Driving from the flats of Beverly Hills up into the hills themselves feels like I’m entering into a different world. Here the picturesque, tree-line streets filled with beautiful homes give way to narrow, winding roads that snake their way to the tops of hillsides. In these hills, each home looks like an architectural marvel, delicately perched at the very edge of a steep slope, with expansive views of Los Angeles. It was in one of these homes where I met with key members of the Snap marketing t...
Sep 17, 2024•43 min•Ep. 212
I moderated a panel at the recent AWE conference that took place a couple of weeks ago in Long Beach, California. The panel featured Karl Guttag from KGOnTech, Adi Robertson from the Verve, Jeri Ellsworth from Tilt Five, and Ed Tang from Avegant. The session was titled: Current State and Future Direction of AR Glasses and the session description reads: A panel of experts will discuss the current and future state of AR spatial computing devices, given the influence of the new Vision Pro world. Ha...
Jul 03, 2024•56 min•Ep. 211
Paul Travers is the Founder and CEO of Vuzix, a pioneer in wearable computing, augmented reality, waveguide optics, and display engines. Prior to Vuzix, Paul was an engineer at Eastman Kodak, innovating the future of digital cameras. He went on to become a serial entrepreneur, having started multiple hardware technology companies, including in sound cards for PCs and USB connectivity products. Vuzix was formed more than 25 years ago, and through it, Paul has seen spatial computing technology evo...
May 22, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 210
L.Michelle Salvant has been wearing smart glasses daily for years, harnessing their potential to enhance personal therapy, healing, and self-discovery. Her engagement with wearable technology began as a Google Glass Explorer, which sparked her interest in documenting and reflecting on life’s moments through what she developed as “Immersive Journaling”. This approach has not only transformed her personal experiences but also encouraged others to explore their own stories in profound new ways. Fol...
May 07, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 209
Alex Westner is the CEO and co-founder of Xander, a company at the forefront of using augmented reality (AR) technology to create innovative solutions for individuals with hearing loss. Xander's product, live captioning AR smart glasses, allows users to engage in conversations with real-time transcriptions displayed directly in their field of vision. This approach positions Xander to directly address the challenges faced by those with hearing impairments in everyday communication. Before embarki...
Mar 19, 2024•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 208
Zac Duff is the co-founder and CEO of JigSpace, a company focused on making it simple to create and share 3D instructions for anything, or, as their tag line suggests, making the hard to explain hard to forget. If you’ve watched the introduction of the Apple Vision Pro, or seen the demos or device itself, then you’ve had a glimpse of JigSpace when you saw the beautifully rendered Formula F1 car with the animation of the airflow around the wings and body. Zac’s story starts in Tasmania, where he ...
Feb 27, 2024•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 207
Nils Pihl returns as our guest for a second time on the podcast. He is the CEO and founder of Auki Labs, a company dedicated to revolutionizing augmented reality positioning. Auki’s technology uses peer-to-peer communication to establish a distributed spatial computing protocol. In this episode, we revisit some of the themes from the first episode, such as the concept of language as the oldest form of augmented reality and Auki's role in enhancing communication through augmented reality position...
Feb 07, 2024•1 hr 41 min•Ep. 206
Michael Hoffman, or “Hoff” as most know him, is the co-founder and CEO at IQXR, a company solving the hardest problems facing global-scale, enterprise XR deployments, and doing so with an open source approach. Previously Michael spent nearly a decade working with the Microsoft Hololens team. He was a Principal Engineering Lead at Microsoft for a couple of years, left to be the founding partner of Object theTheory, where he and his team worked with enterprises to leverage AR and VR technologies, ...
Jan 16, 2024•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 205
Yi Xu is the director of XR Technology at OPPO, a leading Android smartphone company that's innovating in AR with their Air Glass product line. Prior to OPPO, Yi received a PhD in computer science, specializing in computer vision. He utilized these skills as computer scientist and engineer at GE Global Research and CapsoVision, working on a number of projects revolving around 3D computer vision. He then worked as a technical leader at JD. com, shaping the roadmap for their mobile augmented reali...
Dec 22, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 204
Bobak Tavangar is the co-founder and CEO of Brilliant Labs, a company creating an open-source AR glasses hardware platform and pairing that with powerful generative AI models to help you engage with the real world. Bobak studied at George Washington and Georgetown universities before completing a graduate degree at Cambridge University. Bobak is a serial entrepreneur with a core theme running through his entrepreneurial experiences: how to create better ways for people to find and utilize inform...
Dec 05, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 203
Kirin Sinha is the co-founder and CEO of Illumix, a company building the digital infrastructure for real world venues. You may be familiar with Illumix if you’re a fan of the horror franchise, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and the mobile game, Five Nights at Freddy’s AR: Special Delivery. While the game found a tremendous amount of success, the company has shifted its focus to enterprise customers and raised $18M in Series A financing in early 2023. Prior to founding Illumix, Kirin was the founder an...
Nov 21, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 202
Evan Rose is the founder and president of Rose Digital, a company specializing in using augmented reality to help brands engage and delight their customers. Beyond that, Rose Digital serves as an innovation partner for its clients. On the side, Evan is the founder of AR Post, one of the leading news sources for AR and VR. He’s also the co-founder and board president of The Steve Fund, which is the nation’s first organization focused on supporting the mental health and emotional well-being of col...
Nov 07, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 201
Ross Finman is the CEO of Augmodo, a company utilizing AI and AR to revolutionize grocery store experiences and economics starting with the personal shoppers who fulfill online grocery purchases. Previously Ross spent 4 ½ years at Niantic. There he founded the AR mapping and Visual Positioning System (VPS) effort before becoming the AR Strategy Lead and then the general manager for the AR Headset group. He joined Niantic through the acquisition of his first startup, Escher Reality, which became ...
Oct 17, 2023•57 min•Ep. 200
Ross Finman is the CEO of Augmodo, a company utilizing AI and AR to revolutionize grocery store experiences and economics starting with the personal shoppers who fulfill online grocery purchases. Previously Ross spent 4 ½ years at Niantic. There he founded the AR mapping and Visual Positioning System (VPS) effort before becoming the AR Strategy Lead and then the general manager for the AR Headset group. He joined Niantic through the acquisition of his first startup, Escher Reality, which became ...
Oct 03, 2023•53 min•Ep. 199
Replay of an interview originally published in April 2023: Maryam Sabour is the General Manager and Head of Business for the AR Headsets group at Niantic, where the goal is to enable everyday adventures and real-life social interaction through location-based augmented reality. Maryam studied law and business at university, going on to earn a Juris Doctorate at McGill University. Early in her career, she was drawn to entrepreneurship, having founded an e-commerce company and a legal clinic for st...
Sep 19, 2023•57 min•Ep. 198
Replay of an interview originally published in September 2022: Today’s conversation is a continuation of my discussion with Matt Miesnieks about LivingCities. Joining us for part 2 are co-founders John Gaeta and Dennis Crowley. John won an Oscar for his visual effects work on The Matrix movies, and after many additional creative and visual effects projects, including Speed Racer, he went on to co-found ILMxLAB as part of Lucusfilm. He then served as the SVP of Creative Strategy at Magic Leap bef...
Sep 05, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 197
Replay of an interview originally published in September 2022: Matt Miesnieks is currently the CEO and co-founder of LivingCities, a company reimagining social engagement in the era of the Metaverse. Many of you know Matt as a serial entrepreneur and former investor focused on Augmented Reality. Matt was previously the CEO and co-founder of 6D.ai, a company that built tools to help mobile phones understand the real world and enable compelling AR experiences. Niantic acquired 6D in 2020. Matt sta...
Aug 22, 2023•43 min•Ep. 196
acine Achiakh is the co-founder and CEO of Wisear, a company creating neural interface devices for AR glasses and other wearables. They are packing their technology into normal-looking earphones and working to deliver the capabilities of the mouse and keyboard, hands free. Earlier in his career, Yacine studied mathematics and business before joining Criteo, a fast-growing tech unicorn in France. There he led AI-driven products focused on advertising technology. It was also there he met his co-fo...
Aug 08, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 195
David Fattal is the founder and CTO of Leia, a company dedicated to revolutionizing visual experiences through light field display technologies. Lightfield displays are able to create 3D images without glasses. You might remember Leia for its work on the LumePad tablets and the Hydrogen One Smartphone from Red. David is a quantum physicist who got his Ph.D. from Stanford with a focus on Quantum Computing and Quantum Communications. His research experience led him to HP Labs, which was at the for...
Jul 25, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 194
Sophia Dominguez is the Director of AR Platform Partnerships and Ecosystem at Snap, where she’s been the last three years. Previously, she started the widely followed “All Things VR” newsletter and joined Rothenberg Ventures as an Entrepreneur in Residence before co-founding her first company, SVRF. There she created the first API and SDKs for searching and rendering 3D face filters. They powered over 280M AR experiences, and Sophia successfully sold the company to Poplar before joining Snap. So...
Jul 11, 2023•45 min•Ep. 193
Sophia Dominguez is the Director of AR Platform Partnerships and Ecosystem at Snap, where she’s been the last three years. Previously, she started the widely followed “All Things VR” newsletter and joined Rothenberg Ventures as an Entrepreneur in Residence before co-founding her first company, SVRF. There she created the first API and SDKs for searching and rendering 3D face filters. They powered over 280M AR experiences, and Sophia successfully sold the company to Poplar before joining Snap. So...
Jun 27, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 192
Jeri Ellsworth is the co-founder and CEO of Tilt Five, a company that has created AR glasses that bring tabletop, multiplayer games to life. Prior to Tilt Five, Jeri was the founder of CastAR, which was also making an augmented reality hardware and software platform, and one that had raised $15 million in venture funding before shutting down in 2017. Previously Jeri was a race car driver, computer shop owner, and toy industry veteran. She was also recruited to Valve to lead the hardware R&D ...
Jun 13, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 191
Jeri Ellsworth is the co-founder and CEO of Tilt Five, a company that has created AR glasses that bring tabletop, multiplayer games to life. Prior to Tilt Five, Jeri was the founder of CastAR, which was also making an augmented reality hardware and software platform, and one that had raised $15 million in venture funding before shutting down in 2017. Previously Jeri was a race car driver, computer shop owner, and toy industry veteran. She was also recruited to Valve to lead the hardware R&D ...
May 30, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 190
Karl Guttag, is an industry analyst, speaker and the author of KGOnTech, a technology blog at kguttag.com. Karl has 40 years of experience in Graphics and Image Processors, Digital Signal Processing, and memory architecture, as well as micro displays, for use in Heads Up Displays and AR glasses. He’s received 150 patents related to these technologies and many billions of dollars of revenue attributed to those inventions. Karl spent nearly 20 years at Texas Instruments, and was named a TI Fellow—...
May 16, 2023•1 hr 41 min•Ep. 189
Karl Guttag, is an industry analyst, speaker and the author of KGOnTech, a technology blog at kguttag.com. Karl has 40 years of experience in Graphics and Image Processors, Digital Signal Processing, and memory architecture, as well as micro displays, for use in Heads Up Displays and AR glasses. He’s received 150 patents related to these technologies and many billions of dollars of revenue attributed to those inventions. Karl spent nearly 20 years at Texas Instruments, and was named a TI Fellow—...
May 03, 2023•57 min•Ep. 188
Maryam Sabour is the General Manager and Head of Business for the AR Headsets group at Niantic, where the goal is to enable everyday adventures and real-life social interaction through location-based augmented reality. Maryam studied law and business at university, going on to earn a Juris Doctorate at McGill University. Early in her career, she was drawn to entrepreneurship, having founded an e-commerce company and a legal clinic for startups. Maryam was drawn into the world of VR, where she sp...
Apr 11, 2023•57 min•Ep. 187
Ohto Pentikäinen and Jamin Hu are the co-founders of Doublepoint, a company creating human-computer interaction technologies which are initially focused on detecting the moment of touching an object. Ohto is a serial entrepreneur having been a co-founder and CEO twice by the age of 20 before co-founding Doublepoint. His earliest venture was reimagining the high school learning experience by creating a platform for multidisciplinary, self-directed learning. Jamin has a passion for music and earne...
Mar 28, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 186
Stan Larroque is the CEO and co-founder of Lynx, a company creating the first all-in-one mixed reality headset. The Lynx R1 offers a unique VR device with good video-passthrough of the real world to create mixed reality experiences. Stan was inspired by the early Oculus device, the DK2, but wanted a better connection to the real world. As he finished his university education, he embarked on the journey to establish the leading European mixed reality hardware technology company. Along the way, he...
Mar 14, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 185
David Jiang is the CEO and founder of VITURE, a company creating a smartglasses solution for video gaming and streaming content. After studying human computer interaction and industrial design at university in China, David continued his studies into human computer interaction at Harvard, where he fell in love with the Boston Celtics basketball team. David joined Google in the early years of their work on Google Glass and went on to become the Chief Designer and Head of AR for AI company, Rokid. ...
Feb 28, 2023•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 184
Cayden Pierce describes himself as a transhumanist hacker working to enhance our intelligence using AI, smartglasses, and eventually, neurotech. Cayden posts regularly about the current state of smartglasses and is actively developing open source smartglasses hardware and middleware solutions. To support those efforts and to facilitate insights between end users and smartglass makers, he recently started the H2O Smartglasses community. Cayden is also working on a contextual search engine at Emex...
Feb 14, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 183
