AwesomeCast 790: Steam Game Cartridges Are Real?! Xbox’s Disc Comeback & AI Love Island
What does “physical media” mean when the game itself comes from Steam?
That question sits at the center of AwesomeCast 790 as Sorg, Katie Dudas and Dave Podnar explore an inventive project that turns downloadable PC games into something resembling old-school cartridges. It is one of several stories in this episode that raise questions about ownership, preservation and how technology changes our relationship with media.
Turning Steam Games into Cartridges
A PC gamer created individual cartridges using inexpensive 128GB, 2.5-inch SSDs. Each drive holds a game and a script that helps the computer recognize and launch it through Steam when the cartridge is inserted.
The games still depend on Steam for verification, so this is not a complete escape from digital licensing. However, the project gives each title a physical identity. Instead of scrolling through hundreds of games in a library, the owner can select a cartridge, insert it and begin playing.
It is not necessarily practical for a collection containing hundreds of titles, but it could be an appealing way to preserve or display a smaller group of favorites.
See the DIY Steam cartridge system
Can Xbox Connect Physical Collections to a Digital Future?
The physical-media discussion continues with a reported Xbox disc-to-digital program. The concept could allow someone with an original Xbox or Xbox 360 disc to receive access to a compatible digital version on a modern Xbox device or PC.
One particularly interesting possibility is that the license could remain connected to the physical disc. Selling or transferring the disc might then transfer access to the next owner instead of permanently locking the digital copy to the first account.
That would make the program more flexible than many early DVD conversion services, which usually allowed a digital copy to be redeemed only once.
The hosts remain aware of the risks surrounding digital ownership. Accounts can be compromised, licenses can disappear and services can shut down. Still, Microsoft’s continued emphasis on backward compatibility gives Sorg more confidence in Xbox as a long-term home for a game collection.
Read about Xbox’s disc-to-digital concept
A Travel App That Tells Stories as You Walk
Katie’s Awesome Thing of the Week is Wrinkles, a travel app designed to provide location-aware audio stories.
Instead of constantly looking down at a phone, checking a museum number or searching for information about a landmark, users can walk through a supported city and hear relevant stories automatically. The app can explain the history behind a bridge, fountain, building or neighborhood as the traveler approaches it.
Wrinkles uses AI-generated voices, but the underlying information is intended to come from curated sources such as historians, museums and local organizations. The platform may also allow creators, tourism groups and businesses to build their own tours.
That could make the app useful for traditional history as well as personal storytelling. A creator could theoretically build a tour of meaningful locations, while a museum could provide a guided experience that extends beyond its walls.
Looking at 650,000 Galaxies
Dave returns to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, where the 3.2-gigapixel LSST camera has produced an image containing approximately 650,000 galaxies.
The most impressive part may not be the total number. It is what happens when researchers zoom into a tiny area that initially looks like a speck. That small portion can reveal another detailed spiral galaxy with visible arms and surrounding objects.
The observatory is expected to capture hundreds of images per night over approximately ten years. Scientists will then spend decades studying the resulting data.
This is also an example of an area where AI can provide practical value. A dataset of this scale is too large for researchers to inspect manually. Machine-learning systems could help identify unusual objects or patterns, allowing scientists to revisit old observations with new analytical tools.
View the Rubin Observatory imagery
The Human Side of Cybersecurity
August 6 marks Kevin Mitnick’s birthday and National Social Engineering Day.
Mitnick became famous for gaining access to systems through a combination of technical knowledge and human manipulation. After serving time in prison, he became a security consultant and used his experience to teach organizations how attackers operate.
Social engineering remains effective because the target is often not the computer. It is the person answering the phone, processing a password reset or responding to an apparently routine request.
An attacker may collect publicly available details, invent the name of a supervisor or create a false sense of urgency. A helpful employee can then become the path around an otherwise secure system.
Learn about National Social Engineering Day
Video Games Keep Sending Mixed Messages
Chachi’s Video Game Minute brings both frustrating and encouraging industry news.
Sony has acknowledged strong reactions to its movement away from PlayStation discs but appears prepared to continue. Electronic Arts reportedly gave its CEO a major compensation increase following the success of Battlefield 6, while developers connected to that success were laid off.
The positive story comes from August Interactive and NASA. Their developing game, Moonbase Y, asks young players to plan and invent solutions for living on the Moon. The project is intended to show children that future space exploration will need more than astronauts and rocket scientists. It will also require designers, builders, planners and creative problem-solvers.
Fitbit Finally Connects with Apple Health
Fitbit users can now transfer more of their information into Apple Health.
That makes it easier to keep activity data, blood-pressure readings and medical information in one location. Some measurements, including heart-rate variability, may not be supported yet, but the integration removes a major barrier for people who prefer Fitbit hardware while relying on Apple’s health ecosystem.
Read about Fitbit and Apple Health
An Accidental Experiment on the Moon
A roughly 9,000-pound rocket stage associated with a SpaceX launch is expected to strike the Moon.
The impact is not an intentional mission, and it likely will not create a dramatic flash visible from Earth. However, orbiting spacecraft may be able to examine the impact site, compare before-and-after images and study the resulting crater and debris.
It is an accidental scientific experiment: something is going to hit the Moon, so researchers will use every available instrument to learn from it.
Read about the lunar collision
Welcome to Fruit Love Island
The episode ends with its strangest story: Fruit Love Island, an AI-generated reality dating show populated by muscular fruit and vegetable characters.
The visuals contain many familiar AI oddities. Clothing changes, proportions shift and some characters look considerably more human than others. Despite those flaws, the project maintains recurring characters, confessionals, season-long storylines and audience voting through TikTok.
That organization leads to a larger discussion about AI production. Creating a continuing show still requires story planning, character management, editing, platform strategy and an understanding of what keeps an audience watching.
Fruit Love Island may be disposable AI entertainment, but its production workflow could also offer lessons for storyboarding, tutorials and low-budget creative projects. The question is not simply whether AI made it. It is whether a creator used the tools to build something people actually choose to follow.
