We talk with Jennifer Rundell, COO of Positron, the company behind the Voyager chair -- the world’s first full-motion chair for premium cinematic VR content. Jennifer talks about some of their content partnerships like Universal Studios and IMAX, and how Positron is making their interactive haptic-enabled motion chair commercially viable. We talk about the future of theater, how Positron is strategically tapping into the location-based entertainment market, and why adding motion and haptics to VR experiences can drastically reduce reported nausea by tricking the vestibular system. Jennifer also illustrates how immersive directors can think of motion as another input and tool to direct audience attention -- http://www.gopositron.com/

Join us: http://www.realvirtualshow.com 

*Big thanks to John K. Chin for the jazzy music & James A. Beck for the voice magic

This week’s episode features Michael Koperwas, Mixed Reality Supervisor at Lucasfilm’s ILMxLAB. We talk with Michael about how things have changed in his almost-20 years in the VFX industry, how VFX skillsets and tools can be used for VR/AR, and his take on 3D creation tools in VR. We also dig into motion capture technology in general, image based motion capture in particular, and how ILMxLAB helped Rogue One with pre-visualization tools using CAVEs. Michael also touches a bit on the Disney partnership with The VOID to bring 4D “hyper-reality” Star Wars immersive experiences to life -http://www.ilmxlab.com/

Join us: http://www.realvirtualshow.com 

*Big thanks to John K. Chin for the jazzy music & James A. Beck for the voice magic

We chat with Katrika Morris, co-founder and creative director of Moatboat --  a virtual reality app that lets you build worlds… with your voice. An experimental tool that lets you create the world around you by stating things out loud like: “I need seven foxes,” Moatboat lets you layer multiple 3D objects inside your voice-controlled empire. We talk about voice as input for immersive technologies, the necessity of multi-modal input modalities for the VR/AR future, and why social sharing integrations are important now - http://www.moatboat.com/

Join us: http://www.realvirtualshow.com 

*Big thanks to John K. Chin for the jazzy music & James A. Beck for the voice magic

We chat with Alison Raby and James Hanusa, the co-founders of Digital Raign, a virtual accelerator and experiential ecosystem design & development firm focused on exponential tech and emerging media. We talk about how exponential technologies in general are converging, and how essential it is in this moment in history to make a conscientious choice in how we use these powerful tools. We also discuss the first annual Shifting the Paradigm summit at the Esalen Institute (fall 2016), and Alison and James share with us how this year’s summit has evolved and what we can look forward to - https://www.digitalraign.com/

Join us: http://www.realvirtualshow.com 

*Big thanks to John K. Chin for the jazzy music & James A. Beck for the voice magic

We chat with @MattMiesnieks, partner at @Super_Ventures, all about augmented reality, investing, and some of the VR/AR companies in their portfolio. Matt has a deep background in AR, including creating the first mixed reality platform for iOS with Dekko and leading AR product R&D at Samsung. From this rich experience, Matt offers insight into how huge companies’ AR announcements (namely Facebook’s Camera Effects platform and Apple’s ARKit) have fueled development, education, and interest in the technology. Matt also gives some great advice to founders seeking funding, elaborates on why Super Ventures funded specific companies in their portfolio (Nitero, CognitiveVR, Massless, and Forcite), and why he doesn’t want an AR cycling headset - http://www.superventures.com/

Join us: http://www.realvirtualshow.com 

*Big thanks to John K. Chin for the jazzy music & James A. Beck for the voice magic

We chat with Jennifer Chavarria, Head of Studio at Kite & Lightning--  the VR content company behind the highly-anticipated Bebylon: a virtual world of outrageous babies. The first episode is called Bebylon: Battle Royale, a “VR vehicular melee party brawler” that features cigar-chomping babies fighting each other in an arena knockout game, complete with screaming crowds. Jennifer tells us about the thought behind the avatar design process, the social aspect of the Bebylon world (you can play against friends, or spectate with friends), and how they are thinking of this concept in context of esports competitions. We also chat about in-world/in-game monetization opportunities and how Jennifer’s background in music videos and live stage effects helps inform the making of the grand Bebylon extravaganza - http://kiteandlightning.la/

Join us: http://www.realvirtualshow.com 

*Big thanks to John K. Chin for the jazzy music & James A. Beck for the voice magic

We talk with Sophia Dominguez, CEO & co-founder of SVRF and creator of All Things VR, about immersive media, the current state of VR/360 content, and how to qualify content as “bad” or “good.” Solving the challenge of how to find VR/360 video content, SVRF is the best way to search and discover virtual reality content on the Internet and acts like a search engine for immersive web content. We also talk about Sophia’s global trip with Google Glasses back in 2014, how people around the world reacted to the futuristic device, and the parallels and differences between Glass and Snap Spectacles - https://www.svrf.com/ - http://www.allthingsvr.co/

Join us: http://www.realvirtualshow.com 

*Big thanks to John K. Chin for the jazzy music & James A. Beck for the voice magic

We chat with Peter Rojas (@peterrojas), partner in betaworks ventures, about how his background as a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Engadget and Gizmodo led him into the venture capital world. We talk about betaworks and their investing philosophy, the VR/AR companies in their portfolio (Against Gravity, Viro, and BOOM.TV), and why they have invested in them. We dig deep into the differences between venture capital and other sources of funding, Peter gives tangible advice to founders seeking capital, we talk about virtual reality headset sales numbers, and why perhaps we’re wrong about what makes for great VR - http://roj.as/

Join us: http://www.realvirtualshow.com 

*Big thanks to John K. Chin for the jazzy music & James A. Beck for the voice magic

We talk with Zahra Rasool (@RXahra) all about Al Jazeera’s newly-announced immersive media studio, @ContrastVR. She gives us insight into how she’s thinking about immersive journalism plus a window into Al Jazeera’s two-pronged approach: producing a series of cinematic-quality 360 documentaries while building out the 360 production capabilities of their local brands around the world. Zahra tells us about the 360 doc series currently in production, and we also address how she’s thinking about distribution/subject matter differently depending on where the project falls on the spectrum of varying production quality - http://contrastvr.com/

Join us: http://www.realvirtualshow.com 

*Big thanks to John K. Chin for the jazzy music & James A. Beck for the voice magic

This week we talk with @NathanBurba, co-founder & CEO of @Survios, for an in-person conversation at his company's headquarters in Los Angeles. Survios is well-known in the VR space for their highly-polished game, Raw Data, that set revenue records and grossed over $1M in the first month of its release on early access. Nathan shares with us more about Survios as a company, how he thinks about game design, innovative locomotion techniques deployed on their Sprint Vector title (currently in development), and how the Raw Data world is expanding and what we can look forward to in the next release of the sci-fi game. We also chat about why Survios has raised almost $55M in funding, how MGM (one of their lead investors) might influence their strategy, and discuss the importance of location-based activations - https://survios.com/

Join us: http://www.realvirtualshow.com 

*Big thanks to John K. Chin for the jazzy music & James A. Beck for the voice magic