The Immersive Lens

Finger Lakes Community College

5.0 (1)
Education
Updated Weekly

The Immersive Lens features faculty experts from Finger Lakes Community College exploring how emerging technologies are reshaping learning and work. Each episode offers clear, practical conversations about new tools, apps, and ideas—cutting through the hype to highlight what actually matters for educators, professionals, and the curious alike.

3d ago

Episode 28: Recent Headlines

Paul and Dave, alongside producer Jeff, balance their tech-curious enthusiasm with a healthy dose of skepticism regarding the rapid rollout of these tools. While they marvel at the local processing power of the new Apple Intelligence beta and the utility of mobile apps like Merlin, they pull no punches when critiquing Meta's chaotic internal practices and the massive energy draw of rural data centers. Ultimately, the team's verdict is that while user-facing AI tools are getting incredibly sophisticated, the tech industry desperately needs to establish sustainable infrastructure and ethical guardrails before pushing the technology any further. Muller Field Station - https://www.flcc.edu/muller/ Pacific Crest Trail - https://www.pcta.org/ FarOut app - https://faroutguides.com/ Watch Duty app - https://app.watchduty.org/ Apple Vehicle Motion Cues - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga22EthUCjA Apple opens its new Siri AI to everyone with the iOS 27 public beta - https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/14/apple-opens-its-new-siri-ai-to-everyone-with-the-ios-27-public-beta/ This Buried Apple Feature Turns an iPhone Into the Perfect Kids’ Dumb Phone - https://www.wired.com/story/this-buried-apple-feature-turns-an-iphone-into-the-perfect-kids-dumb-phone/ Meta Removes A.I. Feature on Instagram After Days of Backlash - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/10/technology/meta-muse-images-instagram-removal.html Meta AI image detector fails to identify some of its own cropped AI images, Reuters analysis finds - https://www.reuters.com/business/meta-ai-image-detector-fails-identify-some-its-own-cropped-ai-images-reuters-2026-07-10/ Meta Exposed Data Internally From Its Controversial Employee-Tracking Program - https://www.wired.com/story/meta-accidentally-let-employees-access-each-others-keystroke-data/ Support your teen with supervision - https://familycenter.meta.com/supervision/ First Statewide Moratorium on New Hyperscale Data Centers Launched by Governor Kathy Hochul - https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/first-statewide-moratorium-new-hyperscale-data-centers-launched-governor-kathy-hochul Five Startups Powering the Nuclear Energy Transition - https://netzeroinsights.com/resources/startups-nuclear-energy-transition/ Slate Truck - https://www.slate.auto/en Spotify Premium Users Can Now Turn Any Idea Into a Personalized Playlist With AI Playlist in Beta - https://newsroom.spotify.com/2024-04-07/spotify-premium-users-can-now-turn-any-idea-into-a-personalized-playlist-with-ai-playlist-in-beta/ Disney is exploring adding a free tier to Disney+ as YouTube draws TV viewers -https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-discusses-free-tier-viewers-youtube-2026-7 Bitter Lesson - General-purpose large language models outperform specialized clinical AI tools on medical benchmarks - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-026-04431-5 Linus's law - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus%27s_law Stripe, Advent make $53 billion takeover offer for PayPal, sending stock soaring - https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/15/stripe-advent-offer-to-buy-paypal-for-more-than-53-billion-reuters.html Google limits Meta’s use of its Gemini AI models, FT reports - https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/28/google-limits-metas-use-of-its-gemini-ai-models-ft-reports.html Aaron Sullivan - https://m.stevensfhmarion.com/obituaries/events?obituaryId=49037426 Mentions: @Apple @Meta @Instagram @WIRED @CornellBirds FLX AI Hub: https://www.flcc.edu/ai/ FLCC New Media: https://newmedia.csc.flcc.cloud/ 🎧 Subscribe to The Immersive Lens to stay curious and connected! #AppleIntelligence #MetaAI #DataCenters #iOSBeta #TechNews #SpatialComputing #AccessibilityTech #SustainableTech #FutureOfWork #MachineLearning #AI #EdTech #GenerativeAI #HigherEd #Podcast #FLCC #NewMedia #TechTrends #TechHistory #TheImmersiveLens Recorded at Finger Lakes Community College in the heart of New York’s Finger Lakes region. https://www.flcc.edu/ https://www.theimmersivelens.com/ Stay curious. Stay connected.
Jul 13

Episode 27: AI Summer Planning

Welcome to The Immersive Lens - the show where emerging tech meets creativity, education, and real-world impact. Hosted by Paul Engin (Professor of New Media) and Dave Ghidiu (Professor of Computer Science) at Finger Lakes Community College, this podcast dives into the technologies and creative innovations reshaping how we live, work, and learn - from AI and augmented reality to the future of media, design, and learning. In this episode of The Immersive Lens, hosts Paul and Jenn use AI to plan summer vacations! 🗒 Summary Welcome back to The Immersive Lens! In this episode, we explore the intersection of artificial intelligence and everyday decision-making, taking a hard look at how large language models are becoming an unavoidable part of our cultural fabric. Whether it is Anthropic funding AI fellowships for nonprofits, the unsettling biases uncovered in a recent Stanford grading study, or the manipulation of multi-million dollar prediction markets, the central theme is clear: AI is holding up a mirror to society's best intentions and biggest flaws. With Dave Ghidiu on a working vacation, Jenn Carney steps in to join Paul Engin for a lively, head-to-head comparison of ChatGPT and Claude. They test these platforms with real-world summer prompts, ranging from weekend relaxation schedules and custom road trip playlists to spontaneous budget getaways. Ultimately, the verdict is that while AI tools offer incredible speed and organization, maximizing their utility requires precise prompting, clear constraints, and a watchful eye for ingrained biases. 🔗 Links & Resources: Claude Corps - https://www.anthropic.com/claude-corps Chloe Lubinski of Anthropic - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBUniZHgCnE AI Changes Its Feedback on Students’ Writing When It Knows Their Race, Gender - https://www.edweek.org/technology/ai-changes-its-feedback-on-students-writing-when-it-knows-their-race-gender/2026/06 The Donk-ing of a Truth Machine - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/28/business/donk-polymarket-prediction-markets.html Polymarket cuts ties with George Santos as regulators probe trades on rival prediction market - https://apnews.com/article/george-santos-polymarket-kalshi-prediction-market-dcc34f4d927d074fe4e1bedeff04b64f PROMPTS: I have six hours free on a Saturday. I want to relax, but also feel productive, build me a day. I need a playlist for a road trip this summer. I want something that feels like summer is actually happening. Can you export this playlist to something I can import into Spotify or Apple Music? I'm planning a spontaneous long weekend trip for two people with no destination in mind. The budget is reasonable, but not extravagant. Keep it around five hundred dollars. We want interesting food, something unexpected and minimal time in a car, starting from Canada, where the podcast studio is located. Give us three completely different options and make a case for each one. Let's choose Pittsburgh. Give me a more detailed itinerary. Mentions: @AnthropicAI @OpenAI @nytimes @Polymarket @Spotify @AppleMusic @taylorswift13 @DUALIPA @FleetwoodMac @springsteen FLX AI Hub: https://www.flcc.edu/ai/ FLCC New Media: https://newmedia.csc.flcc.cloud/ #Anthropic #ChatGPT #Claude #PredictionMarkets #Polymarket #AIBias #TravelTech #PromptEngineering #FutureOfWork #MachineLearning #AI #EdTech #GenerativeAI #HigherEd #Podcast #FLCC #NewMedia #TechTrends #TechHistory #TheImmersiveLens ✅ Subscribe so you never miss an episode—and share with a friend who loves tech, creativity, or the future of education. Recorded at Finger Lakes Community College in the heart of New York’s Finger Lakes region. https://www.flcc.edu/ https://www.theimmersivelens.com/ Stay curious. Stay connected. Thanks for looking through The Immersive Lens.
Jul 6

Episode 26: Future of AI

Welcome to The Immersive Lens - the show where emerging tech meets creativity, education, and real-world impact. Hosted by Paul Engin (Professor of New Media) and Dave Ghidiu (Professor of Computer Science) at Finger Lakes Community College, this podcast dives into the technologies and creative innovations reshaping how we live, work, and learn - from AI and augmented reality to the future of media, design, and learning. Topics Covered: As artificial intelligence rapidly transitions from cloud-based novelties to deeply integrated, everyday tools, understanding its trajectory has never been more crucial. In this episode, Paul and Dave dive into the "big idea" of localized and autonomous AI, unpacking how technologies like local Large Language Models (LLMs), AI-driven agency, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) are reshaping our digital interactions. From the semi-automated offside technology at the FIFA World Cup to the power of generating custom interfaces on the fly, this conversation highlights the real-world applications that are fundamentally changing the way we process information, secure data, and interact with both the physical and digital worlds. Paul and Dave bring a balanced, tech-literate perspective to the table, examining both the incredible potential and the practical hurdles of these emerging systems. They debate the fascinating implications of running AI locally on our devices for better privacy and speed, while also cautioning against the vulnerabilities of social media AI bots being tricked into resetting passwords. Ultimately, their verdict is that the future of AI isn't just about massive cloud computing; it's about personalized, highly specialized, and accessible tools that empower individuals to control their own data and build custom workflows, fundamentally shifting the power dynamic from big tech to the everyday user. Toy Story 5 Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c51ND9Hdbw0 Semi-automated offside technology - https://inside.fifa.com/innovation/innovating-the-game/semi-automated-offside-technology Secret sensor hidden inside World Cup ball @cleoabram - https://www.instagram.com/reels/DZxct3VokWY/ NHL Hockey Puck - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FoxTrax Hackers likely hijacked over 20,000 Instagram accounts with Meta’s AI chatbot - https://www.theverge.com/tech/945658/meta-ai-support-chatbot-exploit-instagram-accounts General AI vs Domain specific AI - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/d_wPok9DcUY Paul's Presentation (HTML) - https://www.flcc.ai/events/convening/2026/llm/local_llm_presentation.html itty bitty site - https://itty.bitty.site/ NotebookLM - https://notebooklm.google.com/ NVIDIA DGX Spark - https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/products/workstations/dgx-spark/ Google AI Edge Gallery - https://developers.google.com/edge/gallery LM Studio - https://lmstudio.ai/ Ollama - https://ollama.com/ Comfy - https://comfy.org/ Gemini Daily Brief - https://gemini.google.com/personalization-settings Gemini Scheduled Actions - https://gemini.google.com/scheduled Claude Co-work - https://www.anthropic.com/product/claude-cowork Microsoft Scout - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2026/06/02/introducing-microsoft-scout-your-always-on-personal-agent/ Hermes - https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/ Mentions: @Meta @instagram @Apple @Microsoft @Sephora @Google @Raspberry_Pi @OpenAI @Pixar FLX AI Hub: https://www.flcc.edu/ai/ FLCC New Media: https://newmedia.csc.flcc.cloud/ #LocalLLM #NotebookLM #AIAgents #RAG #SportsTech #DataSovereignty #MachineLearning #TechNews #DataPrivacy #FutureOfWork #AI #EdTech #GenerativeAI #HigherEd #Podcast #FLCC #NewMedia #TechTrends #TechHistory #TheImmersiveLens Recorded at Finger Lakes Community College in the heart of New York’s Finger Lakes region. https://www.flcc.edu/ https://www.theimmersivelens.com/ Stay curious. Stay connected. Thanks for looking through The Immersive Lens.
Jun 29

Episode 25: Online Learning

Welcome to The Immersive Lens - the show where emerging tech meets creativity, education, and real-world impact. Hosted by Paul Engin (Professor of New Media) and Dave Ghidiu (Professor of Computer Science) at Finger Lakes Community College, this podcast dives into the technologies and creative innovations reshaping how we live, work, and learn - from AI and augmented reality to the future of media, design, and learning. 🗒 Summary In this episode of The Immersive Lens, hosts Paul and Dave talk with Jeff Dugan, Online Learning expert and Toy Story enthusiast. The landscape of online education is undergoing a radical transformation, fueled by the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and immersive technologies. In this episode, we explore the central idea that distance learning must evolve far beyond the traditional "correspondence course" model of simply uploading documents to a digital portal. With groundbreaking tools like Snap's new AR Spectacles offering shared collaborative environments and powerful AI models like Anthropic's Fable 5 rewriting the rules of cybersecurity, the digital classroom is poised to become more interactive, accessible, and immersive than ever before. Hosts Paul and Dave bring their signature tech-forward perspectives to the table, weighing the thrilling collaborative potential of spatial computing against the very real national security concerns surrounding AI jailbreaks and cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Joined by Jeff Dugan, Assistant Director of Online Learning at FLCC, the conversation ultimately lands on a powerful verdict: while emerging tech provides the necessary infrastructure, the true future of online learning relies on intentional instructional design and universal accessibility to foster genuine human connection and community. 🔗 Links & Resources: Groku Hawaiian Shirt - https://www.walmart.com/ip/Star-Wars-Men-s-Grogu-Baby-Yoda-Leaves-Hawaiian-Button-Up-Shirt-M-Large-Adult/324028969 Snap Spectacles - https://developers.snap.com/spectacles/get-started/introduction Claude Fable 5 - https://www.anthropic.com/news/fable-mythos-access Project Glasswing - https://www.anthropic.com/glasswing Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 - https://www.anthropic.com/news/fable-mythos-access AI jailbreaks: What they are and how they can be mitigated - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2024/06/04/ai-jailbreaks-what-they-are-and-how-they-can-be-mitigated/ SpaceX to acquire Cursor for $60B in stock, days after blockbuster IPO - https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/16/spacex-to-acquire-cursor-for-60b-in-stock-days-after-blockbuster-ipo/ Toy Story 5 Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c51ND9Hdbw0 What Is SEO – Search Engine Optimization? - https://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-seo What is Instructional Design? - https://www.td.org/talent-development-glossary-terms/what-is-instructional-design Regular & Substantive Interaction - https://oscqr.suny.edu/rsi/ EKG Simulator - https://inlineteaching.com/medical/ekg HoloLens - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMks7sMzPxI The SUNY Online Course Quality Review Rubric - https://oscqr.suny.edu/ Mentions: @Snapchat @AnthropicAI @Mozilla @SpaceX @Apple @Google @Microsoft FLX AI Hub: https://www.flcc.edu/ai/ FLCC New Media: https://newmedia.csc.flcc.cloud/ #SnapSpectacles #VirtualReality #AugmentedReality #DigitalLearning #CyberSecurity #Anthropic #FutureOfWork #SpatialComputing #OnlineEducation #InstructionalDesign #AI #EdTech #GenerativeAI #HigherEd #Podcast #FLCC #NewMedia #TechTrends #TechHistory #TheImmersiveLens ✅ Subscribe so you never miss an episode—and share with a friend who loves tech, creativity, or the future of education. Recorded at Finger Lakes Community College in the heart of New York’s Finger Lakes region. https://www.flcc.edu/ https://www.theimmersivelens.com/ Stay curious. Stay connected. Thanks for looking through The Immersive Lens.
Jun 22

Episode 24: AI Comparison

Welcome to The Immersive Lens - the show where emerging tech meets creativity, education, and real-world impact. Hosted by Paul Engin (Professor of New Media) and Dave Ghidiu (Professor of Computer Science) at Finger Lakes Community College, this podcast dives into the technologies and creative innovations reshaping how we live, work, and learn - from AI and augmented reality to the future of media, design, and learning. In this episode of The Immersive Lens, Paul, Dave, and Jeff tackle LLM benchmarking. In this episode of The Immersive Lens, the crew dives deep into the rapidly evolving landscape of generative AI by conducting a series of real-time benchmark tests on leading large language models, including Google Gemini, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, and Grok. The conversation kicks off with Dave sharing his deep-dive research methodology, which reveals how radically these tools differ when executing massive, multi-source literature syntheses. The team uses these insights to explore how foundational shifts in AI architecture are changing the way we interact with data, moving from simple text generation to proactive research agents. As the episode progresses, Paul, Dave, and Jeff put these bots through their paces with a gauntlet of complex logic puzzles, strict negative constraints, and historically inaccurate prompts. The resulting performance gaps highlight the stark contrast between models that prioritize accuracy versus those that default to confident hallucinations. Ultimately, the team concludes that while AI capabilities are accelerating at breakneck speeds, users must remain highly critical of the output, as even the most advanced models still struggle with basic boundaries and truth-telling. 🔗 Links & Resources: Claude Cowork by Anthropic - https://www.anthropic.com/product/claude-cowork Codex is becoming a productivity tool for everyone - https://openai.com/index/codex-for-knowledge-work/ Introducing TRIBE v2 - https://ai.meta.com/blog/tribe-v2-brain-predictive-foundation-model/ NVIDIA DGX Spark - https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/products/workstations/dgx-spark/ Perplexity Computer - https://www.perplexity.ai/personal-computer Wikipedia: Gadsby (novel) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsby_(novel) Anthropic will pay xAI $1.25B per month for compute - https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/20/anthropic-will-pay-xai-1-25-billion-per-month-for-compute/ Mentions: @OpenAI @Google @AnthropicAI @X @Meta @Perplexity FLX AI Hub: https://www.flcc.edu/ai/ FLCC New Media: https://newmedia.csc.flcc.cloud/ #LargeLanguageModels #ChatGPT #GoogleGemini #ClaudeAI #Grok #AIBenchmarks #TechHumor #SpatialReasoning #AIHallucinations #ChatbotShowdown #AI #EdTech #GenerativeAI #HigherEd #Podcast #FLCC #NewMedia #TechTrends #TechHistory #TheImmersiveLens ✅ Subscribe so you never miss an episode—and share with a friend who loves tech, creativity, or the future of education. Recorded at Finger Lakes Community College in the heart of New York’s Finger Lakes region. https://www.flcc.edu/ https://www.theimmersivelens.com/ Stay curious. Stay connected. Thanks for looking through The Immersive Lens.
Jun 15

Episode 23: AI Summit Wrap-Up

In this episode of The Immersive Lens, hosts Paul and Dave talk with Debora as they debrief the second annual Community Convening. The landscape of artificial intelligence is evolving at breakneck speed, and staying ahead means understanding both the bleeding-edge models and how they are applied in local communities and classrooms. In this episode, the conversation centers around the recent AI Community Convening at Finger Lakes Community College, moving the discussion from basic chat interfaces to the highly anticipated era of agentic AI and on-device processing. It matters right now because local enterprises, educators, and the general public are moving past the initial shock of generative tech and are now eager to build practical, everyday applications to wear multiple hats more efficiently. Hosts Paul and Dave, alongside FLCC VP of Strategic Initiatives Debora Ortloff, share their unique perspectives from the ground floor of the event, highlighting the massive community engagement and the democratization of tech skills. The trio's final verdict suggests that next year will be defined by seamless AI integration, where visible interfaces begin to fade away in favor of background agents, offline local models, and wearable smart devices that execute tasks asynchronously. Second Annual Community Conveninghttps://www.flcc.edu/ai/annual-convening/ Jen O'Brienhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jen-obrien-futurist/ Katie Pullen | Owner | Katie Pullen: Allstate Insurancehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/katiehause/ Sean Murray | Director of Product Management | ITXhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/seangmurray/ Dan Sharp | Senior Product Manager | ITXhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-r-sharp/ Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-fable-5-mythos-5 Anthropic suspends new AI models after government directivehttps://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/anthropic-suspends-new-ai-models-fable-mythos-government-directive-rcna349901 What is Windows ML?https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ai/new-windows-ml/overview Introducing Apple’s On-Device and Server Foundation Modelshttps://machinelearning.apple.com/research/introducing-apple-foundation-models Google AI Edge Galleryhttps://developers.google.com/edge/gallery Google's Gemma 4 31B local modelhttps://huggingface.co/google/gemma-4-31B Introducing ChatGPT Images 2.0https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-images-2-0/ The Medium is the Messagehttps://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/mcluhan.mediummessage.pdf OpenClawhttps://openclaw.ai/ Microsoft Scouthttps://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-scout/get-started Cloudflare CEO says bot internet traffic has overtaken humanshttps://mashable.com/tech/cloudflare-data-bot-traffic-overtakes-human-traffic-on-internet AI Integration Specialist Micro-Credentialhttps://www.flcc.edu/academics/programs/ai-integration-specialist-microcredential/ Mentions: @MIT @Apple @Samsung @Meta @Android @Google FLX AI Hub: https://www.flcc.edu/ai/ FLCC New Media: https://newmedia.csc.flcc.cloud/ #AgenticAI #VibeCoding #FutureOfWork #SpatialComputing #SmartGlasses #TechCommunity #MachineLearning #DigitalTransformation #LocalBusinessTech #Innovation #AI #EdTech #GenerativeAI #HigherEd #Podcast #FLCC #NewMedia #TechTrends #TechHistory #TheImmersiveLens ✅ Subscribe so you never miss an episode—and share with a friend who loves tech, creativity, or the future of education. Recorded at Finger Lakes Community College in the heart of New York’s Finger Lakes region. https://www.flcc.edu/ https://www.theimmersivelens.com/ Stay curious. Stay connected. Thanks for looking through The Immersive Lens.
Jun 8

Episode 22: 2nd Annual AI Conference

Welcome to The Immersive Lens - the show where emerging tech meets creativity, education, and real-world impact. Hosted by Paul Engin (Professor of New Media) and Dave Ghidiu (Professor of Computer Science) at Finger Lakes Community College, this podcast dives into the technologies and creative innovations reshaping how we live, work, and learn - from AI and augmented reality to the future of media, design, and learning. In this episode of The Immersive Lens, hosts Paul and Dave talk with Debora Ortloff about the upcoming FLX AI Hub Community Convening. Paul and Dave sit down with Debora Ortloff, Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at Finger Lakes Community College (FLCC), to discuss the upcoming 2nd Annual FLX AI Hub Community Convening on June 10, 2026. The conversation centers on artificial intelligence not as a distant corporate tool, but as an immediate, paradigm-shifting disruptor that demands community-wide literacy. From unleashing creative communication through ChatGPT’s latest typographic infographic features to acting as an operational lifesaver for lean small businesses, AI is reframed as a collaborative partner rather than an automated replacement. Debora, Paul, and Dave share their unique experiences navigating this fast-evolving terrain - ranging from using local large language models (LLMs) to protect data privacy to leveraging AI for dense policy analysis and everyday trip planning. The collective verdict of the episode is clear: successful AI integration must always be human-led, anchored in critical thinking, and accessible to everyone regardless of their starting point. As FLCC opens its doors for the annual convening, the ultimate goal is to move the local community from passive observers to active, empowered drivers of technological change. 🔗 Links & Resources: 80 Year old Math Problem Solved by AIhttps://x.com/emollick/status/2057271533358162270 Backrooms: Why Is Gen Z So Scared of the ’80s?https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/backrooms-why-is-gen-z-so-scared-of-the-80s/ AI Vampires (Marc Andreessen)https://www.instagram.com/reels/DYvU5evMr3m/ GPT Image 2 - AI Image Generatorhttps://openart.ai/ai-model/gpt-image-2/ Second Annual Community Conveninghttps://www.flcc.edu/ai/annual-convening/ Ontario County Chamber of Commercehttps://www.onchamber.com/ EKG Simulationhttps://inlineteaching.com/medical/ekg/ Register for the FLX AI Hub Community Convening - JUNE 10, 2026https://www.givecampus.com/schools/FingerLakesCommunityCollege/events/flx-ai-hub-community-convening Mentions: @MIT @Apple @Samsung @Meta @Android @Google FLX AI Hub: https://www.flcc.edu/ai/ FLCC New Media: https://newmedia.csc.flcc.cloud/ #AI #EdTech #GenerativeAI #HigherEd #Podcast #FLCC #NewMedia #TechTrends #TechHistory #TheImmersiveLens #FLXAIHub #CommunityConvening #SmallBizTech #TechLiteracy #HumanLedAI #FutureOfWork #DataPrivacy #LocalLLMs #InnovationInEducation ✅ Subscribe so you never miss an episode - and share with a friend who loves tech, creativity, or the future of education. Recorded at Finger Lakes Community College in the heart of New York’s Finger Lakes region. https://www.flcc.edu/ https://www.theimmersivelens.com/ Stay curious. Stay connected. Thanks for looking through The Immersive Lens.
Jun 1

Episode 21: AI Challenge Part 2

Welcome to The Immersive Lens - the show where emerging tech meets creativity, education, and real-world impact. Hosted by Paul Engin (Professor of New Media) and Dave Ghidiu (Professor of Computer Science) at Finger Lakes Community College, this podcast dives into the technologies and creative innovations reshaping how we live, work, and learn - from AI and augmented reality to the future of media, design, and learning. The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence has democratized software creation, introducing the world to "vibe coding"—the conceptual approach of leveraging large language models to construct operational programs through natural language prompting alone. This breakthrough means foundational technical constraints are dropping precipitously, letting non-programmers turn creative ideas into standalone digital reality overnight. In this high-stakes episode, the team circles back to review their individual achievements and technical frustrations after attempting three tiered challenges: crafting an interactive game, managing dynamic file handling, and mastering spatial hardware programming. Throughout the discussion, the team's distinct perspectives come to light. Guest Jen Carney shares her journey from utilizing standard text-based AI assistance to developing highly engaging logic apps, noting both the sheer speed of development and the occasional math counting quirks encountered with Google Gemini. Video engineer Jeff Kidd opens up about his shift from procedural skepticism to outright fascination after watching the AI build an interactive Editing Decision Trainer completely from scratch. Meanwhile, Paul Engin reveals his trials in navigating spatial design architecture using the Galaxy XR and Apple Vision Pro, highlighting where the boundaries of web-based spatial interaction currently stand. Ultimately, Dave and the team deliver an optimistic verdict: despite a few limitations with secondary file links and platform limitations, AI-driven programming expands creative potential, redefining how educators and enthusiasts can design custom digital media. 2nd Annual Community Convening at FLCC https://www.flcc.edu/events/all-events/2026/june/flx-ai-hub-community-convening.php Vibe Coding Challengehttps://www.theimmersivelens.com/p/vibe-coding-challenge.html Zorkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Entertainment King's Questhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_Quest Sierra (makers of King's Quest games)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Entertainment CSC 145 - AI-Partnered App Creationhttps://www.flcc.edu/courses/csc-145/ Mentions: @MIT @Apple @Samsung @Meta @Android @Google FLX AI Hub: https://www.flcc.edu/ai/ FLCC New Media: https://newmedia.csc.flcc.cloud/ 🎧 Subscribe to The Immersive Lens to stay curious and connected! #SpatialComputing #XRDevelopment #VibeCoding #TechPodcast #HumanAICollaboration #FutureOfCoding #SoftwareDemocratization #DigitalMediaDesign #InnovativeTeaching #ComputerScienceTrends #AI #EdTech #GenerativeAI #HigherEd #Podcast #FLCC #NewMedia #TechTrends #TechHistory #TheImmersiveLens #CommittingAI #TechEthics #DigitalClone #ValKilmer #VisionPro #AppleVisionPro #CursorAI #AIFails #PromptEngineering #CreativeTech ✅ Subscribe so you never miss an episode—and share with a friend who loves tech, creativity, or the future of education. Recorded at Finger Lakes Community College in the heart of New York’s Finger Lakes region. https://www.flcc.edu/ https://www.theimmersivelens.com/ Stay curious. Stay connected. Thanks for looking through The Immersive Lens.

The Immersive Lens features faculty experts from Finger Lakes Community College exploring how emerging technologies are reshaping learning and work. Each episode offers clear, practical conversations about new tools, apps, and ideas—cutting through the hype to highlight what actually matters for educators, professionals, and the curious alike.

Creator

Finger Lakes Community College
Years Active

2026
Episodes

30
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© Finger Lakes Community College
Show Website

The Immersive Lens