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 page

Meron's page

Darin's page

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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. 

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They are hosting XR Pioneers on October 11th,

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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." 

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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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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.  

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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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