Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

as cool as the cool side of the pillow quantified self bed, monetizing location data streams of people & things, metaverse & Avatar sequels, Cybertruck & CyberLandr, LEGO AT-AT, Nioh & Neo.

Andy, Michael and Michael join forces to cover a wide range of technology stories in this episode.  After Michael M gives a quick recommendation of Always On by Rory Cellan-Jones, the team jumps on a story about Eightsleep’s quantified self bed.  Then they discuss Life360’s acquisition of Tile, and what that means for joining (and monetizing) data streams of both people and things.  

Next up are a few upcoming games, leading off with the Dune: Spice Wars title.  Michael R shares how he loves this particular style of game with it’s strategy and tech trees.  Michael M brings up Nioh 2, and Andy shares how the 120fps of Pokemon Go from Niantic is incredible.  

Then, the co-hosts consider an article outlining how 160+ companies are creating the metaverse.  A few usual suspects top the list – Epic, Niantic, Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook/Meta and one new name makes the top group: Decentraland.  This leads directly to the most recent rumors about the Apple AR/VR headset, with some intriguing specifics about the yet-to-be-announced product.  

Then an announced (and very expensive, but not yet available) product enhancement for the not-yet-available Tesla Cybertruck takes center stage.  The co-hosts react to the $500,000 price tag for the CyberLandr from the article, however, from the CyberLandr website, the preorder price is quoted at only $49,995.  The CyberLandr helpfully points out that the Tesla Cybertruck is not included in that price.  

The $800 LEGO Star Wars AT-AT also garners the team’s attention with a report that some builders experienced difficulties in deconstructing the build.  LEGO has responded to the Vice article with instructions on how to disassemble the legs from the body of the AT-AT.  Details are in the Brickfanatics link in the show notes below.  Alternatively, a LEGO Snowspeeder, its tow hook and Luke minifig may be used to facilitate the disassembly.  😉 

Wrapping up this week’s episode are a couple of stories about classic sci-fi tales getting additional attention: Avatar & Matrix Revolution.  Fun that this episode had stories about Dune and Star Wars as well.  

What would you want to measure (or not measure!) for your quantified self?  Have you put a deposit down on the Cybertruck and the CyberLandr?  Let us know over at @gamesatwork_biz ! 

Thanks for listening!

Selected Links

Always On by Rory Cellan-Jones — https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/always-on-9781472981196/ 

Fast Company article:  https://www.fastcompany.com/90694470/the-3000-bed-everyone-in-silicon-valley-is-raving-about 

EightSleep — https://www.eightsleep.com 

The Verge article: Life360 makes millions selling location data,