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 @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.
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
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
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