The AI XR Podcast

The hosts are in fine form as they dissect the AI boom, which will have an internet-like impact on the economy, society, and culture as the Internet, and will happen much, much faster. Nvidia's explosive earnings are a bigger news story than the US returning to the moon. That's how big it is. To discuss the complications and opportunity AI represents to higher education, our guest is Katie Conrad, Professor of English at the University of Kansas. She is the author of A Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights for Education. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week our guest is Susanne Haspinger, COO of Hololight. Rony's at an AI Medical conference. The big news is OpenAI's reveal of expanded memory for ChatGPT and the tease of the next Dall-E upgrade, a text-to-video app called Sora, which is capable of generating up to a minute of video from a single prompt. Nvidia, now the world's third largest company, introduced Chat RTX for PCs that will search across local files. The legal battles of OpenAI may be breaking in its favor. Susanne, who was one of the co-founders of Hololight, talks with us about Hololight's work in cloud streaming XR content and working with automakers and defense contractors on their use of the industrial metaverse, which she predicts will have major ROI and other breakthroughs in 2024. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We recorded one of our best shows this morning with Cinematic AI Filmmakers Caleb & Shelby Ward. If you have not seen their hilarious Wes Anderson Star Wars trailer you are missing a treat. Meanwhile, the week rewarded us with some big news: Disney puts up $15B for Epic to make their game and entertainment universe, Ted is in love - with his new Apple Vision Pro, Google replaces Bard with Gemini, and deep fakes fool a Hong Kong bank into wiring $25M. Status Pro VR, Polycam 3D, Camb.ai, Atlas 3D, All Score Funding. Then Caleb and Shelby, of Curious Refuge, give us a fantastic look at the future of film.Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week the hosts are together, live and in-person *for the first time* from the glamorous Sunset Marquis in Los Angeles. It's a propitious day on top of that, of course, as today is 2-2-24, the official launch day of the Apple Vision Pro. In addition, Meta reported a record quarter, a record dividend, a stock buyback, and a successful Christmas season for its Reality Labs division. The stock shot up fifteen percent. This is just twenty-four hours after CEO Zuck was flogged in Washington, DC (again). The plot thickens as we bring in Xreal's raise of $60M to release its Xreal Air2 Ultra, a $600 alternative to the AVP. Our guest is Tommy Palm, CEO of Resolution Games, which released a game studio on the Pro store today. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ted is doing his real job for Viacom today but Rony is with us, while on a ferry in Florida, en route to a secret rendezvous. In the news: Eleven Labs raising $80M for voice cloning, $6.7M for Artisse AI photo app for models and influencers, and the new Rabbit R1 a compact, toy-like $200 handheld AI "Large Action Model" that knows you and your apps. Rony says the price is so low, China must be underwriting it as part of another insidious TikTok-like scheme to steal your data. Our guest is David Weinstein, Senior Director of XR at Nvidia. He takes on a fascinating deep dive into Nvidia's XR strategy, which has four pillars: (1) photorealism, (2) AI, (3) Streaming/split rendering, and (4) collaboration, all taking place in the Omniverse, which David describes as XR's "simulation engine." Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jason McDowall of the AR Show podcast sits in the co-host chair as Ted and Rony are traveling. They missed a great show. With Rony absent we take a deep dive into troubles at Magic Leap and how its recent raise of $590M of debt financing from its majority shareholder, Saudi Arabia, is actually bad news. If they didn't get there with the last infusion of half a billion dollars, how do they get to profitability this time around? Our guest is consultant Shelly Palmer of the Palmer Group. He is a professor at the Newhouse School, and a technology and strategy consultant to some of the biggest companies in the world, including Samsung, Meta, Ford and Nike. Shelly has deep insight into how businesses need to change and adapt to what he calls "the generative age." Resources to our guests' websites:https://shellypalmer.com/https://www.thearshow.com/Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Live from CES, Charlie and Ted recap the show, the Sphere experience, Xreal's newest AR glasses, the new Sony enterprise XR pass-through HMD, healthtech and, outside the show, layoffs at Unity and Google's AR hardware team. Our guest is the original futurist, author Faith Popcorn, who was at CES on behalf of holographic telepresence company, Proto. She's made some of the biggest calls about the direction of the economy, tech and society, in the past 30 years, including the end of retail. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week our guest is Gary Shapiro, CEO of CES, making good on the appearance that last week was handled by the CTA's futurist, Brian Comisky. In the news, more talk about copyrights as the 1924 "Steamboat Willie'' version of Mickey Mouse enters the public domain. XReal says it sold 350K pairs of its Air2 Assisted Reality smartglasses that provide the user a big screen experience on the go using mobile devices, game consoles, tablets and laptops. AI Search engine Perplexity raised $73.6M. The Chat GPT store will open next week. Gary Shapiro talks about his forty year career with CES and how it's grown. He also talks about his experience as an industry advocate with a nuanced, legal view on intellectual property laws, which are at the center of AI like ChatGPT. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today our guest is, after some confusion, Brian Comisky, Futurist for CTA (which puts on CES). We start the show on a slow holiday news week with a discussion of the NY Times suit against OpenAI, apparently following unsuccessful negotiations. CES is the largest trade show in the world, with 130,000 people already registered. Brian joins us to discuss past hype cycles, future ones, and what to expect in 2024 (AI everywhere). Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week's guest, Sarah Hill, CEO of Healium (note spelling) was guest #1 on our podcast, in July 2020. We were experimenting with both the format of the show and recording the podcast in VR. It was a relatively slow news week, except Bytedance was booted off Azure Cloud's OpenAI for using it to train its own model, which is strictly verboten. Amidst denials, they were also caught covering it up. Rony has a lot to say about China and the theft of intellectual property, which, ironically is what OpenAI itself did when it scraped the Internet to begin with. Microsoft is shutting down its Mixed Reality OS, setting off a flurry of XR hand wringing. Healium is a platform agnostic app which uses biometrics to help users control hypertension, depression, and other conditions. Their app is available on all platforms and used by the VA to treat veterans. Healium, founded ten years ago, counts the Mayo Clinic as one of its strategic investors. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Epic games scored a $92M win over Google for its decidedly anti-competitive app store, but what's really going to hurt is changing the business model of its app store. The EU AI Act puts some rules around transparency and copyright, Mistal AI raises $415M, and Open AI makes a deal with publisher Axel Springer. Tesla introduced a humanoid robot, Optimus Gen-1. What could go wrong? Our guest is founder and CEO of ForeVR, Marcus Segal, who was formerly the COO of Zynga. He has had an extraordinary journey through the games industry, which prepared him to build one of the Meta Quest's most popular franchises, with multiplayer titles ForeVR Bowling, ForeVR Darts, and ForeVR Pool. They discuss what, and how long, it's going to take to sell one hundred million VR headsets, and increase the frequency of their use. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the week's news was a flurry of AI announcements. Musk's Grok AI launches, and it has promise. A real-time connection to the Internet is valuable, even if it comes from Twitter. Meta launches Imagine, a very fast, very simple, text-to-image app, and other AI features. Google unveils a new, powerful LLM, Gemini, which will succeed Bard. Our guest this week is writer-director-producer John MacInnes, who is making a horror film using Unreal Engine for Fortnite (UEFN) with the support of Epic Games. The finished film will cost about 1% of a typical studio budget. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our guest this week is Joe Hunting, director of the award-winning HBO documentary, "We Met in VR." The hosts think big about events in tech, from OpenAI to Twitter, to Quantum Computing, IBM and AWS before a recap of the week's news, which includes a $55M financing round for text-to-video Gen AI app Pika Labs, and funding for three companies focused on XR. Joe Hunting's debut feature documentary has drawn attention to VR Chat as a unique platform for filmmaking and performance, and he's formed Painted Cloud Productions to focus on it. Joe is also curating a new festival for films set in VR Chat, Raindance Immersive, whose second edition will be in June, 2024. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The team is at full strength this week as we welcome Linda Jacobson, head of marketing for HaptX, the leader in VR gloves for enterprises. Rony kicks off the morning's tech news with an interesting rant about Tik-Tok, which he says is a threat to national security. Character AI is about to raise a billion dollars, mostly to train its characters, CIVIT.AI the free model repository for Stable Diffusion raised $5 M from Andressen, presumably to figure out a business plan, the tech that made Grimes' AI, Trinity, is now available on the web. The AI Pin is here. Now what? If you're interested in a deep dive into the importance of haptics to XR, don't miss this episode. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week our guest is Michael Beneville, co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of AREA15, an immersive entertainment venue in Las Vegas, anchored by Meow Wolf's Omera Mart. First, Ted and Charlie recap busy news week, starting with Open AI's first Developer Day, and Musk's xAI announces Grok, which will incorporate a real-time newsfeed from Twitter. We have details on the AI Pin launching next week. A new free translation app, Lipdub, does voice cloning and AI-driven lip-syncing of short videos. Beneville shares some secrets of AREA15's incredible success: his passion for immersive entertainment. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week we're wondering how exactly the new US AI regulations are going to work, and hoping the EU will be a little more specific. In an international, open-source world, is this even possible? On the heels of a $4B investment from Amazon, Anthropic AI is now taking $2B from Amazon's competitor, Google. Xpanceo is bringing AR contact lenses back. Our guest is Amy LaMeyer, Managing Partner of the Women's XR Fund (WXR Fund). We're talking about their portfolio, the slow pace of XR adoption, and how to get more women into tech. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week the hosts tear into weekly earnings, more changes at Magic Leap, big tech earnings, and Peter Theil's investment in a European drone maker. Our guest is legendary music producer Albhy Galuten. As a music producer he was responsible for over a dozen number one hits. As an executive and technologist, he shepherded Universal Musical into the digital era.Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This Week in XR Special episode with Jake Zim...Jake Zim – SVP, Virtual Reality, Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPVR)Oversees global virtual reality production and strategy for the motion picture group. Jake has produced a wide variety of interactive projects across a spectrum of distribution channels including location-based, mobile and in-home. Zim has led the development of virtual reality experiences such as the Emmy® nominated Spider-Man: Homecoming VR; Ghostbusters: Dimension; The Emoji Movie VR Experience; Can You Walk The Walk; Hotel Transylvania Popstic VR; Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son; Jumanji: Reverse The Curse; and the Spider-Man: Far From Home VR Experience, the world’s first multiplayer VR game powered by 5G. Most recently, he led the production of Zombieland: Headshot Fever and is leading the team producing the highly-anticipated Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord, launching on October 26, 2023.Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Charlie and Rony do the news while Ted is at Sony with SVP Jake Zim, playing their new “Ghostbusters” VR game. In the news this week, Charlie’s hot take on Quest 3, Mojo Vision gets its mojo back, raising another $21.4 M. Universal music sues Anthropic AI. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week's tech news starts with an unhappy topic, as we explore the impact of the Hamas War, particularly on the Israeli tech sector. Unity CEO John Riccitello exits under a cloud; big layoffs at Qualcomm in San Diego. The bright side includes rave reviews of the Meta Quest 3 and new competitor to Meta's Ray-Ban Stories, Carrera, which uses Amazon's Alexa for smart glasses. Our guest this week is Meron Gribetz, founder and CEO of Inner Cosmos, which uses a brain-computer interface to treat patients with chronic depression and other disorders. His Digital Pill is a penny-sized device slipped under the skin.Learn more about their work on their website and connect with them on LinkedIn at:Inner Cosmos Company pageMeron's pageDarin's pageThank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week it's all Ted and Rony, as Charlie and the guest were nixed by travel trouble. Top topic is wearable AI, like Humane's AI pin, which has a micro projector for visual data, projected on a table or your hand. Mr. Beast and Tom Hanks were Deep Faked. The importance of authentication, says Rony, is growing exponentially. Ted shares his impressions of Quest 3. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!They are hosting XR Pioneers on October 11th,Sign up: https://www.zappar.com/xr-pioneers/2023/Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week was packed with XR and AI news, starting with the formal introduction of the $500 Meta Quest 3, upgraded audio Ray Ban smart glasses, and AI integrations with Instagram. Also in the news, Amazon's multi-billion dollar investment in Anthropic, the AI startup whose Claude AI is a ChatGPT competitor. Our guests, Banks Boutee and Max Burman, are the co-founders of KitBash3D which makes premium assets for movies and video games like "Terminator" and "The Last of Us." Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week we're musing about the sad fate of NFTs, the race to build AI co-pilots, Neuralink human trials, and the new Caleb Wood GenAI Star Wars fan scene. Our guest is Michael Freeman, co-founder of Ocutrx, which is launching an AR HMD, the Oculenz, that will help macular degeneration patients see. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The boys are back with Space Aliens, AI in the US Senate, Text to Audio from Stability AI, and the Army resurrects its HoloLens for infantry AR project, IVAS. Our guest is entrepreneur Anna Belova, founder and CEO of Devar. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

No big financing news but the holiday-shortened week brought up important topics, notably a ruling on an award-winning AI-generated image. There were a couple of juicy hardware rumors: Nintendo/Google and Meta/LG, which leads to a discussion of Meta vs. Apple brand strategy. Say hello to 'Ajax,' Apple's private LLM, which may be the future of Siri. Our guest is Curtis Hickman, Chief Creative Officer of the Void and the author of the new book, "Hyper-Reality: The Art of Designing Impossible Experiences."Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week we're talking about OpenAI's one billion dollars in revenue, up from a measly 28 million in 2022. They've got plenty of competition, including Tel Aviv-based AI21, which just raised another $155 M to compete with their business offering. We also get into VRChat and Meta Horizon's new mobile apps, and the announcement the Magic Leap One Creators' Edition won't be supported after 2024, whatever that means. Our guest is Michael Mack, CEO and owner of Europa Park, the second-largest theme park in Europe, hosting six million visitors a year. The Park recently added a free-roam VR attraction, as well as an interactive restaurant, Adrenaline. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!https://linktr.ee/thisweekinxr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A slow week at the end of the summer, punctuated by blockbuster earnings from Nvidia, the primary beneficiary of the AI boom, at least for now. Rony thinks they could be a ten trillion dollar company in five years. Our guest is Anurupa Ganguly, the founder of Prisms, a VR learning platform for middle and high school students. She's an MIT-trained engineer who taught in Boston Public Schools where she identified the need, and the opportunity, to transform math and science instruction with VR. Prisms has proven itself by sending test scores through the roof, and they are now planning to roll out additional subjects.Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Slow news week gave us a lot of time with our guest, Walter Parkes, academy-award-winning producer and co-founder and Chairman of Dreamscape location-based VR, and Dreamscape Learn, a joint venture with ASU to create immersive learning centers around the world. Walter talks about his movies, the founding of Dreamscape, and its spin-off Dreamscape Learn. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our guest this week is Inga Petryaevskaya, founder and CEO of ShapesXR, an app that enables you to prototype XR experiences in VR. They just raised an $8.6 round. Also in the news this week, Neuralink scores $280M to continue developing its brain implant, now being distastefully tested on chimps. Leia3D acquires competitor Dimenco, and Immersed going public through a SPAC. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our guest is "Ready Player One" screenwriter Zak Penn. He is also a prolific filmmaker, earning nerd cred with the doc "Atari, Game Over." In the news this week, Siggraph's 50th kicks off in LA, $50M in funding for Inworld's AI NPCs, Virtuix (omnidirectional VR treadmill) raised $5M, and Hologate, the most successful LBVR company in the world, raised $8M. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week we're talking about Meta's reported losses on the Metaverse, Sam Altman's Worldcoin, a company that scans your eyes to confirm you're human, like Blade Runner. Our guest is Rob Tercek, author of Vaporized, and social entrepreneur, who is working on a project to create regional tech hubs to foster innovation in 3D technologies in places like Santa Fe, Charleston and Little Rock by bringing together local governments, universities and private industry. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week the hosts are grappling with text-to-episode GenAI just released by the Simulation (formerly Fable Studio). Dan Olson, creator of the "Folding Ideas" YouTube channel and the film "Follow the Line," a debunking of crypto, which has garnered 11M views. The follow-up, "The Future is a Dead Mall," which takes on the Metaverse, earned 3M views. Olson schools the hosts on these topics, the future of AI, and the tech hype cycle. Dan's new movie tells the story of Meme stocks.Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What writers and actors fear about AI, Zuck's Threads, Elon's X, and Roblox VR. Guest Shawn Frayne, CEO of Looking Glass Factory, who talks about their 3D displays and their new AI driven holographic characters, Lifeforms. Chatbots made of light. Listener question: "What is XR's killer app?"Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Zuck - Musk cage match, Threads v Twitter, is on, but it may play out in court. Our guest this week is the legendary Ken Bretschneider, founder of the Evermore and Grid theme parks, and co-founder of The VOID. He gave us a good taste of why he's been so successful at creating unmatched experiences: he thinks big. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Charlie and Ted celebrate show #150 by talking with Rony about Augmedics' big raise for its X-vision AR wearable that uses a patient's skin as a projection surface. Also, Google kills its AR project "Iris" (again), and Pokemon Go producer Niantic's layoffs. Our guests are David Ganek and Joel Newton, who co-founded City Lights, a VR Studio that finances, produces and distributes VR Experiences like "Spheres." They share details about their newest production "Yosemite," which uses photogrammetry to capture impossible spatial views of the park, coupled with its greatest stories. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Rony is off again but this week we had a great conversation with guests Kylan Gibbs, founder and CPO, and Academy Award Winner John Gaeta, CCO of inWorld.ai, which enables game designers to create independent AI characters who interact with players in a video game. In the news, the Elon-Zuck "cage match," Kobold AI mining raises $200M, Elven Labs $19M, and Second Life turns 20! Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Charlie and Ted, and everyone else, are still talking about the Apple Vision Pro, even as three AI start-ups land over $450 M between them. One of them is four weeks old! Our guests this week are Dr. Simon Taylor, Co-Founder & Chief R&D Officer, and Kirk Ewing, Co-Founder & General Manager of Zapbox, here to introduce the new $80 AR headset, ZapBox. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ted and Rony rip into Apple Vision Pro as they dig into the future of spatial computing. Guest is producer Ed Saatchi, founder of Fable Studio (“Wolves in the Walls”), creator of virtual (AI) beings, and an upcoming movie created exclusively with AI. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A brief recap of AWE, the surprise reveal of the Quest 3, and the upcoming launch of the Apple Reality One are the topics this week, followed by on-site interviews from AWE in Santa Clara with Unity CEO John Riccitiello and Hugo Swart, VP and GM of Qualcomm.Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week Charlie and Ted are going old style - without Rony, who joined us last fall. Charlie and Rony are having a fireside at AWE next week. The news conversation includes Anthropic's $50M raise for its Claude chatbot, Meta licensing Magic Leap tech, Nreal rebrands to XReal, launches new Beam 3DOF headset and director Doug Liman launches Area 15, a mobile AR experience to the app stores.Our guest this week is Artur Sychov, founder and CEO of Somnium Space, a SocialVR platform with a decentralized virtual economy based on blockchain with its own utility token called CUBE. The Czech company is also introducing their own VR headset called Somnium VR1 in collaboration with Vrgineers. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the wake of OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman's plea for regulation in a Senate hearing, the hosts question whether this is even possible. Also in the news is the launch of Sightful's new screenless Spacetop, which uses Nreal Light smart glasses as a display. Disney is closing its Star Wars hotel. Our guest is Ori Inbar, Executive Producer of AWE, who gives us a preview of the world's largest conference focused on XR, May 31 - June 2nd in Silicon Valley. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week's top stories are Google I/O and the launch of PokemonGo maker Niantic's new mobile AR Game, Peridot. Our guest is entrepreneur and NYU Professor Joost van Dreunen, game industry expert and author of One Up. We discuss the Metaverse, AI in games, consolidation, Microsoft's acquisition of Activision, and the future of VR games. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The hosts are their own guests in this second week after Ted's open heart surgery. There was no XR news so we jumped right into AI. Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic were at the White House to meet with the President and Vice-President. This comes as Jim Hinton, an AI pioneer, left Google to warn the public about AI's potential to flood the world with disinformation and destroy democracy by creating confusion about what is real. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don’t forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ted heroically co-hosts four days after open heart surgery. Lots of talk about AI this morning, Charlie's new "AI Weekly" column in Forbes, Replit AI Github-like scored $97 M, and Hugging Face launches. The guest is Anand Agarawala, co-founder and CEO of cross-platform collaboration and world hosting space, Spatial.io, which recently integrated with Unity. They have effectively replaced the role of AltSpaceVR (RIP). AI is going to play a big role in their future. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Rony and Charlie take a journey into the heart of Roblox with Product VP Raj Bhatia while Ted's recovering from surgery. This week the hosts share hot takes on five XR/Metaverse funding announcements (what recession?), Snap's Partner Summit, and YouTube tech critic Dan Olson. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ted picked up RSV or something worse on his travels to Augusta and points east. He's on the mend after a scary stay in the ICU, but he has been there for FIVE days. This week we talk about VR's top ten, and welcome guest Sid Odedra, Head of UI/UX of AUDI who's been using the Magic Leap 2 to visualize the future of the automotive experience. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Charlie does the news solo as Ted was late because he couldn't find a place to talk at The Masters golf tournament where smartphones, even in airplane mode, are not allowed. Rony is off for Passover. In the news this week, funding for display companies, Mojo Vision and OQmented. Styly, an AR company digitizing the physical world, and Sony's new 3D display. Our guest is James Kaplan, CEO of MeetKai, a browser-based Metaverse company that uses AI to assist content creation. The company was co-founded by Weilei Dai, the founder of Marvell Technologies. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week our guest is Mathieu Nouzareth, CEO of the Sandbox metaverse. In the news and on our minds this week are Epic's Fortnite metaverse, Disney's dead metaverse, Apple's Reality One, Pico's Tik Tok problem, and Fat Boy Slim's amazing VR concert in EngageVR. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week we're talking about GDC, Epic's "State of Unreal," its Fab new asset store, its virtual economy, and now users can upload content from UE5 into Fortnite. Spatial is doing something similar with Unity. Also, Luma 3D AI, Second Life mobile, and Adobe introduces Firefly AI. Our guest is CEO Steve Zhao of SandboxVR, a chain of 43 VR centers worldwide. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ted and Charlie made good on their promise to record a special edition of the podcast this afternoon to finish their conversation about the multidisciplinary social musical mash-up that denizens call South-by. More about Leia 3D Lume Pad, Holokit, and meet Miroki, a helpful robot with a cartoon face. Thank you to our sponsor, Zappar!Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.