This Week in XR Podcast

This week the hosts are joined by Reggie Fils-Aimé, former CEO of Nintendo North America, and author of Disrupting the Game.

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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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The Zuck - Musk cage match, Threads v Twitter, is on, but it may play out in court. Our guest this week is the legendary Ken Bretschneider, founder of the Evermore and Grid theme parks, and co-founder of The VOID. He gave us a good taste of why he's been so successful at creating unmatched experiences: he thinks big.

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

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This week's guest, Sarah Hill, CEO of Healium (note spelling) was guest #1 on our podcast, in July 2020. We were experimenting with both the format of the show and recording the podcast in VR. It was a relatively slow news week, except Bytedance was booted off Azure Cloud's OpenAI for using it to train its own model, which is strictly verboten. Amidst denials, they were also caught covering it up. Rony has a lot to say about China and the theft of intellectual property, which, ironically is what OpenAI itself did when it scraped the Internet to begin with. Microsoft is shutting down its Mixed Reality OS, setting off a flurry of XR hand wringing. Healium is a platform agnostic app which uses biometrics to help users control hypertension, depression, and other conditions. Their app is available on all platforms and used by the VA to treat veterans. Healium, founded ten years ago, counts the Mayo Clinic as one of its strategic investors.

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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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.