Join Allen Firstenberg and Mark Tucker as they dive into Google's latest Gemini 2.5 models and their much-touted "thinking" capabilities. In this episode, they explore whether these models are genuinely reasoning or just executing sophisticated pattern matching. Through live tests in Google's AI Studio, they pit the Pro, Flash, and Flash-Lite models against tricky riddles, analyzing the "thought process" behind the answers. The discussion also covers the practical implications for developers, th...
Jul 03, 2025•41 min•Season 1Ep. 246
Ever find that the best way to understand a new framework is to build it yourself? In this episode of Two Voice Devs, Mark Tucker takes us on a deep dive into Crew AI, a powerful Python framework for orchestrating multi-agent AI systems. To truly get under the hood, Mark decided to port the core functionality into TypeScript, creating "JCrew AI." This process provides a unique and insightful perspective on how these agent-based systems are designed. Join us as we deconstruct the core concepts of...
Jun 26, 2025•33 min•Season 1Ep. 245
What do Anthropic's latest announcements mean for developers? In this episode, Allen is joined by freelance conversation designer Valentina Adami to break down all the major news from the recent "Code with Claude" event. Valentina shares her hands-on experience and perspective on the new Opus 4 and Sonnet 4 models, discussing their distinct capabilities, the new "reasoning" features, and why Anthropic's transparency with its public system prompt is a game-changer. They also explore Claude Code, ...
Jun 20, 2025•34 min•Season 1Ep. 244
Join Allen Firstenberg and Michal Stanislawek in this thought-provoking episode of Two Voice Devs as they unpack two recent LinkedIn posts by Michal that reveal critical insights into the security and ethical challenges of modern AI agents. The discussion kicks off with a deep dive into a concerning GitHub MCP server exploit, where researchers uncovered a method to access private repositories through public channels like PRs and issues. This highlights the dangers of broadly permissive AI agents...
Jun 12, 2025•31 min•Season 1Ep. 243
Join Allen Firstenberg and Linda Lawton of Two Voice Devs as they record live from Google I/O 2025! As the conference neared the end, they dive deep into the groundbreaking announcements in generative AI, discussing the latest advancements and what they mean for developers, especially those in Conversational AI. This episode explores the new and updated models that are set to redefine content creation: Lyria: Google's innovative streaming audio generation API, its unique WebSocket-based approach...
Jun 06, 2025•25 min•Season 1Ep. 242
Recorded live from the podcast space at I/O, Allen Firstenberg and Roya dive into the overwhelming, yet incredibly exciting, world of AI announcements permeating the conference this year. They discuss the pervasive theme of AI augmenting human intelligence rather than replacing it, exploring concrete examples across various domains. From breakthroughs in mathematics with AlphaProof to the efficiency gains of the new Gemma 3 model (running on small devices with a tiny memory footprint and reduced...
Jun 03, 2025•25 min•Season 1Ep. 241
The buzz from Google IO 2025 is deafening, especially about the new smart glasses announcement! On this episode of Two Voice Devs, Allen Firstenberg and Noble Ackerson — former Google Glass Explorers themselves — dive deep into their first impressions of Google's Project Astra / Android XR / Gemini glasses prototype. Drawing on their unique experience from the early days of Glass, Allen and Noble discuss the evolution of wearable computing, the collision of conversational AI (Gemini) and spatial...
May 29, 2025•34 min•Season 1Ep. 240
Join us on Two Voice Devs as Allen Firstenberg talks with Rizel Scarlett, Tech Lead for Open Source Developer Relations at Block. Rizel shares her fascinating journey from psychology student to software engineer and now a leader in developer advocacy, highlighting her passion for teaching and creative problem-solving. The conversation dives deep into Block's innovative open source work, particularly their AI agent called Goose, which leverages the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Rizel explains wha...
May 16, 2025•41 min•Season 1Ep. 239
How do you know if a Large Language Model is good for your specific task? You benchmark it! In this episode, Allen speaks with Amy Russ about her fascinating career path from international affairs to data, and how that unique perspective now informs her work in LLM benchmarking. Amy explains what benchmarking is, why it's crucial for both model builders and app developers, and how it goes far beyond simple technical tests to include societal, cultural, and ethical considerations like preventing ...
May 09, 2025•32 min•Season 1Ep. 238
Join Allen Firstenberg from Google Cloud Next 2025 as he sits down with Ankur Kotwal, Google's Global Head of Cloud Advocacy. In this episode of Two Voice Devs, Allen and Ankur dive deep into the world of Developer Relations (DevRel) at Google, discussing its crucial role as a bridge connecting Google's product teams and engineers with the global developer community. Ankur shares his fascinating personal journey, from coding BASIC as a child alongside his developer dad to leading a key part of G...
May 06, 2025•33 min•Season 1Ep. 237
Join Allen Firstenberg and Alice Keeler, the Two Voice Devs, live from Day 1 of Google Cloud Next 2025 in Las Vegas! In this episode, recorded amidst the energy of the show floor, Allen and Alice dive into the major announcements and highlights impacting developers, especially those interested in AI and conversational interfaces. Alice, known as the "Queen of Spreadsheets" and a Google Developer Expert for Workspace and App Sheet, shares her unique perspective on using accessible tools like App ...
May 01, 2025•27 min•Season 1Ep. 236
Following up on our recent conversation about the Model Context Protocol (MCP), Mark and Allen take a step deeper from a developer's perspective. While still in the shallow end, they explore the TypeScript SDK, the MCP Inspector tool, and the Smithery.ai registry to understand how developers define and host MCP servers and tools. They look at code examples for both local (Standard IO) and potentially remote (Streamable HTTP) server implementations, discussing how tools, resources, and prompts ar...
Apr 29, 2025•49 min•Season 1Ep. 235
Join Allen Firstenberg and Michal Stanislawek on Two Voice Devs as they dive deep into the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a proposition by Anthropic that's gaining traction in the AI landscape. What exactly is MCP, and is it the key to seamless integration of external services with large language models? In this insightful discussion, Allen and Michal unravel the complexities of MCP, exploring its potential to solve integration pain points, its current implementation challenges with local "server...
Apr 25, 2025•48 min•Season 1Ep. 234
Following up on last week's captivating discussion, Allen Firstenberg and Noble Ackerson dive deeper into the world of Generative UI. Explore real-world examples of its potential pitfalls and discover how Noble is tackling these challenges through innovative approaches. This episode unveils the power of dynamically adapting user interfaces based on preferences and intent, ultimately aiming for outcome-focused experiences that seamlessly guide users to their goals. Inspired by the insightful quot...
Apr 03, 2025•40 min•Season 1Ep. 233
Allen and Noble dive deep into the fascinating world of Generative UI, a concept that goes beyond simply using AI to design interfaces and explores the possibility of UIs dynamically generated in real-time by AI LLMs, tailored to individual user needs and context. Noble, a returning Google Developers Expert in AI, clarifies the crucial distinction between generative UI and AI-aided UI generation. They discuss potential applications like dynamic menus and personalized settings, while also tacklin...
Mar 28, 2025•32 min•Season 1Ep. 232
DeepSeek AI is turning heads, achieving incredible results with older hardware and clever techniques! Join Allen and Roya as they unravel the secrets behind DeepSeek's success, from their unique attention mechanisms to their cost-effective AI training strategies. But is all as it seems? They also tackle the controversies surrounding DeepSeek, including accusations of data plagiarism and concerns about censorship. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of AI! Timestamps...
Mar 17, 2025•44 min•Season 1Ep. 231
Amazon has announced Alexa Plus, powered by large language models (LLMs), and developers are buzzing with anticipation (and a healthy dose of skepticism!). Join Mark Tucker and Allen Firstenberg, your Two Voice Devs, as they dissect the news, explore the potential of the AI-native SDKs, and debate whether this overhaul will reignite the spark for Alexa development. In this deep dive, we cover: * The basics of Alexa Plus: What it is, who gets it for free, and how it differs from classic Alexa ski...
Mar 12, 2025•47 min
Allen Firstenberg and Linda Lawton dive deep into the power of Google's Imagen 3 Editing API. Discover how to effortlessly edit and enhance images, opening up a world of creative possibilities for developers! * Learn how the In-Painting/In-filling feature can quickly remove wires from an image, add highlights, and correct shading on images that the AI generated, and more. * Explore how to create your own 3D-printed objects from scratch using AI. * Discover how you can reference images to put mod...
Feb 28, 2025•34 min•Season 1Ep. 229
Are you building AI models and systems? Then you need to understand AI ethics! In this episode of Two Voice Devs, Allen Firstenberg welcomes Parul, a Senior Production Engineer at Meta, to dive deep into the world of AI ethics. Learn why fairness and bias are critical considerations for developers, and discover practical techniques to mitigate bias in your AI systems. Parul shares her experiences and passion for AI ethics, detailing how biases in training data and system design can lead to unfai...
Feb 20, 2025•35 min•Season 1Ep. 228
Are you overwhelmed by the sheer number of Large Language Models (LLMs) available? Choosing the right LLM for your project isn't about picking the most popular one – it's about understanding your specific needs and rigorously evaluating your options. In this episode of Two Voice Devs, Allen Firstenberg and guest host Brad Nemer, a seasoned product manager, dive deep into the world of LLM evaluation. They go beyond the marketing buzz and explore practical tools and strategies for making informed ...
Feb 14, 2025•39 min•Season 1Ep. 227
Google's white paper on AI Agents has sparked debate – are they truly the next leap in AI, or just large language models dressed up with new terminology? Join Allen and Mark of Two Voice Devs as they dive into the details, exploring the potential of Google's framework while also critically examining its shortcomings. They analyze the core components of agents – models, tools, and orchestration – highlighting the value of defining tools as capable of taking actions. But they also raise key questi...
Feb 03, 2025•41 min•Season 1Ep. 226
Join Allen Firstenberg as he welcomes Lee Mallon, a first-time guest host, for an in-depth discussion about the future of development, user experiences, and the exciting potential of AI-driven personalization! Lee shares his journey from coding on a Toshiba MX 128k to becoming CTO of Yalpop, a company reinventing learning through personalized experiences. This isn't just another AI hype-cast – it's a deep dive into how we can shift our mindset to truly put users at the center of our development ...
Jan 27, 2025•57 min•Season 1Ep. 225
Hold onto your keyboards, folks! AI is shaking up the software engineering world, and in this electrifying episode of Two Voice Devs, Allen and Mark are diving headfirst into the chaos. We're not just talking about the theory – we're getting real about how AI coding tools are actually impacting developers right now. Is this the end of coding as we know it, or the dawn of a new era of software creation? More Info: * https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/how-ai-will-change-software-engineerin...
Jan 16, 2025•45 min•Season 1Ep. 224
Join Mark and Allen, your favorite Two Voice Devs, as they explore the exciting (and sometimes frustrating!) world of Gemini 2.0's search grounding capabilities and how to use it with LangChainJS! Allen shares his recent holiday project: a deep dive into Google's latest AI tools, including the revamped search grounding feature, and how he made it work seamlessly across Gemini 1.5 and 2.0. We'll show you the code and demonstrate the differences between using search grounding and not, using real-w...
Jan 10, 2025•23 min
Happy New Year from Two Voice Devs! Join Allen Firstenberg and Mark Tucker as they recap the whirlwind that was 2024 in AI and tech, and make some bold predictions for 2025. We're diving deep into the biggest players, the most exciting innovations, and the developer challenges that lie ahead. From OpenAI's O3 and Google's Gemini 2.0 to the rise of Anthropic and the resurgence of head-mounted wearables, we preview the stories we'll be talking about this year. Plus, we discuss the important questi...
Jan 06, 2025•30 min•Season 1Ep. 222
It's the holiday season, and the AI world has been showering us with gifts! Join Mark and Allen on Two Voice Devs as they unwrap a mountain of new announcements and releases from Amazon, Meta, Google, and OpenAI. From groundbreaking new models to developer-friendly tools, this episode is packed with insights on the latest advancements in AI. We'll explore the features and potential of each new "present" and discuss what it means for you, the developer. [00:00:00] Intro and Holiday Greetings: Mar...
Dec 23, 2024•24 min•Season 1Ep. 221
Ever felt like your tech presentations, tutorials, or even code explanations are falling flat? You're not alone! In this episode of Two Voice Devs, Allen and Mark dive deep into the art of effective communication in tech, exploring how to move beyond just listing facts to building a compelling narrative that actually helps people understand. Inspired by a recent presentation that Allen felt was "just okay," they tackle the challenge of how to present information in a way that resonates, whether ...
Dec 20, 2024•25 min•Season 1Ep. 220
Join Mark and Allen on Two Voice Devs this week as they delve into a critical discussion about data scraping, large language models (LLMs), and the ethical responsibilities of developers. From the recent controversy surrounding BlueSky data scraping and Hugging Face datasets to the complexities of copyright law and personal privacy in the age of AI, this episode explores the gray areas and tough questions facing developers today. Hear their perspectives on the potential misuse of publicly availa...
Dec 12, 2024•24 min•Season 1Ep. 219
The Jovo open-source framework, a beloved tool for building cross-platform voice applications, is being archived. Join Mark and Allen as they discuss Jovo's history, its impact on the voice development landscape, and what its sunset means for developers. While the news might be bittersweet, we take this opportunity to celebrate Jovo's contributions and explore the valuable lessons learned from its innovative approach to voice app development. We delve into the framework's key features, including...
Dec 09, 2024•29 min•Season 1Ep. 218
Join Allen Firstenberg and Mark Tucker in this heartwarming Thanksgiving episode of Two Voice Devs! In a year of rapid advancements and shifts in the tech landscape, they take a moment to express sincere gratitude for the people, opportunities, and community that make their developer journey so rewarding. They reflect on the challenges and triumphs of the past year, the importance of support networks, and the exciting future of AI and development. Whether you're a seasoned coder or just starting...
Nov 28, 2024•14 min•Season 1Ep. 217
