The Grandfather of VR, Who Built Super Cockpits for the Air Force & 27+ XR Startups, Wants to Augment Your Brain - Dr. Tom Furness
Dr. Tom Furness—esteemed as the “Grandfather of VR”—brings seven decades of breakthrough invention, untold stories, and rare wisdom to the AI XR Podcast. In this episode, Tom traces the thread from making rocket fuel as a kid in North Carolina to pioneering the “Super Cockpit” for the Air Force, founding the HIT Lab, and launching 27+ spatial computing startups. His journey reminds us that big shifts in XR and AI are really about one thing: boosting the bandwidth between the brain and information.Listen as Charlie and Ted tease out practical lessons from Tom’s career—how head-mounted displays and real-time simulation grew from a Pentagon skunkworks project to tools for pilots, surgeons, first responders, and kids who learn differently. Tom reveals how the “cockpit problem” was never about adding more gadgets, but about human-centered design—and why the next revolution in XR depends on soft skills, not just hardware. He shares how XR can teach memory, empathy, and “open the aperture” of the mind.Guest HighlightsInvented the Super Cockpit: the first immersive, wearable pilot interface, inspiring modern VR/AR.Founded the University of Washington HIT Lab; mentored a generation of XR founders and researchers.Championed headsets, tracking, spatial sound, and haptics in military, medical, education, humanitarian, and entertainment fields.Built VR tools for everything from the F-35 to “light schools” that boost learning and emotional intelligence.Advocates for XR’s potential to unlock new forms of human growth and creativity—beyond the screen.News HighlightsStability AI and Anthropic win landmark copyright cases—courts rule AI model training as legal “fair use,” with distinctions for retaining source material.AI data centers drive up public power bills—the debate over who pays for tech’s massive energy appetite heats up.Magic Leap alumni debut no-code AR platform—pushing toward mainstream AR creation, but will intent and timing finally align?Google adds Gemini to Maps—AI-powered natural language search changes real-world navigation and travel.Subscribe for weekly insider perspectives from veterans who aren’t afraid to challenge Big Tech. New episodes every Tuesday. Watch full episodes on YouTube. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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How Edge AI and AR Shopping Will Transform XR Platforms With Kirin Sinha, Illumix
Kirin Sinha, MIT math prodigy and founder/CEO of Illumix, embodies the vital intersection of AI, XR, and real-world relevance. On this episode, she unpacks the hard realities of spatial computing’s journey—from grinding through MIT at sixteen and “building the Iron Man desk as a senior project” to launching Five Nights at Freddy’s AR (garnering 60M+ downloads) and powering Disney/Six Flags location-based XR.Sinha challenges the XR hype machine: “Location-based constraints are the best sandbox. Real-world variability, lighting, edge compute, and privacy aren’t just demos—they’re survivability.” She candidly discusses why the first era of mobile AR rarely survived outside of theme parks and why the true metaverse won’t arrive through geofenced phone gimmicks, but rather from ambient cameras, context-aware AI, and wearables that deliver daily relevance.The conversation dives into XR’s scaling riddle: most startups go too big, too soon—Illumix ran lean and learned real lessons from thousands of live deployments before expanding. Sinha’s take on platform dominance? “Whoever pairs visual context with an always-on, lightweight wearable—without being creepy—wins.” She weighs the mergers-and-acquisitions question with nuance (“you keep every door open, but we’ve built for independence and profitability”), and explains exactly why Niantic’s follow-up AR games failed to recapture Pokemon Go’s lightning-in-a-bottle.Guest HighlightsEnrolled at MIT at 16; bridge between math, AI, and real-world camera vision.Founded Illumix, powering everything from “Five Nights at Freddy’s” AR (60M+ organic downloads) to Disney and Six Flags’ location-driven XR.Deep infrastructure: dynamic, privacy-first, real-time spatial intelligence at the edge, not reliant on the cloud.Insights on product-market fit and startup timing: “Most of the world’s ‘available’ XR space is dead space without a ‘why’ for users.”Honest, nuanced take on M&A, survival, and why lean teams win when timing finally shifts.News SegmentNvidia’s $4.5T valuation—is big tech over-hyped, or will foundational arms dealers keep winning while everyone else corrects?Major tech layoffs attributed to AI “efficiency”—stock prices keep rising as automation accelerates, but most Americans are left behind.Brendan Iribe’s $300M AI/AR glasses startup—a kinder, context-aware approach to ambient interfaces, but does anyone actually break out from the pack?Google/Magic Leap factory reboot, patent arsenal, and Surface team members cycling across Meta and Apple—XR’s “three Spider-Mans” all fight for the same future.OpenAI’s privatization and AGI date bets—the team debates when, how, and if superintelligence IPOs.XR economy is in a phase shift—who survives, who gets acquired, and who makes it to scale?Special thanks to our sponsor Zappar. Subscribe for weekly insider takes from industry veterans who aren’t afraid to challenge Big Tech. New episodes every Tuesday. Watch the full videos on YouTube. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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"Interstellar Arc” a Free-roam, Tactile, Narrative VR World at AREA15, Las Vegas - Paul Raphaël
Paul Raphaël , co-founder of Felix & Paul Studios, joins the AI XR Podcast for a candid, high-energy discussion on the state and future of immersive experiences. Broadcasting live from Las Vegas during the launch of "Interstellar Arc" at AREA15, Raphael details the three-year journey behind this ambitious location-based VR attraction—capable of hosting 170 simultaneous users in a fully interactive, physically-anchored world.Paul explains how Felix & Paul’s background in cinematic VR, including their Emmy-winning "Space Explorers" ISS series, led organically to massive real-world installations like The Infinite and Interstellar Arc. The team’s relentless commitment to high presence, practical haptics, and social immersion has kept Felix & Paul at the top of XR content for over a decade. Raphael shares the lessons learned from surviving through hardware hype cycles, pivoting when needed, and betting big on experiential location-based entertainment. He compares the Interstellar Arc’s staged onboarding and world-building to the best of Disney Imagineering, blending nostalgia with cutting-edge tech.The group unpacks the mixed reviews for Samsung’s Galaxy XR headset, discusses OpenAI and Microsoft’s latest browser moves, and debates the implications of California’s new chatbot disclosure law. Paul and the hosts dig deep on business realities—headset costs, throughput limitations, and why word-of-mouth and “the ultimate holodeck” matter more than the marketing hype. Raphael offers advice for young creators: stay obsessed, be nimble, and design for what’s actually possible today—not just hype for the future.Guest Interview HighlightsLaunching “Interstellar Arc” at AREA15: 170-player free-roam VR set in a massive, tactile spaceport—blending real-world physicality, seamless pre-show and post-show narrative, and next-gen social VR.Lessons from “The Infinite” and Space Explorers: Pivoting toward large-scale, high-throughput live VR events as a sustainable creative and business model.Staying power in XR: Why creative obsession, no-plan-B persistence, and ground-level adaptability have kept Felix & Paul thriving.Haptics, real objects, and social immersion: Making “free-roam” a convincing, embodied experience—even with today’s hardware.XR’s future: Why the studio’s best projects might be ahead—and how true mixed reality will need to drive down headset weight, friction, and heat.News Segment HighlightsAmazon’s leaked internal AI & robotics roadmap Meta reorgs AI staffSamsung launches Galaxy XR headset OpenAI and Microsoft debut AI browsersCalifornia passes first US chatbot lawWikipedia sees 8% drop in traffic Thanks to our sponsors:Zappar MattercraftViture: Luma Series XR Glasses Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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The Next Video Renaissance, The Future of Creativity, Hollywood, & AI Filmmaking – Amit Jain Luma AI
Amit Jain, CEO and founder of Luma AI, joins Charlie Fink, Ted Schilowitz, and Rony Abovitz to unpack the future of AI-native video and the transformation of Hollywood’s creative economy. Once an Apple engineer, Jain launched Luma during the early NeRF boom and built what is now the industry’s best-performing AI video generation system—Luma Ray 3, the world’s first HDR model capable of 16-bit cinematic compositing. In this episode, Jain argues that AI video isn’t just a tool—it is quickly becoming the new substrate of the internet, a reality where professional-grade video replaces web pages as the primary interface for information, learning, and entertainment.Before Luma, Jain led core Apple Vision teams, where he learned how AI perception systems interpret the world. That experience now powers Luma’s radical thesis: every phone user will soon generate an hour of personalized video per day, making video “the new language of the internet.”The hosts challenge Jain on whether startups like Luma can compete with OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Veo, and Jain answers with confidence: “Big companies marketing harder doesn’t matter—the best models always win because creators demand control, quality, and speed.” Luma, he explains, is already embedded in four of the six major Hollywood studios and hundreds of professional production houses, providing real-time previsualization, set extension, and multi-character scene generation on consumer hardware.Guest Highlights: Amit Jain on AI-First CinemaHollywood adopters: Four of six major studios already using Luma Ray 3 for previsualization, compositing, and AI-assisted performance capture.Death of performance capture: Luma’s video-to-video model translates acting from an iPhone recording directly into 3D characters—replacing mo-cap workflows with laptop AI pipelines.AI for directors, not automation: Jain insists AI empowers storytellers. Directors can now reshoot, re-time lighting, or replace actors at negligible cost—transforming iteration speed, not intent.The “professional-first” strategy: While OpenAI and Google chase consumers, Jain is targeting the $1.2 trillion professional video production market, where 90% of spending occurs.Hollywood’s broken math: “Studios die because of $400-million movies,” he says. “Make 10 films for $40 million each and you’ll have a creative renaissance.”News Segment HighlightsSnap’s Lens Fest reveals next-gen Spectacles with binocular see-through XR displayAnduril’s new IVAS “Eagle Eye” headset Apple announces Vision Pro Gen 2 .Samsung’s Galaxy XR headset Flint AI raises new round from a16z and Sheryl SandbergThis Episode’s SponsorsZappar's Mattercraft – AI-integrated 3D web design suite for building immersive XR content.Viture Luma XR Glasses – 52° FOV and 152-inch virtual screen experience for gaming and streaming.Subscribe for weekly insider perspectives from industry veterans who aren’t afraid to challenge Big Tech. New episodes every Tuesday. Watch the full videos on YouTube. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Why Spatial Computing Is Harder Than Mars: XR Hype & Smart Glasses – Antony 'SkarredGhost' Vitillo
Antony “Skarred Ghost” Vitillo—legendary XR blogger, developer, and authentic voice of the immersive tech world—joins Charlie Fink, Ted Schilowitz, and Rony Abovitz for a sharp, candid take on why spatial computing keeps breaking hearts (and bank accounts). Vitillo, calling in from Torino (and Nutella country), takes listeners inside his evolution from reluctant Twitter handle-user to one of the industry’s essential critical thinkers. With 30,000+ social followers and nearly a decade at the helm of the Skarred Ghost blog, Tony has borne witness to every device cycle, product hype wave, and reality check XR can muster.The hosts open with news that captures the collective whiplash of the sector: Samsung finally names its long-awaited “Moohan” headset the Galaxy XR; Apple is reportedly pivoting away from Vision Pro follow-ups in favor of pursuing AI smart glasses, chasing the hardware trend Meta has tried to lead—with several Magic Leap alumni shaping both companies’ next moves. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s Sora 2 outpaces Google’s Veo 3 in text-to-video generation, and “AI feeds” continue to spark debates about separating synthetic from real in our content streams.Guest HighlightsVitillo unveils XR truths learned the hard way:From accidental blogger to “Master Yoda”: Tony’s accidental rise began with an anonymous Twitter handle, a failed AR/VR startup, and a mentor’s advice to “own” XR expertise—eventually outlasting the startup itself.The real cost of authenticity: European sensibilities (practical, cost-effective, resistant to Silicon Valley bombast) shaped Tony’s on-the-ground verdicts: the Google Glass era was “too early,” even good implementations often wither outside logistics and niche use-cases.Product vs. Prototype and the patience gap: Tony, Rony, and Ted all agree: too many XR launches are rushed by investor pressure from prototype to product, skipping the long, hard path of patience. Meta’s Quest Pro is called out as a textbook “rush job” that failed to meet real readiness.Why XR is “harder than Mars:” Decades and $150B+ spent, yet still no universal hit. Tony argues the impossible form factor challenge (stuffing room-scale computation into eyewear) is compounded by deeper neuroscience—humans simply recoil from something too “in your face.” Physics is tough, but brains and social norms are the real brick wall.Why Roblox, not VRChat, “won” the metaverse: Most of the sector’s big dreams faded back to mobile during and after Covid. With Rec Room, VRChat, and others all scaling back, Roblox’s mass adoption proves device accessibility outweighs idealism. Tony expects cycles of platform hype, but says only rare combinations of luck, timing, and use-case ever sustain an audience.News Highlights Samsung’s “Moohan” headset renamed Galaxy XR—signaling mainstream branding push into the AR/VR hardware race.Apple shifts Vision Pro focus toward AI smart glasses—pivot after slow sales and sector criticism, echoing Meta’s latest headset push.OpenAI Sora 2 outpaces Google’s Veo 3—AI video generation heats up, new feeds spark debates over AI vs. real content in social media.XR product launches called out for impatience—Meta’s Quest Pro and others critiqued as rushed from prototype to product.Thanks to This Episode's SponsorsZappar's Mattercraft - 3D web development with AI assistant for real-time design and debuggingViture XR Glasses Luma Series - 52-degree field of view, 152-inch virtual screen for mobile gaming Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Get the inside story on the biggest tech developments from founders, former executives, and industry veterans who built companies like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta Reality Labs, Apple Vision Pro, Microsoft HoloLens, and Unity.Join Charlie Fink (Forbes), Ted Schilowitz, (Red Camera, Fox, Paramount Futurist) & Rony Abovitz, (founder Magic Leap).as they interview startup CEOs, ex-Google/Meta/Apple insiders, Hollywood directors, and AI researchers reshaping spatial computing.Every week we break down the latest tech news with our signature hot takes, then dive deep with a founder or industry leader. We cover artificial intelligence breakthroughs, virtual reality hardware, augmented reality applications, synthetic media tools, and how enterprises are adopting these technologies.We're industry insiders who have the connections to get the biggest names on the show, but we're not afraid to ask the tough questions about where big tech is heading. Our guests trust us because we've been in their shoes.Listen now to get ahead of the next wave of computing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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