This Week in XR Podcast

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!

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!

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!

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!

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

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!

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!

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!

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!