Games At Work dot Biz

Photo by Dwayne joe on Unsplash e574 with Andy and Michael M: from the Aina smart ring to the One ring, MCP architecture, Jellyfish Skills and a whole lot more!  Andy and Michael start things off with the Aina smart ring and end with the One ring with some intriguing stories in between.  The newly announced Aina ring relieves the user of the burden of opening up their phone to approve agentic actions through a combination of screen notifications, voice commands and an integrated joystick in the ring.  It seems that this may be a temporal / temporary benefit, while humans get used to agents acting on their behalf more and more.   Next up is an intriguing build your own Apple Vision Pro experience using older iPhone hardware and iOS capabilities such as AR Kit along with a 3D printed housing to hold the phone and cameras to your face.  This is reminiscent of the Google Cardboard setup, and the capabilities of the hardware and software is now such that Brenpoly could make a phone accomplish a great deal.  Michael noted that if you use mobile spotlight in iOS 27.2 to search on “Find”, iOS will return several cool features of Magnifier to identify objects around you. Sticking with the hacking and temporal themes, there is a superb story of perseverance of a 2014 Renault Latitude owner named Rasmus Moorats wishing to change the car’s clock to wintertime, and the steps he took to accomplish this task.  Check out the detailed blog post below and you too will marvel at what he did. Switching gears to agentic software architecture, Michael and Andy take a look at an agenticthinking.ai post about the headless design pattern enabled by MCP.  This spurs a discussion on Service Oriented Architecture, BPEL, WSDL and Enterprise Service Busses.  The MCP integration point can enable any “head” to call upon the services – whether though a chat experience with Claude/Gemini/ChatGPT, through a bespoke application or partner applications, allowing for maximum flexibility and personalization for the user.  Michael also notes that this is an enabling function for what he has called #JellyfishSkills – which allows an individual to see connections between disparate functionality and go deep by calling the services exposed by the MCP in a just in time manner. Andy and Michael wrap up the episode with the exciting trailer for the next installment of The Rings of Power – which is set to release on 11 November 2026 – that’s this week! What is an example of your persistence to achieve a technical outcome?  What did you do, and why did you do it that way?  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 Mobile Computing TechCrunch article: Aina’s smart ring has a screen, a joystick, and a mic so you can talk to AI agents https://www.aina.com hackster.io article: Can $5 Get You an Apple Vision Pro Alternative? Google Cardboard Apple iPhone User Guide: Detect doors, people, and furniture around you using Magnifier on iPhone Rasmus Moorats blog.nns.ee blog post: Jailbreaking my car’s navigation system just so I can change the time The Verge article: The Xbox Nano has a hidden cloud secret Games at Work e386: Too Many Brits (for discussion on the shut down of Stadia)  Architectural Thinking agenticthinking.ai blog post: Headless AI: Every App is a Head Wikipedia article: Service-oriented architecture (SOA) w3.org Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Wikipedia article: Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) LinkedIn blog post by Michael M: #JellyfishSkills Completing the Ring cycle

Photo by Robert Arnar on Unsplash Published 2 November 2026 e573 with Michael M and Andy:  stories about Ikea’s Wall of Sound, LEGO’s collab with Daft Punk, decomp and recomp retro games, persuasive games and a whole lot more!  Andy and Michael start things off in a Swedish way, celebrating the fact that Andy was in Sweden just last week, is sporting the blue and yellow colors of the flag, and lean right into the first story from Ikea, whose bluetooth KALLSUP speakers have a feature to link up with one another.  If you want to create a wall of sound with up to 150 of these cubes, you could do so.   The cohosts then shift to the “first computer-generated TV presenter” from 1985: Max Headroom.  You can experience this over at headroom.channel.  Michael accidentally nerd snipes Andy into downloading the Veilamp visualizer.   Then, the team turns to LEGO (as they frequently do) and talk about the collaboration between LEGO and Daft Punk™.  There is a newly approved LEGO Ideas fan creation for a Daft Punk concert, which also sparks an illuminating conversation on the third party light kits available for many of the LEGO builds. After taking a quick look at the Overgrown browser extension, Andy and Michael turn to the decompilation/recompilation story from the Verge.  With the team’s interest in long term preservation of games – Andy points out that there are specific bugs and behavior that are in the game precisely because of the then-prevalent hardware capabilities.  And is the game the same game, if you “fix” these problems in a new recompiled version of the retro code?  Michael makes a link between these kinds of retro game preservation to business process differentiation while updating to the current level on ERP or other business software.  Then, the cohosts take a look at Permit Pending – a SimCity style building game with a twist.  The twist deals with the player as mayor of the city dealing with all of the zoning, eminent domain, filing fees and more that are all part of construction and development.   Wrapping up the episode, Andy and Michael look at the Tiny Computers app – which is an excellent example to prove the point they both made earlier.  Does the preservation of software through decomp/recomp a net good even if it changes some of the gameplay restrictions from the hardware?  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 Music Wired article: We Linked 150 of Ikea’s $10 Speakers to Make a Wall of Sound Ikea’s KALLSUP speaker Wikipedia article: Wall of Sound benbrown.com post: Headroom.Channel https://headroom.channel Wikipedia article: Max Headroom Veilamp kottke.org post: Short video teasing a new collab between Daft Punk and Lego Wallpaper article: Lego gets lucky with its latest creative collaboration, a long-term link with Daft Punk LEGO Ideas post: Exciting update on the DAFT PUNK™ Concert submission! https://daftpunk.com Computers / Data CharlieGerard.dev post: Overgrown, when plants invade your abandoned tabs GitHub: charliegerard / Overgrown The Verge article: Retro gaming is being overrun with AI Games at Work e562: Field Notes (for Pigs in Space game for the EMF Camp badge) Games at Work e292: Elite British Gaming (for Mark Moxon’s work & documentation for Elite) Complete BBC Micro Games Archive: Great Britain Ltd conduct.ai  Permit Pending Persuasive Games: Jetset: A Game for Airports Games at Work e26: Business Process Management and Immortality (for process decomposition through games) The Verge article: This open-source project lets you sync Withings data to other apps without a subscription Kottke post: The Tiny Computers app lets you play with old computers on the iPhone Duo Tiny Computers Wikipedia article: EMate_300

A fun discussion of gaming with special guest Ian “epredator” Hughes - retired tech luminary.

Photo by Nigel Hoare on Unsplash Published 12 October 2026 e571 with Andy and Michael R: lots of bricks and blocks (LEGO, and Minecraft), podracing, and random typefaces. We kick off with a look at the just-announced LEGO Marvel City Skyline set (due January 2027). Andy wants it for his home office shelf. Next, a discussion of Apple’s “Welcome Home” event and the rumoured hook-up with the privacy disaster that is LG Electronics. One man has built a gigantic city in Minecraft, after years coaching in the NFL. Well, that’s one retirement plan! Another idea might be to prompt your next game into life using Google Playground (it’s a playground, not a graveyard – yet). Both Michael and Andy get a little bit excited about the new Star Wars Galactic Racers game, bringing podracing to a new generation, and even streamed via a browser in Amazon’s Luna platform. Finally, Michael gets freaked out by a monospaced font that MOVES. What game would you prompt into life? 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 Marvel LEGO: https://www.slashfilm.com/2281558/lego-marvel-universe-city-skyline-set/ Apple comes home: https://sixcolors.com/link/2026/10/apple-sets-homecoming-for-oc NFL Minecrafting: https://onefoottsunami.com/2026/10/08/mike-tomlin-has-been-minecrafting/ Google games (and it’s not Stadia) https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/ai/playground-experimental-gaming-platform/ Podracers: https://kotaku.com/star-wars-galactic-racer-is-out-today-and-amazon-prime-members-can-check-it-out-for-free-2000740982 and https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/1002887/star-wars-galactic-racer-review Rando Mono by Beau: https://beau.land/rando_mono/

Photo by Michael Martine, Georgia Aquarium, Atlanta, Georgia April 2018 Published 5 October 2026 e570 with Andy and Michael R: stories about AI brain for fish, crowdsourced fishing for map updates, inebriated AI, virtual Brutalism architecture, a Minecraft themed hotel and a whole lot more! Have you ever heard the phrase “fish for brains”?  Well in this episode, Michael R and Andy start things of for what kind of AI model is needed to be the brain for fish.  Pocket Tank is a tiny, yet sophisticated AI model for how fish interact in the smallest of fish tanks.  Andy shares a game about digging a hole which reminded Michael M (while crafting the show notes) of the Wind Rose Diggy Diggy Hole song – which will nicely connect to the Minecraft hotel discussion at the end of the episode. A longtime focus of this podcast is maps, mapping and improving them, going all the way back to the very first episode of Games at Work.  A superb example of this is StreetComplete, which is on android, and newly available via TestFlight for iOS which allows the user to contribute to OpenStreetMap in a gamified, quest driven way, such as detailing the kind of pedestrian crossings are available at a particular intersection.  A Sony Walkman skeuomorphic user experience takes advantage of the new iPhone Duo folding screen to replicate opening up the Walkman and inserting a cassette tape.  Check out other examples of what Bitrig is envisioning with the iPhone Duo’s multiple screens. Michael and Andy both express their appreciation for an impressive full desk set up to charge a qi device wherever the device is placed on the desk.  If you are looking for something to buy right now, check out the (no affiliates link) Wirecutter collection below. Minecraft hotel in Chessington is being crafted / constructed, which will have a potions bar in addition to themed guest rooms.  Have to wonder if they will provide the ability of guests to come dig a hole either virtually or on the premises! Could Dou-Man be the “killer app” for the new iPhone Duo?  What do you think the killer app will 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 A Plethora of Posts Stratobuilds article: Pocket Tank: A Tiny AI Fish Tank Wikipedia article: Tamagotchi Wikipedia article: Little Computer People Games at Work e366: MetaMoney (for Little Computer People discussion) Gaming on Linux article: A Game About Digging A Hole Together announced Maps & Mapping Kottke post: Map of the Lighthouses of the World StreetComplete OpenStreetMap Hacker News post: StreetComplete on iOS is now in public beta Games at Work e00001: Wouldn’t You Like to Be a Mayor Too? (For gamified mapping with Waze) More Treasures from the Internet The Verge article: Amazon’s delivery driver smart glasses will reportedly take photos ‘almost constantly’ 9 to 5 Mac article: Duo-Man turns your 2026 iPhone Duo into a 1980s Sony Walkman https://viditb.com Bitrig post: Bitrig Now Builds iPhone Duo Apps RE: https://circumstances.run/@davidgerard/117356555017512210 Congrats on inventing Drunk Clippy. — Kevin Beaumont (@[email protected])2026-09-29T21:59:41.627Z Well — this is awesome! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvLWuK2TU-w&feature=youtu.be #DIY #desk #charging #phone #ideas — Benjamin Han (@[email protected])2026-09-28T01:47:09.526Z https://www.youtube.com/@HTXStudio Wirecutter article (updated September 23, 2026): The Best Apple Wireless Charging Stations for Multiple Devices The Guardian article: World’s first Minecraft hotel to open in the UK – here’s what we know so far Tiny Brutalism