Citizens of Tech 009 – Robotic Conservation Game Unicorns

Captain’s log: Stardate 68927.1 We have made contact with a strange subset of the species homo sapiens. They seem to be consumed with all things technological. At first we feared that they were a newly assimilated unit of the Borg collective. Thankfully we’ve determined that is not the case — they are simply Citizens of Tech! Today on the show: unicorns watching your every move, reducing your electricity consumption, bikes, E3 bombshells, tiny robotic lassos and more. So buckle into your Aluminum Falcon and prepare to jump to hyper-speed as we dive into this week’s edition of Citizens of Tech! Present Unicorns – New Livestream App Lets Strangers Watch You Use Your Phone http://www.wired.com/2015/06/unicorns-app/ * Called Unicorns * Seriously * Intended audience is developers, game demos / walkthroughs / “let’s play” / anyone that needs to give a presentation of an app on a phone. * Accidental “overshare” of information is a big concern. PINs, email contents / contacts / etc. * “Think about what Twitch did for games that nobody seemingly thought others would watch,” says Owen Williams, who writes for The Next Web. * Ethan’s notes. * Periscope lets you livecast from your phone. Seems to have lots of buzz with the young people. * Perch.co lets you use your tablet as a remote window into coworkers’ spaces. Helpful for distributed companies. Saving Electricity * From a high over 40Kwh per day to under 20Kwh per day * LED Bulbs * Conservative light usage (natural light FTW) * Lowered timer for landscape lighting * Monitors from 3 to 1 * Shut down equipment in lab rack * Cut back on laundry loads * Cut back on dishwasher loads, set to “smart wash” setting with no heated drying * Removed small refrigerator that was seeing little use * Hard to cut back * Electric stove * Next steps * More equipment shut downs in rack * Reviewing everything that’s plugged in (the tiny electrical thieves) * Cutting back on dryer use Adjusting a bicycle front derailleur: 4 tweaks * Barrel adjustor * Cable tension * Upper limit screw * Lower limit screw Big Announcements from the E3 Conference: * XBox One backward compatibility with Xbox 360 (Via emulation) !! * Microsoft Hololens; Halo and Minecraft * Hololens is *not* Oculus or HTC Vive – Not “VR” * Hololens *is* “AR” – augmented reality * New Doom * Star Wars: Battlefront * Gears of War 4 * Mass Effect: Andromeda – 2016 * Mirror’s Edge – 2016 (2008 Original – 8 years later) * Dark Souls 3 * Fallout 4 – Boston!! * Just Cause 3 * Kingdom Hearts 3 * Final Fantasy 7 Remake: 18 Years later (Wow, that makes me feel old!) * The Last Guardian: Part 3 of the Trilogy – Ico (2001), Shadow of the Colossus (2006) Deathwatch * Goodbye, ello. TIL TIL the inventor of the heart stent approached numerous companies for funding and was rejected. It was funded by the owner of Fuddrucker’s, whom he met by chance on a golf course. Past The Computer History Museum 1401 N Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94043 http://www.computerhistory.org/exhibits/ Future Tiny Robotic Tentacles Can Lasso An Ant http://www.popularmechanics.