This week the VRARA podcast team welcomes back Tom Emrich. Tom is Director of Product, AR Platforms at Niantic. Tom leads product strategy and development of Niantic’s Lightship Unity SDK (ARDK), WebAR platform (8th Wall), and AR Ads. Come listen as we catch up with Tom and discuss the advancements Niantic continues to bring to the AR development space.
On this week’s episode we are joined by Nima Zeighami. Nima is the Director of Product for Leia Inc. where architects the company’s strategy and manages development across its entire product line. Listen as we discuss how he grew into the field of immersive technology and the ways Leia Inc. is creating new innovation in our field.
This week we are joined by Dr. Tony Liao, director of the new CougAR lab at the University of Houston (www.uhcougARlab.com). Dr. Liao has taken over as the program coordinator for the Digital Media program at UH, introducing brand new AR/VR courses to the UH curriculum, and expanding the program toward what he believes is the future of Digital Media.
This week we are joined by Liv Erickson. Liv leads the team building Mozilla Hubs, an open source immersive virtual world platform that provides decentralized technology for creating online 3D social VR worlds. Listen in as we discuss the ever evolving world of technology and the ways we can bring different people and projects together to make that technological evolution more meaningful.
We are joined in this episode by Roderick Kennedy. Roderick is the Founder of Simul and Creator of Teleport VR, a purpose-built network protocol for XR. Listen in as we discuss how early work on the PSVR led Roderick to ask important questions around VR rendering and ways we can improve VR experiences to expand the potential of a true “Spatial Internet.”
We are delighted to have Ibrahim Jilani return to the podcast. In a follow up to his 2021 episode, Jilani takes us through UL’s continuing efforts in establishing UL8400 safety standards around immersive technologies. We discuss with Ibrahim what that progress has looked like since we last spoke and how a focus on legislation is critical in helping to move forward these safety regulations for consumer electronics.
For the second episode of this week’s double feature, we are lucky to have Brandon Bogajewicz join us. Brandon is the founder of Vinyl Moon, a subscription based vinyl record service that recently debuted unique AR-enabled artwork by visual artist Tyler Weitz. Listen in as we talk about the intersection of these two unique mediums of engagement and learn more about Brandon’s involvement in the VR/AR community.
