This Week in XR Podcast

This week our guest is Joaquin Cuenca Abela, co-founder and CEO of Freepik. Rony is off for the Jewish holiday, Sukkot. Earlier in the week, he launched his new company SynthBee with $20 million dollars of VC money. Also in the news, Nvidia enters software with a high-performing open source AI model, competing with its biggest customers. Our sponsor Zappar now has got a deep-pocketed backer with an exit strategy, Infinite Reality. Freepik CEO Joaquin Cuenca Abela joins us to share the story of his company, Freepik, which started out as an ad-supported search site for free pictures. Today Freepik makes around $100M a year in subscription revenues from their seven hundred and fifty million month unique visitors. For the past two years, Freepik has been leaning heavily into generative AI, and is adding new features, like text-to-video, which he hinted may be coming soon. Freepik hit our radar last year when it acquired the AI upscaling tool Magnific. 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

This week the hosts are here in full force to welcome Justin Maier, co-founder and CEO of Civitai. Elon Musk of Tesla revealed of the Robotaxi and its accompanying Robobus and Optimus robots. The nobel prize in Physics went to John Hopfield and Geoff Hinton, the AI Scientist who "retired from Google" warning the NY Times about the dangers of AGI. RIP Spacetop computer with its wearable AR monitor. Edward Berger’s immersive short film Submerged is now available on Apple’s Vision Pro. Justin Maier explains how Civitai is about to revolutionize generative AI content creation with an enhanced, consolidated workflow which will run on their Buzz token. You can see why Andressen invested in this young AI company.  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

Ted and Charlie welcome Antony Batt, Neville Spiteri, co-founders of Wevr, creators of "The Blu," one of the first experiences created for the HTC Vive in 2016. Rony is off for the holiday (Happy New Year to those who celebrate). In the news, Future Trash, an LA creative studio, scores $5M to make experiences for Fortnite. Runware AI Raises $3M for super fast AI image generation. Infinite Realty buys Super League. Antony and Neville give a VR history lesson as they are also genuine VR OGs, having survived not one but two "VR winters." Today Wevr is thriving, and more focused on location-based VR. 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

Charlie, Rony and Ted welcome Yonatan Tal, CEO of Supersocial. First up is the flurry of announcements from Meta Connect, including the unveiling of their see-through AR headset, dubbed Orion, and more broad updates about AI. Rony shares intimate details of his conversation with Mark Zuckerberg at the prestigious Allen & Company invitation-only in Sun Valley. Yonatan Tal shares details of his Metaverse construction studio, Supersocial, and how they make Roblox experiences. The company is a combination of an agency and a Roblox game developer, making it a sought-after partner for big brands seeking to reach that prized youth audience. 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

Ted and Charlie are Rony-less but happily dive into a busy newsweek, which featured new headsets from Snap and HTC, a $230 M raise for World Labs, which is focused on generating 3D AI, for worlds and assets. Also in the news Palmer Lucky to the rescue, and a Neuralink breakthrough. John Attanassio and Luisa Huang, co-founders of Toonstar, join us to share their nine year journey to success as an AI-assisted animation company, specializing in YouTube and social media. Their series, Stephen and Parker, a collaboration with TikTok megastar Parker James, gets tens of millions views - and dollars - on YouTube. 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

This week all three hosts are back in force with a great guest, Zhen Feng, Head of International for Roblox. Rony and Ted talk about a new hush-hush optics technology for XR which they believe is coming to headsets soon. It's a slow news week, but we did talk about iOs 18, Apple Intelligence (or lack thereof), and Google Shopping's virtual try-on. Zhen Fengs shares her unique journey from Microsoft to early Facebook, where she spent 13 years, and now her role at Roblox, which made us all want to go work there. 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

This week it's Ted's turn to be too busy, but Charlie and Rony are in fine form, welcoming Liam Broza, CTO of Infinite Reality. In the news, funding for AI startups big and small, including Magic AI, Story Protocol, Miris, and Gen-AI animation app, Viggle. Liam explains how Infinite Reality is turning the browser into a metaverse streaming platform. 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/thisweekinxrMore about Liam:Liam Broza is the Chief Technology Officer for Infinite Reality (iR), an innovation company powering the next generation of digital media and ecommerce through AI and immersive technologies. Liam leads the company’s platform team building iR Engine, a no-code cutting-edge spatial web platform that empowers creators and brands, regardless of technical ability, to build immersive web experiences with ease.Liam has spent the last 15 years working at the intersection of spatial computing, computer vision, and data sovereignty. Liam co-founded, expanded, and ultimately led Ethereal Engine, a creator of end-to-end frameworks for web-first, social immersive experiences, to its successful $75 million acquisition by Infinite Reality.Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/broza/ X (Twitter)https://x.com/LiamBroza Company Website www.theinfinitereality.com

This week we're joined by Ryan Chapman, CEO of Motive, focused on business applications of VR. We start with the state of the entertainment business, where Charlie throws around wildly inaccurate numbers to make the point that the music has stopped for the television networks and cable channels like MTV, which are about to be chopped up and sold for parts as they continue to hemorrhage viewers to Roblox, Fortnite, and TikTok. New AR glasses are coming from Meta and Snap next month. Oh, and there's not going to be a GTA VR game [cue: loud applause]. Ryan Chapman, CEO of Motive, breaks down their unique approach to developing VR applications for training workers. 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