The AI XR Podcast.

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. 

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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. 

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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."

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Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!

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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!

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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.

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!

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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.

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Don't forget to like, share, and follow for more! Follow us on all socials @ThisWeekInXR!

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