E496 – The Starting Square

Games At Work dot Biz

Photo by Benjamin Bousquet on Unsplash

Andy and Michael R are checking out the upcoming FOSDEM 2025 conference (Free and Open Source Developers European Meeting). This got them thinking about Episode 494 – License to Brick, where they talked about how the makers of the Moxie emotional support toy for kids were shutting down. But guess what? The CEO decided to let a team of developers create an Open Source version of the server and make it available for everyone!

After both of our hosts find the same Toot on Mastodon, about how a town in Poland is using Clams to monitor their water supply. While the story is not new, there is a very interesting documentary available for free on Youtube. This discussion takes us into the world of home automation and brilliant example – Operation Toilet!

A quick pivot takes us to a tool that has been created to allow Open Street Map data to generate MineCraft worlds. Perhaps this new world could be used to test out the new VR glasses that scientists have created for mice. Andy and Michael spend time enjoying the sentences in the article, as it appears that there may be a whole industry of “standard mouse VR”. Is this really common? Really?

We wrap up the show with a few preannouncements from LG for the upcoming CES. It appears that they will continue to add more and more screens in the house. We are sure the main use case is for new ads. We can’t wait to see what else is announced as CES.

Show Links

Moxie works on open sourcing their servers – https://www.techdirt.com/2024/12/30/embodied-is-actually-trying-to-release-moxie-robots-to-the-open-source-community/

Poland city uses 8 clams to secure their water supply – https://hear-me.social/@tylerknowsnothing/113743591435484939

Generate MineCraft Replicas based on Open Street Map – https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/minecraft-tool-lets-you-create-scale-replicas-of-real-world-locations-arnis-uses-geospatial-data-from-openstreetmap-to-generate-minecraft-maps

VR Goggles for Mice – https://gizmodo.com/scientists-built-tiny-vr-goggles-for-mice-2000543775

LG Announces microwave with 27 inch screen – https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/30/24331994/lg-microwave-27-inch-display-speakers

LG Announces new monitors for gaming – https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/29/24331748/lg-ultragear-gx9-bendable-oled-5k2k-monitors-specs

Our friend Roo’s Connected Fridge Tumblr – https://www.tumblr.com/fuckyeahinternetfridge