The AI XR Podcast.

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 t...

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 i...

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 gue...

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 M...

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 h...

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 S...

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 o...

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...

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 spon...

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 expe...

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://linkt...

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 i...

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 spons...

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 premi...

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...

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 Hoste...

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 Crea...

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, wha...

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 w...

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, Za...

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 yo...

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! Do...

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 Lit...

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 fut...

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 s...