Android Arcade
With Android Arcade, Android Central Senior Editor Android Myrick takes a weekly deep dive into retro gaming, emulation, handhelds, and every little thing in between.
Do you bear in mind the times of needing to go to the shop to choose up a sport information since you could not work out the best way to beat it? Yeah, that also occurs to me, besides I haven’t got to go to the shop, as the reply is only a Google search away. However I am not all the time taking part in video games on my pc, and even when I am taking part in a handheld linked to the web, I do not wish to sift via a bunch of hyperlinks which will or might not have what I am searching for.
Final month, the Anbernic RG557 was launched, and a latest replace launched “Anbernic AI.” Primarily, it is a chatbot that resides in your gaming handheld, designed to offer solutions and even translations. After a little bit of digging, I discovered that it is reliant on both Deepseek or Alibaba’s Qwen LLMs. That does not go away me feeling nice, nevertheless it acquired me questioning if I might simply make one myself.
With instruments like Gemini Gems and ChatGPT GPTs, I set out attempting to duplicate what Anbernic did, however utilizing AI chatbots that I belief a bit extra and attempting to get them engaged on the hand held. It did not fairly work out how I had hoped, however thankfully, that is the place NotebookLM got here to my rescue.
My failed makes an attempt
No, I did not use Gemini to build a website and even an app. As an alternative, I made a decision now could be a superb time to create a Gemini Gem. These had been launched final yr, with Google describing them as being “your customized AI consultants.”
My authentic concept was that I would have the ability to create a Gem after which, once I wanted some assist or had a query, I might discuss to it utilizing Gemini Live. With the latest addition of display recording, it looks as if a no brainer, as I haven’t got to try to describe what I am seeing, I can simply present Gemini. Or so I believed.
Sadly, you possibly can’t but use Gems with Gemini Stay, which is a bummer. As an alternative, you are caught with “common” Gemini in the intervening time, and whereas it is advantageous, I favored the thought of getting a Gemini expertise devoted to gaming.
Initially, that is the place the story would’ve ended, as I used to be in a position to get Gemini working on my aforementioned RG557. Nevertheless, curiosity acquired the higher of me, so I wished to see if the identical factor could possibly be achieved with ChatGPT. The app will not run on the RG557, because it’s technically rooted, regardless of having a locked bootloader, and there’s no present manner round this hurdle.
Naturally, the following factor I did was fireplace up the ChatGPT app on the Galaxy Z Fold 6. After a little bit of poking round, I discovered that OpenAI affords an identical characteristic to Gemini Stay, and it even informed me it will share some lore concerning the Star Wars universe once I opened KOTOR II.
Sadly, it is the identical story as Gemini, as you are not in a position to make use of the “Stay” expertise with created GPTs. Hopefully, this may not be the case without end, as it will be good to see the characteristic parity between Gemini and ChatGPT proceed.
NotebookLM to the rescue
Then got here alongside one other tangentially associated concept. Google has been super-charging NotebookLM, nevertheless it’s a type of instruments that I all the time appear to overlook about. There are just a few tasks that I’ve by which NotebookLM could possibly be helpful for me, however first, I used to be interested in how it will do as a gaming encyclopedia of kinds.
There are limitations with NotebookLM, as you possibly can add solely 50 “sources” to at least one pocket book. Nevertheless, due to being subscribed to Google One AI Pro, I will add 300 sources. I say “solely” as a result of the thought is to supply and add technique guides for quite a lot of retro video games.
Evidently, there are lots of greater than 300 on the market, so I opted to take a distinct strategy. As an alternative, I made a decision to create notebooks primarily based on the collection of video games, that means I will have one for Mario, Zelda, Remaining Fantasy, Fallout, and so forth.
Because of the gaming neighborhood, a variety of these previous Nintendo Energy and Prima strategy guides have been archived. It was merely a matter of sourcing, downloading, and importing all of them to NotebookLM.
Nevertheless, there was the small downside that many of those previous technique guides are saved in both a CBR or CBZ format. That is no good, as NotebookLM solely acknowledges PDF, TXT, Markdown, or Audio recordsdata when importing. On the intense facet, some fast analysis revealed you could convert these CBR or CBZ recordsdata to PDF utilizing Calibre. And it is a lot quicker than attempting to make use of any of the “free” on-line conversion instruments.
With that out of the way in which, I began importing just a few recordsdata after which simply waited for that to complete. You would be shocked at how massive a few of these PDF recordsdata will be, and NotebookLM has a dimension restrict of 200MB per file, so hold that in thoughts.
A short time later, I had a one-stop store for assets pertaining to some of the Tremendous Mario video games that I’ve performed over time. Now, each time I can not bear in mind the best way to get previous Bowser, I can simply pull up NotebookLM and ask.
I do know that this took a little bit of a left flip, contemplating my authentic objective, however the total level is to display that AI instruments will be helpful in methods you may not have thought of. I do not even know the place the thought to create these guides got here from, however I am certain glad it got here to me.
No, you are not in a position to make use of it whereas you are taking part in like you possibly can with Gemini or ChatGPT. However I’ve to wonder if that performance will probably be applied within the close to future. I would actually find it irresistible if there have been a method to create a Gem or GPT that could possibly be used with Gemini Stay, however used NotebookLM because the supply.
Nonetheless, who is aware of what these firms are going to convey subsequent? Possibly one thing else will come alongside that takes all of this to the following stage, and we simply do not know it but.
