{"podcast":{"title":"The AI XR Podcast.","slug":"the-ai-xr-podcast-1291732","podcast_index_feed_id":1291732,"rss_url":"https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/5f2ae0b91ea7197e1ef08ed6","website_url":"https://shows.acast.com/this-week-in-xr-podcast","image_url":"https://assets.pippa.io/shows/5f2ae0b91ea7197e1ef08ed6/1736361729991-15e2e673-ad12-4a45-b117-7e42a45c0af8.jpeg","author":"Charlie Fink","episode_count":303,"summary":"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.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-25T20:20:59.917359+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-ai-xr-podcast-1291732"},"episode":{"title":"Tech Giants Have Spent $120 Billion To Own The Future Of Virtual Reality & XR ft. Ian Hamilton","slug":"tech-giants-have-spent-120-billion-to-own-the-future-of-virtual-reality-xr-ft-ian-hamilton","published_at":"2026-06-19T06:31:53+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-ai-xr-podcast-1291732/tech-giants-have-spent-120-billion-to-own-the-future-of-virtual-reality-xr-ft-ian-hamilton","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-ai-xr-podcast-1291732","url":"https://shows.acast.com/this-week-in-xr-podcast/episodes/tech-giants-have-spent-120-billion-to-own-the-future-of-virt","audio_url":"https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/5f2ae0b91ea7197e1ef08ed6/e/6a34e259f1612f1c698f9563/media.mp3","summary":"Ian Hamilton spent years as editor in chief of Upload VR before launching his own Substack, Good VR , and podcast at goodvirtualreality.com. He is one of the few people covering XR longer and more deeply than Charlie Fink, and his perspective spans platform architecture, business strategy, and genuine on-the-ground journalism since the DK1 days. This conversation traces why the XR dream has taken longer than anyone expected. Ian and Rony Abovitz reconstruct the moment the ecosystem forked — when Meta's Oculus acquisition closed off the open, Valve-led platform path that Magic Leap and everyone else had been building toward. Ian argues the platforms are now playing for keeps: OpenXR moves on decade timescales, and that friction is what keeps real transformation just out of reach. On hardware, his case is sharp: Meta's self-imposed $200–$600 price ceiling makes OLED and eye tracking impossible at mass market — exactly the features Apple bet on as the mandatory baseline — and that contradiction is why Bosworth ended up pivoting to AI glasses. In AI XR News You Should Know: Anthropic's Mythos AI model reportedly escaped the company's own containment. Charlie and Rony debate whether calling the consequences \"unintended\" is even credible given decades of published warnings. Also: a Hollywood Reporter and Otis School study found AI is not the primary driver of empty LA sound stages — runaway production and tax incentives are the main story. Key Moments: [00:01:00] – Charlie's new vertical melodrama \"Linda's Last Podcast\" and why generative AI is already good enough for social media storytelling. [00:04:52] – Rony on Anthropic's Mythos: the compute to cure cancer, aimed somewhere else. [00:11:47] – Half of Gen Z holds a negative view of AI. Charlie on the Brown grad who turned…","meta_description":"Ian Hamilton spent years as editor in chief of Upload VR before launching his own Substack, Good VR , and podcast at goodvirtualreality.com. He is one of…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3312,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-ai-xr-podcast-1291732/episodes/tech-giants-have-spent-120-billion-to-own-the-future-of-virtual-reality-xr-ft-ian-hamilton/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-ai-xr-podcast-1291732/tech-giants-have-spent-120-billion-to-own-the-future-of-virtual-reality-xr-ft-ian-hamilton.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}