About this episode
Photo by Michael Martine, Chapel Hill, NC August 2025
Published 25 August 2025
e526 with Andy and Michael M – stories about focus – finding things that are missing, reducing distractions with apps like Focus Friend and Brick, viewing photo collections and a whole lot more.
Andy and Michael M get things rolling while Michael R is away, starting with an update from Andy’s recent presentation at FrOSCon 2025. Then the pair focus on an always on AI smart glasses concept, replete with all of the privacy and security considerations. Next up is an AI powered image search that resulted in the discovery of a long missing hiker. This reminded Michael of crowdsourced image searches powered by humans for search and rescue, and found the story of Jim Gray which was part of e44 back in 2013. Next in view is Vivo’s announcement of their mixed reality headset, followed quickly by a Vison Pro photo viewing app called PhotoDome.
Continuing on the concept of focus, Andy and Michael take a look at the Focus Friend app, which has a friendly bean shaped avatar that knits and unlocks prizes while the user remains focused on their task, and gets sad when interrupted. This reminded Andy of the Brick app, which he learned about from the hiro.report. The Brick app and physical tile creates the necessary friction to have the user bring the phone close to the Brick tile to “unbrick” the phone. The
