This Week in XR Podcast Charlie Fink Productions

This week is show #199. Our guest is Jeri Ellsworth, CEO and Co-Founder of Tilt Five. Next week we'll record show #200 in front of a live audience at AWE in Long Beach, CA. This week we review Apple AI (Apple Intelligence), their cross-platform AI implementation. Also in the news, Mistral raises $600 M to compete with OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Anthropic. Sandbox metaverse raises $20M, and achieves unicorn status while unicorn VR Chat lays off 30% of its staff. Jeri Ellsworth is co-founder of the AR tabletop game hardware company Tilt Five, which creates PC-based 3D AR board games that play on a reflective mat. Hardware is hard. Harder when it also needs great software. With Nintendo as its guiding light, against the odds, Tilt Five is building momentum. 
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

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Ted and Charlie welcome Ori Inbar, who is celebrating AWE's 15th anniversary by moving the June 18 - 20 show from Silicon Valley to Long Beach. In the news, big raises for Pika Labs ($80M) and Twelve Labs ($50M) that can understand video. Wevr, maker of the seminal VR experience The Blu, raises $3.5M. The CEO of Sony Pictures says he is "all in" on cinematic AI. Amidst layoffs in Microsoft mixed reality, Micrososft admits the fate of the HoloLens is in the hands of the US Army. With Ori, we discussed the move to Long Beach, which will draw more of an LA crowd, his famous keynotes and tech tricks, the vision pro, the AWE Hall of Fame, and the best of AWE over the years. Palmer Lucky says he is making a new VR headset, to be revealed at the show. 
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

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Our guest is XR consultant and thought leader, Amy Peck, CEO of EndeavorXR, but first, it's Ted's birthday, and yes, we sing (sorry). After a brief celebration, we talked about Elon's monumental $6B raise for xAI, and Google's new partnership with Magic Leap, renewing a love affair that began in 2014, when Google made a whopping $500M bet on the nascent company. As Amy joins us, Rony gives us an insider look at Magic Leap's early days. Amy's focus on enterprise applications of XR, wearables and AI, led us to a state of the industry conversation, and some thoughts about the upcoming Augmented World Expo June 18 - 20 in Long Beach, CA.
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
Amy's Social links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amypeckxr/
YouTube: http://bit.ly/PeckYouTube
Twitter: https://twitter.com/amypeckxr
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amypeck_xr
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amypeckXR

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This week our guest is Jon Vlassopulos, CEO of Napster, which is now a streaming platform with 170 M + tracks. In the news Scarjo v. OpenAI, data-tagging Scale AI snared another Billion dollar round, Series F, at a 13B valuation. Suno, the text-to-music generator, raised $125 M. A dying man is trying to clone himself in AI. Jon brings a wealth of experience in the music business, where he started as a DJ turned-Bertelsmann. 
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

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This week Ted and Charlie celebrate episode 195 without Rony. Our guest is Matthew Celia, of Lightsail VR, who produced Eli Roth's "Faceless Lady," which is now on Meta Quest TV for those with VR headsets. It's the first stereoscopic piece of it's six-episode series. In the news, Google IO drops its Sora competitor, Veo, and using Google Maps to "paint the world with data." Open AI has made a big step in humanizing chatbots, giving them expressive voices, and reducing latency, creating an experience much like the movie "Her." Matthew walks us through the super-widescreen 180 production, the lessons they took from Cinemascope, and how they found the crazy castle location in Ireland that was their primary location. 
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


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Charlie and Rony give the show a go without Ted, who's traveling. Very busy news week with lots of M&A activity. We talked about CoStar Group's $1.6B acquisition of 3D scanner Matterport, Lamini AI's $25M raise for secure Enterprise AI, Neurable also raised money, Gen AI company Freepik acquired hit AI upscaler Magninfic, which is also a Spanish company. There was also news about Roblox (not good), Sandbox LBVR (very good), and behind-the-scenes with Sora director Paul Trillo, on how he created a commercial music video using OpenAI's new tool. Our guest Marta Marciszewicz walks us through how AI animation company Anything World brings characters to life instantly for the games industry. Want your player character attacked by an army of spiders? They've got you covered. 
Links to socials:
- the webpage: anything.world
- the linktree with all the links: https://linktr.ee/AnythingWorld
- X: https://twitter.com/_AnythingWorld
- Discord: https://discord.gg/N64U9RfwsJ (here we have a bot that anyone can use to try out Animate Anything and see how it works in practice for free)
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/anything-world/
- instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_anythingworld/
- twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/anythingworld (where we have lives every week)
- TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@_anythingworld
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe4m3YtFC_Q5OhC-I5dvAzQ
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Anything.World.Worldwide/
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

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