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 @gamesatwork_biz@mastodon.social (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.
The weekly conversation hosted by Michael Rowe, Michael Martine, and Andy Piper, Games At Work dot Biz, explores the intersection where our digital play and professional lives collide. This isn't just a review show; it's a deep dive into the technology that powers our hobbies, the business behind the leisure, and the cultural news shaping both worlds. Each episode feels like pulling up a chair with three friends who are as passionate about the craft of game development and the evolution of hardware as they are about the pure joy of finding a great new title. You'll hear specific discussions on everything from the latest graphics card impacting performance to the narrative design of an indie darling, all filtered through the lens of professionals who live in the tech space. The Games At Work dot Biz podcast operates on the belief that the games we play and the tools we use are inextricably linked, offering listeners a consistently thoughtful and engaging analysis that goes far beyond a simple score. Tune in for a regular dose of insightful commentary where the serious business of technology meets the serious fun of games.
Author: Michael Rowe, Michael Martine, Andy Piper
Language: en-us
Episodes: 50
Photo from the International Space Station 1 April 2026 of the exhaust plume from Artemis II in Earth’s atmosphere – NASA ID: iss074e0431736 Published 20 April 2026 e551 with Michael, Michael and Andy – a tour of the Atm…
Mashup of photo by Victor Serban on Unsplash & images-assets.nasa.gov/image/art002e009287/art002e009287~orig.jpg Published 13 April 2026 e550 with Michael, Andy and Michael – celebrating Moon Joy with the Artemis II crew…
NASA photo art002e009057, 4 April 2026 Published 6 April 2026 e549 with Andy, Michael and Michael – boldly go into a deep set of space discussions featuring Artemis II, ways to keep track of the historic flight, COTS sof…
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 w…
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…
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 playlis…
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 ga…
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 hap…
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, artist…
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 dwell…
