Brilliantly Bad Weekend Edition

AI tarot cards, legalese lullaby, a truly "dynamic" display, caffeinated gamer chow and more!

Sep 17, 2023

1. Latest job taken by AI: tarot card reader

Self-gazer uses AI for tarot card cartomancy (card-based fortune-telling). An AI “randomization engine” shuffles and deals. I asked it, “Why is AI necessary to do tarot card readings?” and it gave a pretty good answer: “AI-generated interpretations and imagination exercises should be seen as complementary to your own insights and approached with discernment. True knowledge lies within your intuition.” In other words, tarot card readings are random and AI randomizes.

2. Fall asleep to Instagram’s Terms of Service

Terms of Service for Legal Lullabies is a white noise service that helps you sleep. The white noise is Instagram’s Terms of Service read by a boring voice. Drift away to the soothing sounds of your privacy drifting away!

3. This PC display can feel, move and manipulate objects

Eggheads in Germany and the United States collaborated on a new kind of computer display. Created by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and the University of Colorado, the 3D Haptic Display is targeted at both consumer and healthcare markets. The horizontal surface of the display shifts and roils and changes not only to provide tactical feedback, but also actually manipulate objects placed upon it. It can shake a beaker of fluid (or a cocktail shaker), roll a ball around in a controlled way on the surface or spell out text in a moving ticker based entirely on actuators beneath the rubbery surface and it’s own sense of touch. The current prototype is based on a 10-by-10 grid of individual cellular units, each with soft actuators and sensors and supporting electronics.

4. Caffeinated gamer chow. Why, Japan? Why?

Japan’s Nissin releases tomorrow a new food line called “Gamer,” which includes caffeinated cup noodle products. It’s sauce, not soup, so gamers don’t splash on their peripherals.

5. Why settle for one laptop screen when you can have four!

Quanvizo Extend Pro is a modular extender system for adding one, two or three additional monitors to supplement your built-in MacOS, Windows or Linux laptop screen. It works via a clamp-on bracket mount that secures to the back of your laptop. Once attached, you can clip on and plug in additional monitors as “needed.” The product’s kickstarter boasts: “Whether you're in a café, on a flight, or at a conference, transitioning from a compact setup to a broad workspace (and vice versa) is achievable in a swift 15 seconds.” Whoa — “on a flight”? As a frequent flier myself, I don’t recommend going “quad” with all four screens while in the center seat in coach (unless out of revenge for seatmates hogging the armrests).