martin x Apple CarPlay Ultra, new Vision Pro UX, an Internet Roadtrip, Leroy Jenkins and so much more. While Michael M is away, Michael R and Andy start off with some generative AI topics: advertisements and LEGO.  Per the Ars Technica article, Netflix has announced it has created GenAI advertising that it will show during streaming video in 2026.  And some exciting news in the GenAI space for LEGO – a model that generates stable (not diffuse!) LEGO structures from text prompts. Next up: several Apple stories, starting with Aston Martin working with Apple’s CarPlay Ultra, which combines data and visualizations from the car as well as from the iPhone. Then, some articles on Apple’s Vision Pro, since the launch, and new capabilities allowing scrolling in a new way. Then, Michael R and Andy share a cornucopia of fun.  A website with the first few of 10,000 drum machines.  A fixer of broken QR codes.  A web-based team driving game called Internet Roadtrip, reminiscent of Twitch Plays Pokemon, and a little like Desert Bus too.  And especially a reflection on the 20th anniversary of Leroy Jenkins.  Do check out the article in the show notes  below, and see also the embedded story from 20 years ago. What’s your favorite Leroy Jenkins story?  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 Netflix will show generative AI ads midway through streams in 2026Netflix is trying to grow ad revenue quickly.https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/05/netflix-will-show-generative-ai-ads-midway-through-streams-in-2026/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social — Ars Technica (@[email protected]) 2025-05-14T20:49:34.591Z Ars Technica article: Netflix will show generative AI ads midway through streams in 2026 PC Mag article: LegoGPT Eliminates AI Weirdness, Creates Brick Designs You Can Actually Build arXiv paper: Generating Physically Stable and Buildable LEGO Designs from Text Huggingface: LegoGPT Demo Apple Wall Street Journal article: They Paid $3,500 for Apple’s Vision Pro. A Year Later, It Still Hurts. Bloomberg article: Apple Readies Feature That Lets Vision Pro Users Scroll With Their Eyes The Verge article: Apple will let the Vision Pro ‘see’ for you Fun Stuff 10k Drum Machines HumanQR Adafruit blog post: Need to get away? Take an Internet Roadtrip! Neal.Fun Internet Road Trip Games at Work e77: (Hive)Mind Blowing for multiplayer Pokemon NPR All Tech Considered article: Here’s What Happens When Thousands Play Pokemon Together Desert Bus Express 2025 PC Gamer article: WoW’s Leeroy Jenkins, one of the internet’s oldest memes, turns 20 years old—and after looking back on what we wrote in 2005, I feel like we’ve failed Leeroys everywhere Rock Paper Shotgun article: Doom: The Dark Ages review Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Hande B. on Unsplash Published 12 May 2025 e513 with Michael and Michael – Clippy + LLMs, social AI, first person video, Duck, Pong & other games, and so much more. While Andy is away, Michael and Michael start off this episode with good friend Clippy, the Microsoft Office Assistant from the early 2000s.  Felix Reiseberg has made a version of Clippy that can use a variety of LLMs while retaining the look and feel of the 2000s user experience.  Meta has enabled or borrowed – you pick your favorite – the capability of making user interactions with it’s AI app public, in much the same way you can browse other people’s exchanges on Venmo.  And for the sports fans, there is a new AI capability that produces play by play and color commentary.  This example highlights the thrill of victory in a match of Pong. The Games at Work switches gears to the automotive world, where an article examines the (triumphant) return of the Yugo.  Michael R remembers the Adobe parody from Saturday Night Live, and also shares news of the return of the Karman Ghia with Michael M.  The story of the return of physical buttons from Wired reminds the cohosts of an earlier Games at Work episode where this comeback has been in the making since at least 2023. A comedic triumph turns 50 years old this year – Monty Python’s Holy Grail, and somehow, we’re not quite sure how, Michael and Michael refrain from going through all of the quotable quotes from the movie.  After this amazing restraint, the pair turn to the Apple Vision Pro Adventure series, with an in-depth article about the making of these feats of moviemaking.  Michael R has experienced them on the Vision Pro, and describes how he felt while viewing them.  The Pike’s Peak race takes Michael M back to a 1972 film about a race through the streets of Paris called C’etait un Rendezvous. After a discussion about the games of Duck, Eco Dolphin, and Minecraft removing support for VR, the co-hosts reflect on a Wired article about how industry is keeping the metaverse and 3D Internet dream alive through digital twinning.   The team wraps up this episode with a reflection on the end of support for Windows 10 – or is that really the case? Clippy, the Yugo, the Holy Grail and Windows 10 are among the things that are not dead yet. Are you more excited about the return of the Yugo or the Karman Ghia?  Is there a vehicle you would dearly love to see come back in a new form?  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 Clippy Wikipedia entry: Office Assistant (Clippy) Business Insider article: Meta has a new stand-alone AI app. It lets you see what other people are asking. I’m confused. Garbage Day article: Meta has a cool new slop feed Venmo article: Who can see my Venmo payments? Hackaday article: AI Brings Play-By-Play Commentary to Pong Google NotebookLM Automotive Design Motortrend article: The Yugo—One of the Worst Cars Ever—Is Attempting a Comeback Wired article: Rejoice! Carmakers Are Embracing Physical Buttons Again Games at Work e415: Pushing Our Buttons Moviemaking Wall Street Journal article: Coconuts Still Clopping, ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ Turns 50 IMDb: Monty Python and the Holy Grail Digital Camera World article: “I very much believe that the future of entertainment will be immersive!” – We speak to award-winning filmmaker and series director of Apple TV’s ‘Adventure’, Charlotte Mikkelborg AppleTV Press release: Apple Original Films announces groundbreaking new documentary event “Bono: Stories of Surrender,” premiering globally on May 30 on Apple TV+ Fediverse RadioEins Global Solutions Summit – World Policy Forum interview with Felix Hlatky, Finanzvorstand der Social Plattform Mastodon Games Duck, the game Duck, the North Carolina Outer Banks town Go, the game DuckDuckGo, the search engine and browser Polygon article: Ecco the Dolphin is getting two remasters and one new title from its original creators The Verge article: Minecraft’s VR support is now gone Metaverse Wired article: The Dream of the Metaverse Is Dying. Manufacturing Is Keeping It Alive Windows End of 10 0Patch Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Cartoon versions of Andy and Michael M, generated by ChatGPT Published 5 May 2025 e512 with Andy and Michael – E Ink monitors, Agent run companies & towns, winning arguments with AI assistants, pixellating reality and much more. While Michael R is away, Andy and Michael start off this episode continuing the E Ink theme from last week before shifting to AI and wrapping up with several cool makes.   It seems that there was a great deal of discussion on E Ink in the past couple of days, and the team touch on the BOOX Mira and Dashing Paperlike displays.  Andy also mentions being on a recent episode of the Bootloader podcast, where he talked about Glance – see the links below for more.   Moving along to AI, the co-hosts talk through the multiple themes embedded in the TechCrunch article dealing with Perplexity, the divestiture of Chrome, and the business of advertising.  Andy brings up a phrase giving a different name for AI, namely, Computational Text Generation Devices, and Michael shares a link to the Crystal Knows service he heard about during a recent interview.  Then, the co-hosts have a spirited, while still family friendly, conversation spurred on by an automobile journalist’s frustrating experience with a car’s assistant.  Next up was an article about how Carnegie Mellon professors staffed a virtual company solely with AI agents, which reminded Michael about Smallville – check out e428 and e412 from 2023 for more on AI agent interaction in a town setting.  Then, Andy touches on the Meta Ray-Bans story from Gizmodo. Wrapping up the show for this week, Andy and Michael take a look at a couple of really intriguing makes: PixLens for pixellating reality using a specifically machined acrylic lens, a cassette emulator, and a Sony Watchman brought back to life by a Raspberry Pi. What would you like to pixellate with the PixLens?  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 E Ink, continued The Verge article: Boox launches its first color E Ink monitor BOOX Mira Pro E Ink Monitor Liliputing article: Dasung Paperlike 13K is a 13.3 inch E Ink color monitor Dasung Paperlike 13K E Ink Monitor grocery store price display for the Salisbury, North Carolina classic cherry flavored soft drink, Cheerwine The Bootloader podcast, e19 Welcome Andy Piper for Glance Glance Who’s chatting with whom?  TechCrunch article: Perplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online to sell ‘hyper personalized’ ads Amardeep Singh blog post: Humanities AI in 2025: Brief Reflections After a Conference CrystalKnows.com  USA Today article: Scolded by a car? My battle with an EV assistant going rogue Futurism article: Professors Staffed a Fake Company Entirely With AI Agents, and You’ll Never Guess What Happened Games at Work e428: Is you is, or is you AIn’t my AI? For Smallville ARXIV paper: Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior Games at Work e412: 3D or not 3D also for Smallville and NPCs Gizmodo article: Meta Is Turning Its Ray-Bans Into a Surveillance Machine for AI Hacks & Makes AdaFruit blog post: PixLens: Reality into 8-bit PixLens I've adorned my cassette emulator device with a hand whittled label. The top panel has some bumps from through-board solder pads, so nothing I can do about that. But overall it's alright, if you don't look too closely and/or judge too harshly. #ZXSpectrum — electron.greg (@[email protected]) 2025-04-29T19:51:00.721Z hackster.io post: A Sony Watchman Lives Again as the Display for a Dinky Raspberry Pi 3 Cyberdeck Wikipedia article: Sony Watchman Game preservation bonus links GOG Dreamlist The Verge article: GOG is adding some classic Star Wars games to its preservation program Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by bill emrich from Pexels: Published 28 April 2025 e511 with Michael, Andy and Michael – Vibe coding with the Vision Pro, E Ink, ePaper, multi and single player MMORPGs, Minecraft London and much more. Michael, Andy and Michael get things off to a fast start continuing the vibe coding conversation.  The Vision Pro features prominently, with the idea that Siri was intended to allow for calling virtual objects into being in the Vision Pro environment without requiring the user to write code.  Then, the team discusses the different algorithms used by quantified self devices such as the Oura Ring and Apple Watch.  Next up, an intriguing concept of storing deleted data, with timestamps and user information for future potential use. Then the co-hosts take the Figment E Ink hardware and run with it on a journey of other E Ink devices.  While the Kindle provides an easy launch point, other E Ink / ePaper devices such as the Daylight computer, the ePaper Name Badge, the Remarkable 2, Air Lab, the Poem/1 (hail poetry!) and even grocery store price displays get their proverbial day in the sun. Switching gears to massive multi (and single) player games, Andy shares a story about the Minecraft digital twin of London built over the past 5 years.  In an MMORPG twist, the co-hosts discuss the simulated players in Erenshor, a single player version of an MMO.   Wrapping things up for the week, the team concludes with a couple of Nintendo stories repurposing older GameBoy and Wii hardware for fun experiments. If you could have a Windows enabled GameBoy, what would you most like to run on it?  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 Wearables and Coding 9 to 5 Mac article: Apple wanted people to vibe code Vision Pro apps with Siri The Information article: Apple Devising Software to Help Anyone Build AR Apps, to Drive Headset Sales Tom’s Guide article: I wore my Oura Ring vs Apple Watch 10 to track my steps for a week — and this device was way off Scott Antipa blog post: YAGRI: You are gonna read it Wikipedia article: YAGNI Spilling e ink Liliputing article: Figment is another E Ink handheld game console made for text adventures (and maybe more) Games at Work article: e467- Total Recall for the Daylight computer and slow computing Daylight Computer Terrence Eden blog post: Gadget Review: 6-Colour ePaper Name Badge Remarkable 2 CrowdSupply post: Air Lab – A playful and portable air quality measuring device Kickstarter project: Poem/1: AI rhyming clock Poem/1 AI rhyming clock Wikipedia article: E Ink Games at Work e453 – Vision Pro a Pro-Pro for the Poem/1 Single and Multiplayer MMORPGs BBC article: Minecraft: ‘We’ve spent five years rebuilding London’ Build the Earth GamesRadar article: “I’ve had this idea for 25 years”: Solo dev behind single-player MMO with fake simulated players insists “I do not plan to add multiplayer” as it soars on Steam GamesRadar article: Erenshor, the ‘MMORPG’ with fake players that’s not actually an MMO at all, gets an imminent release date Erenshor on Steam Repurposed Nintendo Hardware Time Extension article: Someone Has Created A Version Of Windows For Game Boy, And Yes, It Includes Minesweeper Alex Haydock blog post: This blog is hosted on a Nintendo Wii Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Ádám Berkecz on Unsplash Published 21 April 2025 e510 with Andy, Michael and Michael – AI stories ranging from privacy, dolphin communication, open source models for robots, Game Transfer Phenomenon and much more. Andy, Michael and Michael get things off to a fast start with all things AI with a Bloomberg article reporting on Apple “analyzing data on customer’s devices in a bid to improve its artificial intelligence platform”.  Apple shares a deeper take on the differential privacy and how it is employed to improve on the synthetic data used to train Apple Intelligence.  Then, the team turns to a different way of training LLMs without forcing human language, which they found to be much more efficient, and potentially may unlock new chain of reasoning operations.  Andy’s “autocomplete for stuff” description of AI is amazing.  Next, is an intriguing AI model being developed to better understand dolphin communications.  The chain of thought from this article leads to the camera only recently recovered from Loch Ness, Star Trek, Star Wars and of course, Douglas Adam’s fictional treatment of dolphins.  After discussing open source AI robots and the challenges / benefits posed by AI geolocation sophistication, the team turns to OpenAI’s work on a social media platform.   After an article on Game Transfer Phenomenon, which describes how games and gameplay leak into the real world, the co-hosts wrap up with a PICO-8 demake of Warcraft III and a hearty endorsement of the Mythic Quest tv show.  Both Michael R and Andy have watched the entirety of Mythic Quest, and Michael M has put it on the list to watch. What do you expect the dolphins have to say to each other, and to humankind?  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 Bloomberg article: Apple to Analyze User Data on Devices to Bolster AI Technology Apple’s Machine Learning Research Blog post: Understanding Aggregate Trends for Apple Intelligence Using Differential Privacy Quanta Magazine article: To Make Language Models Work Better, Researchers Sidestep Language ZD Net article: Google is talking to dolphins using Pixel phones and AI – and the video is delightful BBC article: Camera set up to catch Loch Ness Monster discovered Games At Work e495: Personal Planetarium for use of AI in translating animal communications The Hitchhiker’s Wiki entry: Dolphins The Hitchhiker’s Wiki entry: Mice IMdB: Star Trek: Lower Decks (dolphin navigators) Wookipedia entry: Purrgil (space whales) Wired article: An Open Source Pioneer Wants to Unleash Open Source AI Robots Huggingface: closed-vs-open-arena-elo ChatGPT's o3 model can pinpoint a location from a photo, and give a pretty good deduction as to the point the photo was taken from. It's no Rainbolt, but any photos taken at or near your home, even with stripped metadata, are no longer safehttps://flausch.social/@piegames/114352447253793517 — Steve Troughton-Smith (@[email protected]) 2025-04-17T15:11:54.594Z Reuters article: OpenAI is working on X-like social media network, the Verge reports Games Carrying Over IRL BBC article: Health bars and power ups: The ‘freaky and unpleasant’ world when video games leak into the physical realm Taylor and Francis Online article: Prevalence and Characteristics of Game Transfer Phenomena: A Descriptive Survey Study Making lexaloffle.com blog post: Picocraft – demake of Warcraft III itch.io Top Rated Games tagged Demake and PICO-8 Wikipedia article: PICO-8 Media The Verge article: Apple’s Mythic Quest has come to an end IMdB: Mythic Quest Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Josiah Farrow on Unsplash Published 14 April 2025 e509 with Michael and Michael – stories and discussion all around AI, LLMs, llamas, generated Quake, grokking, generalization and much more. Michael and Michael get things rolling while Andy is away with a series of AI stories, beginning with Siri, continuing on to the latest iteration of Meta’s Llama 4 models, Scout and Maverick.  Following on the llama theme, Michael R is reminded of the intro credits from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  After reflecting on an AI generated version of Quake, Michael and Michael turn to an article from the MIT Technology Review, which explores how models would all of a sudden be able to complete a task without a clear explanation as to why.  This made Michael M think about a Ted Talk describing how some polyglots acquire languages – check out Lýdia Machová’s talk below for more. The team touches on the latest app from IconFactory called Tapestry.  Tapestry allows users to follow people across a multiplicity of social services, and eliminate duplicate posts.  Then, they consider the AR capabilities of the Zeiss Holographic Transparent Display technology.  Last up, is the Busy Bar, a device to help others know that you are not in an interruptible state.  Check out the bonus links below to find the Rube Goldberg marbles-powered device that influenced the name of the episode. What information would you most like to see in your airplane window?  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 9 to 5 Mac article: Craig Federighi’s leadership has already resulted in this major Siri pivot, per report Visual Studio IDE: AI-assisted development in Visual Studio The Verge article: Meta got caught gaming AI benchmarks Intro Credits from Monty Python and the Holy Grail The Verge article: Microsoft has created an AI-generated version of Quake Wikipedia article: Quake MIT Technology Review article: Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why. arXiv paper: DEEP DOUBLE DESCENT: WHERE BIGGER MODELS AND MORE DATA HURT arXiV paper: UNDERSTANDING DEEP LEARNING REQUIRES RE-THINKING GENERALIZATION Boy Genius Report article: This is the difference between how humans and AI ‘think’ OpenReview: Evaluating the Robustness of Analogical Reasoning in Large Language Models Cool Stuff :tapestry_app: Tapestry 1.1 brings a host of great new features: Follow individual accounts & lists on Bluesky & Mastodon, automatically remove duplicates from the timeline with Crosstalk, and quickly switch your timelines with Tapestry’s redesigned navigation. Learn more about these features plus dozens of other improvements in today's FREE update of Tapestry – Your personal timeline app. https://blog.iconfactory.com/2025/04/tapestry-whats-new-no-deja-vu/ #TapestryApp #Fediverse #OpenWeb — The Iconfactory (@[email protected]) 2025-04-08T15:33:42.712Z Iconfactory blog post: Tapestry: What’s New? No Déjà Vu! Popular Science article: Smart glass windows would beam in-flight info over scenic views Busy Bar Bonus Links: More Cool Stuff  The Verge article: Samsung is finally releasing Ballie The Verge article: You can build these marble runs and connect them to your smart home over Wi-Fi Wikipedia article: Rube Goldberg The Verge article: 22 years later, modders are keeping SimCity 4 alive Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Ben Griffiths on Unsplash Published 7 April 2025 e508 with Michael, Andy and Michael – stories and discussion on AI Conversational Swarm Intelligence, the Pokétax game and numerous Nintendo stories and much more. Michael, Andy and Michael get things started with a story about how large groups, well beyond the research ideal of 4-7 people, may have a simultaneous conversation with one another, sharing and evolving ideas.  Drawing inspiration from how schools of fish communicate with one another, a Carnegie Mellon and unanimous.ai paper illustrates the architecture behind Conversational Swarm Intelligence.  AI agents track groups of 7 humans for novel ideas and pass along those ideas to other groups of humans in order to more quickly propagate the evolution of ideas through an accelerated wisdom of the crowd manner.  Then, the co-hosts turn their attention to the experiences of the Wikimedia Foundation.  They note that there have been huge spikes in bandwidth for serving up multimedia files – not from humans seeking information, rather from scraper bots.   Nothing But Nintendo After an AR segue to look at a slingshot mechanism to change lighting colors (check out the video in the show notes), the team switches (see what we did there?) to all things Nintendo.  A story somehow escaped the Games at Work team back in 2012, when the Louvre museum replaced their audio guides with Nintendo 3DS consoles.  Well, that story is coming to an end, and those 3DS systems will be replaced by something new.  Continuing on the Nintendo theme, the accounting firm Open Ledger has created a game called Pokétax to make filing your taxes fun and exciting with a Pokémon experience.  Then, Andy, Michael and Michael talk about the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2.  Last, the team reminisces about playing Tetris on the Nintendo Game Boy, in discussing an article about how Tetris is a hack for people to get better at their jobs. Wrapping things up for this episode, the team continues the Nintendo theme a little more with 3d printed musical fidget toys that play classic Mario (and other) video game tunes.  Check out that video below for an example. Would you like to play a tax game?  Or maybe a round of Tetris to improve your problem solving?  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 (Basketball IQ and More) VentureBeat article: I asked an AI swarm to fill out a March Madness bracket — here’s what happened ARXiV paper: Large-scale Group Brainstorming using Conversational Swarm Intelligence (CSI) versus Traditional Chat Unanimous.ai  Thinkscape.ai The Register article: Wikipedia’s overlords bemoan AI bot bandwidth burden Rachel Lee Nabors – https://toot.cafe/@rachelnabors  AR / VR (for a 3 point Slingshot) https://techhub.social/@ellenich/114279691712148125 Nothing but Nintendo The Verge article: The Mona Lisa is saying goodbye to the Nintendo 3DS. Games at Work e54: She Blinded Me, With Science! Retrododo article: Accounting Firm Releases ‘Pokétax’ Game To Make Filing Your Tax Fun The Pokétax Challenge Open Ledger Ars Technica article: Nintendo unveils Switch 2 ahead of June 5 launch Nintendo Switch 2 – How to buy  Business Insider article: The Weird New Work Hack Hacking (without fouling) Hackaday article: 3D Print (and Play!) the Super Mario Tune as a Fidget Toy Your eyes are not deceiving you… I got an Apple TV 1st Gen, the only x86 based model (it uses a Pentium M as its CPU) booting Windows XP Service Pack 3! For reals! This was possible through a small security flaw in the Apple TV's firmware and boot process… while the Apple TV looks for a boot.efi file on its boot partition and has it load a Mach-O binary to be able to boot, it doesn't actually care about the actual contents of the file! So by that note, you can wrap a kernel or bootloader from another OS into a Mach-O file and name it mach_kernel, and the Apple TV won't care and will happily boot it! So after this little escapade of cursed computing, you know Linux is next! 😁 More deets are in this video, along with a link to grab a premade disk image from the Internet Archive! https://youtu.be/v2w5MmiRHUo The entire project was done by distrohopper39b, who chronicles his work on the project from beginning to end here: https://youtu.be/YkjrEXtZoWM #HackThePlanet #CursedComputing — The 500 Hats of LambdaCalculus (@[email protected]) 2025-04-03T21:56:27.849Z Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Braedon McLeod on Unsplash Published 31 March 2025 e507 with Michael, Andy and Michael – stories and discussion on AIs training humans, non-serindipious searching, doomed VR gaming, playlist portability and much more. Michael, Andy and Michael get things started with a couple of AI articles dealing with how AI is training humans, and AI search results are impacting serendipity. Michael R points out that search engines used to bring people to you – and now, search engines are summarizing to the point where there’s not a need to bring users to the content. After touching on a few of the Indy games from GDC2025, the cohosts talk about the latest article declaring that VR gaming is doomed. And not Doom – doomed. There are plenty of examples to the contrary, such as Civilization 7. The team discusses the new LEGO Lord of the Rings set for Bilbo Baggins birthday party.  It should be noted that there will be a designer signing event at the London flagship LEGO store at Leicester Square, next Saturday, 5 April for anyone who happens to be in town. For the last main topic of this episode, the co-hosts unpack some stories on music sharing and playlist portability.  First up is Napster, and the news that it will enable concerts in the metaverse.  Andy noted that in 506 episodes, we have not ever brought up Napster (or at least tagged or put in the show notes).   Last, the team discusses a couple of methods for moving your playlist from one streaming service to another. Is your search history an accurate representation of you?  Would you go to a concert in Napster?  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 The New Yorker article: Your A.I. Lover Will Change You IMDb: Her Wikipedia article: Replicas https://replika.com Paul Stamatiou blog: Browse No More Ask Jeeves GDC, Games, and VR The Verge article: 7 cool indie games from GDC 2025 IMDb: Everything Everywhere All at Once The Verge article: MainFrames is a charming platformer that takes place inside computers Retrododo article: Prince Of Prussia Is A Free To Play Tribute To Wolfenstein & Jordan Mechner’s Prince Of Persia PC World article: Game developers are losing faith in VR as a gaming market Joseph Simpson, VisionPro blogger on Mastodon Civilization VII VR coming in Spring 2025 announcement LEGO Slashfilm article: New Lord Of The Rings LEGO Set Builds A Brick Version Of The Shire (And The Dragon Firework) Brickfanatics article: LEGO Icons The Shire designer signing event re-confirmed Music Ars Technica article: Napster to become a music-marketing metaverse firm after being sold for $207M Wikipedia article: Napster Obdura’s Playlisty Games at Work e357: Real Reality, or Something for music portability Last.FM Track My Music by scrobbling  Andy on Fireside Fedi Fireside Fedi e7: Andy Piper – Mastodon (audio version) Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

screen capture of a presentation agenda with a photo of a painting of a mountain Published 23 March 2025 e506 with Andy and Michael M – stories and discussion on the attention economy, focus, pirated data used in training LLMs, snarky software and much more. Andy and Michael M get things rolling with an intriguing article dealing with focus and attention.  Part of their reaction was that there are so many competing sources for attention.  And that the pressure to respond with speed to these competing sources compounds the challenge.  The conversation reminded Michael of a memo that Steve Jobs wrote to his team at NeXT 39 years ago imploring them to have time of uninterrupted individual work.  Check that out in the show notes below.  Michael and Andy give a couple examples of what they suggest to bring balance and creativity back to the fore. Continuing on to the advances made with large language models, Andy and Michael take up the discussion on the data needed to train the LLMs.  The Atlantic article on the use of pirated books to train AI also includes LibGen, their search tool The Atlantic created for their analysis of the Library Genesis data set.  This subject has cropped up in earlier episodes – such as the discussion on the Sarah Silverman example.  Next, the team turns to an AI coding assistant named Cursor.  After a developer had spent an hour of vibe coding with Cursor, the AI reportedly gave feedback to the developer that he should complete the work himself to ensure he understands the logic and can maintain the code.  Computer applications with snark are nothing new – take Carrot Weather or the Talking Moose for example.  Cursor’s reply echos practically every geometry teacher who insists that going through the mathematical proof is crucial to understanding why A^2 + B^2 = C^2 is true.  Not necessarily a bad idea, yet surprisingly comes from an AI assistant.   After a surprising article about speed runner successes on aging and accelerating Super Nintendo hardware, Andy and Michael reflect on games embedded inside of other games from a How to Geek article.  This appeals greatly to Andy’s love of game preservation, and strikes Michael’s fancy for how art echos through the years, sharing a prior incarnation of this topic with paintings having paintings in them. Then, a story about the LEGO x Pokémon teaser.  The team wraps up this episode with a couple of stories about the challenges indy software developers face. What suggestions and techniques do you have for recapturing your time and attention?  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 Attention Economy Wikipedia article: Daylight Savings Time ploum.net blog post: A Society That Lost Focus Games at Work e67: Free Bitcoins! for the attention economy Wikipedia article: Battle Chess Edward Tufte AI The Atlantic article: The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem The Atlantic article: Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI Games at Work e443: In the Stone for the Sarah Silverman discussion Wired article: An AI Coding Assistant Refused to Write Code—and Suggested the User Learn to Do It Himself Cursor Games 404 Media article: Super Nintendo Hardware Is Running Faster as It Ages How to Geek article: These 15 Games Have Other Games Hidden Inside Them Daily Art Magazine article: Paintings Within Paintings: Time to Go Meta in the Art World The Verge article: This watch has Pong and Missile Command instead of apps Ars Technica article: Sobering revenue stats of 70K mobile apps show why devs beg for subscriptions Gamesradar article: “Valve knows it, I know it, and you need to know it”: Steam expert tells indie devs to “give away” demos, because actually playing a game beats all other marketing LEGO Oh hello, what do we have here? 👀 #pokemon #lego #leakhttps://retrododo.com/pokemon-lego-set-reportedly-leaked-by-lego-mexico/ — Daniel (@[email protected]) 2025-03-18T14:16:13.486Z Retrododo article: Pokémon LEGO Set Reportedly Leaked By LEGO Mexico Lego Germany Pokémon  Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Max Böhme on Unsplash Published 17 March 2025 e505 with Michael and Michael – stories and discussion on AI technical & security challenges, a Metallica augmented concert, Dungeons & Dragons and much more. Michael and Michael get things started off while Andy is away with a discussion on the security challenges and technical complexity for AI implementations for Siri and in upscaling video.  They then turn to another set of AI game generation and playing experiences using Pac-Man and Super Mario Bros.  There have been many such stories in the past years where the level of AI sophistication has been tested by either developing game code or leveraging machine learning to play a game.   Moving into the augmented experience world, Michael R gives his firsthand impressions of the new Apple Vision Pro Metallica immersive concert. He was very impressed – listen into the episode for the specific vignettes that were most intriguing to him.  This spurred a conversation between Michael and Michael about ways to potentially interact with such immersive experiences in the style that the 1983 game Dragon’s Lair used to highlight choices for the player.  Take a look at the YouTube video below for this game mechanic.  In another story, Lowe’s Home Improvement is using the Apple Vision Pro to help you visualize your kitchen design.  This also reminds the co-hosts of similar experiences from Ikea. The team then heads over to the Pokemon Go Gym to exercise the story the recent sale by Niantic of the game (and the game’s data) to Scopely.  Michael and Michael imagine how in-game rewards could generate immensely valuable (near) real time location data collection.  Last, the team wraps up with a couple of Dungeons and Dragons stories – one on the tabletop augmented experience and another on a colossal D20. How would you like to experience a concert or sporting event from the comfort of your living room?  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 9 to 5 Mac article: Apple commenter John Gruber launches blistering attack on ‘rotten’ Apple over Siri vaporware Vice article: Netflix Used AI to Upscale ‘A Different World’ and It’s a Melted Nightmare The Guardian article: ‘A lot worse than expected’: AI Pac-Man clones, reviewed Pac-Man history Games at Work e504: Can you Digg It? for fly.pieter.com  Boy Genius Report article: Claude-3.7 outperforms other AI in Super Mario Bros, but it’s still no gamer Super Mario Bros history Games at Work e225: Ah-ha, it’s AI! for AI playing Q*Bert AR MacStories article: Metallica Is Coming to the Apple Vision Pro Wikipedia article: Dragon’s Lair 9 to 5 Mac article: Apple Vision Pro demos expanding to new Lowe’s stores Games at Work e336: Pancaking Robots for Pancake “furniture as a service” and Ikea Apple App Store: Magic Room: LiDAR Environment AR / VR Games TechCrunch article: Pokémon GO maker Niantic is selling its games division to Scopely for $3.5B 404 Media article: Saudi Arabia Buys Pokémon Go, and Probably All of Your Location Data Games at Work e503: Death Watch for Scaniverse Polygon article: After years in development, D&D’s Unreal-powered virtual tabletop still feels off Hello Mastodon! I'm a power engineer who is trying out solo game development and on the way to release Power Network Tycoon – a game where you build and manage your own electrical grid with real physics simulation. If you've ever wondered how power systems actually work (or why they fail), this might be your jam. I built it to be technically accurate while still being fun. To say it's been a challenge is an understatement https://store.steampowered.com/app/2429930/Power_Network_Tycoon/ #GameDev #IndieGame #Simulation #Gaming #Energy — David Made This (@[email protected]) 2025-03-10T17:11:40.896Z Tindie post: Massive Light Up D20 Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash Published 10 March 2025 e504 with Andy, Michael and Michael – stories and discussion on #vibecoding #AI, #biocomputing,  #philosophy, #Digg, #MWC25, #LaserRot and much more. Michael, Andy and Michael get things started off with a 404 Media story about creating software with AI, specifically focusing on Pieter Levels’ “vibe coding” methodology.  Levels created a flight simulator game using AI and per the article, this free to play game is bringing in a very healthy income from in-game advertising and purchases. Next up, is a story about a company called Cortical Labs who offer the CL1, which they describe as “the world’s first code deployable biological computer”.  Amazingly, Cortical Labs also offer a biological cloud service.  This reminds Michael R of his experiences in the biocomputing space, and Michael M of the Swiss startup FinalSpark. Then the team turns to the discussion of whether a large language model can produce philosophical and ethical output sparked by an article entitled “The questions that ChatGPT shouldn’t answer”.   An article on a new version of Monopoly which features a mobile app to handle the banking tasks gets the three co-hosts energized. After the Monopoly discussion, the team turns to the reboot of Digg – something that inspired the creation of Dogear Nation, the precursor to the Games At Work podcast.   Wrapping up this episode is a discussion of exoskeletons, a quick fly over of some of the technology introduced at Mobile World Congress 2025, and a conversation on Warner Brothers DVDs with laser rot showing that even if you have physical media, it is not immune to degradation. What you would like to “vibe code”?  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 404 Media article: This Game Created by AI ‘Vibe Coding’ Makes $50,000 a Month. Yours Probably Won’t fly.Pieter.com  Wikipedia entry: Vibe coding slither.io  Solterra Guardians MIT’s Scratch This is… uhh… deeply disturbing, tbh. https://newatlas.com/brain/cortical-bioengineered-intelligence/ More: https://corticallabs.com/cl1.html — Sean Heber (@[email protected]) 2025-03-04T17:01:25.421Z New Atlas article: World’s first “Synthetic Biological Intelligence” runs on living human cells Cortical Labs’ CL1 Games at Work e470: Two Marvelous Mini Brains for biocomputing Science Alert article: Swiss Startup Connects 16 Human Mini-Brains to Create Low Energy ‘Biocomputer’ FinalSpark Neuroplatform The Verge article: The questions ChatGPT shouldn’t answer IMdB: The Good Place Simon & Schuster book: How to Be Perfect by Michael Schur Monopoly The Verge article: A new version of Monopoly replaces cash and math with a mobile app Wikipedia article: Lizzie Magie The Guardian article: The secret history of Monopoly: the capitalist board game’s leftwing origins Games at Work e195: Augmented Audio for Monopoly City Streets and Digg Reader ABC News article: Monopoly City Streets Launches on Google (2009) Can You Digg It? Yes, I can! The Verge article: Digg is coming back, thanks to its founder — and Reddit’s Digg TechCrunch article: Alas, Digg Reader is shutting down at the end of March (2018) Mobility Tech and DVD Laser Rot The Verge article: I wore a one-horsepower exoskeleton to the world’s biggest tech show Games at Work e241: Smarty Pants for exoskeletons and smart shorts MIT Technology Review article: These bionic shorts help turn an epic hike into a leisurely stroll (2019) Wired article: The Weird and Wacky Gadgets We Saw at MWC 2025 Mobile World Congress catchpad.com  Wikipedia article: Simon  JoBlo article: Hundreds of your Warner Bros DVDs probably don’t work anymore; updated with response from WB Web 11.0 mashup junkie, and co-founder / co-host of the GamesAtWork.biz podcast. My views are my own. Michael Martine