N:OW Monday, September 28, 2026
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This week we take you on a glorious, high-voltage trip through our very own  multiverse ! Enjoy the whole show, or pick a clip from this episode’s playlist.
We sit down with long-time cyber-pioneers Greg Panos and Richard Cray to reminisce about the wild, wild west of early multimedia.. Not just 8mm, we’re talking ancient Waldo facial motion capture contraptions glued onto your cheeks like mechanical leeches to drive giant Silicon Graphics workstations, and crashing a surreal 1993 SIGGRAPH party at the Nixon Museum and Birthplace, sponsored by Lucasfilm and Industrial Light and Magic! It’s a hyper-energetic reunion tracing the hysterical evolution from retro online virtual reality worlds like The Palace and Active Worlds right up to today’s bleeding-edge world-crafting tools, such as Genie, whole 3D  world building, built from  simply prompts..
And hold onto your earbuds, because we now jump straight into full-blown sci-fi reality overdrive! Greg demonstrates real-time face-swapping with AI tools like Decart Lucy 2.5, instantly turning a regular webcam into a Hollywood VFX studio where you can magically transform yourself into Albert Einstein with rubber duckies in a bathtub! Gregory is happy to demo this to us in realtime on the show, clearly showing some serious ‘writing on the wall’ when it comes to the future of online interactions!
We next zoom through an immersive VR theater,  LA’s new futuristic DataLand museum, complete with biometric wristbands and scent collars, allowing you to smell the anura of the wild Amazon..  Greg shares his  dream of building digital twin avatars so your stories can live on for your great-great-grand-nieces! Between jokes about robot girlfriends, multiverse quantum doorways, and doing jigsaw puzzles to reclaim human sanity, it’s a funny, brilliant reminder that even with super-intelligent machines, soulful human  connections are the gold standard for accepting any future world that may come our way.  Enjoy!

E 77 
Live from Maui with Richard Cray, Man of la Mancha, Greg Panos with the latest in AI music and Avatars, Ed Ellsworth and the Maui Fires, Jerry Isdale on Island tech and the arts 
This week we broadcast from Maui with a wonderful selection of friends who clue us in to what’s happening in this Hawaiian paradise.  It’s been a year since the horrible Lahaina fires and recovery has been slow and agonizing to many.  Ed Ellsworth gives us an update on that situation.  To help recover the Aloha spirit of the island, the Maui Arts and Cultural Center in partnership with The Makana Aloha Foundation and County of Maui Office of Economic Development, sponsored a professional production of the famous Broadway play, Man of la Mancha, starring former Broadway actor/singer Richard Cray, and  Hawaii music legend,  Amy Hānaialiʻi Gilliom.  Richard is a big fan of our podcast and we interview him about his epic role of Don Quixote, and the play’s ability to lift the spirits of all who see it.  His partner, Greg Panos, shares with us some of the innovations he sees in the use of virtual and augmented reality and AI music and visuals in enhancing a production’s impact.  
Maui maker faire creator Jerry Isdale joins us to share info on Maui arts and tech projects currently underway, his latest works involving dancers, and an update on the formidable looking high tech installations at the top of the local volcano, Haleakalā.  Enjoy!
Episode 77 Show Links August 27, 2024
 

E 71
Mars Popcorn, Assange Freed, Augmented World Expo Report, Virtual Mother, War Politics and Tech, Birds-cows-poultry virus, Noise and Judgments, General World Modeling
Something for everybody this week, from Mars popcorn, Assange’s freedom, a great report on what was happening at the Augmented World Expo in Long Beach with Nick Venden and Greg Panos, who blew away the conference by an introduction to his virtual immortality talk made by his deceased mother in virtual form!   We discuss the defense tech of Lucky Palmer, a celebrity in the XR universe, and its implications.  Greg demonstrates the power of Udio in making a lyrical song on the spot about Julian Assange’s release and Dr. Dan gives us an update on the Covid virus. Plus, we start with a pre-roll of stories before the show even begins.. Enjoy!
Episode 71 Show Links June 25, 2024