Podcasts about VR

Recent research shows that between 40 and 60% of women either change or quit their sport due to bladder leaks. That's 100% too many in our book. So this week we sat down with Dr. Lauren Siff, a double board-certified urogynecologist to demystify one of women's health's most under-discussed issues: urinary leakage. We break down the differences between stress and urge incontinence, why athletes and active women are prone to leaking, and how the menopausal transition can worsen the situation through declining estrogen, shifting vaginal pH, and rising UTI risk. Dr. Siff walks us through the full range of solutions, from pelvic floor exercises and support devices to Botox, bladder stimulators, and the game-changing role of vaginal estrogen, plus how to know when it's time to seek care. Her message is loud and clear in this one: no matter how small or severe the symptoms, there's help available — and you never have to stop doing what you love.Dr. Siff is a double board-certified urogynecologist and Chief of Gynecology and Urogynecology for the Central Virginia VA Health Care System and Associate Professor at VCU School of Medicine and VCU Institute of Engineering. A dedicated innovator and surgical educator — with a Distinguished Educator certificate from the Cleveland Clinic and founder of SurgicalEd VR, which uses VR and haptic technology to improve the quality, safety, cost-effectiveness, and accessibility of surgical training. She also serves board and committee roles with the Society for Gynecologic Surgeons, American Urogynecologic Society, and American Association of GYN Laparoscopists. She is Central Virginia Site Lead for the National VA Women's Health Research Network, and chairman of the U.S. National Surgery Office's Surgical Advisory Board for GYN. Philanthropically, she directs surgeon training for Global Surgical Expedition, driven by a mission to democratize access to surgical training and vital surgical procedures worldwide.FeistyFit Info: https://livefeisty.com/training/running/feistyfitfall/Join us at Feisty Fest September 18-20, 2026: https://livefeisty.com/events/feisty-fest/Women's Mechanic Camp in Tucson: https://livefeisty.com/events/bike-mechanic-school-tucson/Courses and Coaching: https://livefeisty.com/courses/Sign up for our FREE Feisty 40+ newsletter: https://livefeisty.com/newsletters/feisty-40/Follow Us on Instagram:Feisty Menopause: @feistymenopauseHit Play Not Pause Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/807943973376099Support our Partners:Midi Health: You Deserve to Feel Great. Book your virtual visit today at https://www.joinmidi.com/Previnex: Get 15% off your order with code HITPLAY at https://www.previnex.com/ Wahoo: Use the code FEISTY2026 to get a free Headwind Smart Fan (value $300) with the purchase of a Wahoo KICKR RUN at https://shorturl.at/WVhdr

A young international talent called Kbob takes over this episode of Dirtybird Radio with major underground heat to thump your eardrums. Kbob is an Irish-born artist, producer, audio engineer and DJ who has captured the attention of some of the biggest names in the scene. Time to whip out the strobelight and get ready to hear a few of her all-time favorites blended with some unreleased originals. VR warm-up set:Yulia Niko, Eli Fola - Bebey [Global Underground]Cristina Lazic, Francesco Mami feat. Mili Smith - Idemo [Folder]Coco Bevan - Move Like That [Apples & Oranges]DJ Glen - No C [DIRTYBIRD]Kbob guest set:Kbob - Clear Up (UNRELEASED) / There Is A Light Recordings David Tort - La Nariz RosadaFilterheadz - Paper CityDJ Boris - Music Is MedicineDJ Boris - Music Takes MeMark Knight, Adrian Hour - Suzee Kbob - Deranged (UNRELEASED) Kbob - Foreshadowed (UNRELEASED) Nicole Moudaber - The Whippin' I'm Dishin'

To celebrate 400 episodes, we look back of the last (almost) ten years of positive Linux and FOSS news. Plugs Piss up at The Shipwrights Arms (just next to London Bridge station) on Saturday 5th September from 5pm until late Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes 9.5 years of good news Thunderbird Is Thriving: Our 2022 Financial Report (May 2023) Asking for donations in Plasma (Aug 2024) I think the donation notification works (Dec 2024) Ubuntu 25.10 and Fedora 43 to drop X11 in GNOME editions (Jun 2025) An update on the X11 GNOME Session Removal (Jun 2025) GNOME Mutter Now “Completely Drops The Whole X11 Backend” (Nov 2025) KDE Going all-in on a Wayland future (Nov 2025) Give Fedora Silverblue a test drive (Sept 2018) KDE Linux Alpha has been released (Sept 2025) Introducing a new version of Steam Play (Aug 2018) Steam Deck Launching February 25th 2022 Steam Machine, controller, VR headset incoming from Valve (Nov 2025) Canonical Builds Steam Snap For Ubuntu ARM64 Leveraging FEX (Jan 2026) Announcing WSL 2 (May 2019) How one volunteer stopped a backdoor from exposing Linux systems worldwide (Apr 2024) Linux has made it to Mars (Feb 2021) Mars Helicopter Ingenuity will fly no more (Jan 2024) See our contact page for ways to get in touch. RSS: Subscribe to the RSS feeds here

RADIO PIRATE FREE édition du 25 août 2026 avec ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jeff⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Fillion⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ et sa gang! ________________________________________ 0min00 - Une guerre de mots, de déclarations et d'insultes fusent dans le dossier de l'entente commerciale annulée entre les USA et le Canada. Jeff⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ explique avec ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Gerry⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ et MisterWhite⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. (Partie 1) ________________________________________ 15min58 - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Une guerre de mots, de déclarations et d'insultes fusent dans le dossier de l'entente commerciale annulée entre les USA et le Canada. ⁠Jeff⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ explique avec ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Gerry⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ et ⁠MisterWhite⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. (Partie 2) _______________________________________ 35min33- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Réjean Tremblay se joint à ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jeff⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Gerry⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ et tous les Pirates pour un podcast sur tout ce qui touche l'actualité, le sport, les médias, la politique, le showbizz, la philosophie, l'histoire, les voyages, la vie et tout le reste. _______________________________________ Le Podcast avec Réjean est une présentation de Pavés Concept. https://pavesconcept.ca/ _______________________________________ 55min36 - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Gerry⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ boursicote en nous racontant toute sorte d'histoires reliées à une panoplie de sujets reliés à la bourse.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠_________________________________________ Substack du Gerry ici https://gerrypizza.substack.com/ ⁠_________________________________________ Le Boursicotage avec Gerry est une présentation du Groupe VR 185, le concessionnaire de VR complice de vos vacances depuis plus de 30 ans. https://groupevr185.com/ _______________________________________ Pour plus de 3h30 de contenu PRIME de RADIOPIRATE par jour, abonnez-vous ici https://radiopirateprime.supercast.com/ _______________________________________ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

去非洲大草原被動物看的經驗很特別我一路上都在想，未來一定有人可以把這個體驗做成VR包，讓我們在家就可以享受這一切(翻譯：不用活受罪)

Jethro D. Jones sits down with Simon and Jill from ClassVR at ISTE 2026 to talk about the company's newest VR innovations in education. They dive into Thrive, a sensory regulation product designed to support students who struggle with dysregulation, and preview ClassVR's new STEM library, which lets students safely experience hands-on experiments (like chemistry reactions and dissections) that are often limited by budget or safety concerns in real classrooms. The conversation also explores how VR builds "organic skills" that develop over time, why immersive, judgment-free environments help students practice soft skills, and what schools should consider before adopting VR — from full-solution onboarding to keeping VR sessions short and focused for maximum engagement. We're proud to be sponsored by IXL. IXL's comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:Simplify and streamline technologySave teachers' timeReliably meet Tier 1 standardsImprove student performance on state assessments

Tribeca Festival Director and SVP of Programming Cara Cusumano joins No Film School's GG Hawkins to reflect on 25 years of Tribeca and explain what independent filmmakers should understand about today's festival landscape. Cusumano discusses Tribeca's evolution from its post-9/11 roots into a multidisciplinary storytelling festival, how programmers evaluate nearly 14,000 submissions, why filmmakers should build relationships with their peers instead of chasing gatekeepers, and how festivals are responding to shifts in film distribution and audience behavior. She also shares how emerging filmmakers can participate in festival communities even without a film in the lineup and why creating distinctive work matters more than waiting for the perfect opportunity. In this episode, No Film School's GG Hawkins and guest Cara Cusumano discuss... How Tribeca's founding mission of community, connection, and celebrating movies has endured across 25 years Cara's path from attending the first Tribeca Festival as a film student to becoming Festival Director and SVP of Programming Why networking is really about building relationships with your contemporaries and growing together throughout your careers How programmers view filmmakers and why they are actively looking for work to champion rather than trying to keep filmmakers out What makes a project feel distinctly right for Tribeca, from independent storytelling to memorable audience experiences How Tribeca manages and evaluates nearly 14,000 film and project submissions Why passionate advocacy inside the programming room can matter even when programmers disagree about a film Why festival feedback is complicated and how programming decisions can depend on the composition of the entire lineup, not simply the quality of an individual film How Tribeca expanded beyond features and shorts into television, podcasts, games, VR, immersive work, and creator-driven storytelling The value of human curation as an alternative to algorithmic discovery Why Tribeca is interested in projects that blur the boundaries between film, games, immersive media, podcasts, and other formats How the role of film festivals is changing as selling an independent film directly out of a festival becomes more difficult Why festivals increasingly function as places for talent discovery, career building, networking, and demonstrating audience demand How the in-person festival experience can create moments that cannot be replicated through individual at-home viewing How emerging filmmakers can participate in Tribeca through programs like the Storytelling Summit even if their work is not selected Why Cara hopes Tribeca remains flexible enough to respond to new forms of storytelling that do not yet have an established industry category Her advice to stop waiting for the perfect moment, keep collaborating, and make work because of the story rather than its potential festival or distribution outcome Memorable Quotes: “It's building a relationship with your contemporaries, and then you all grow. Like anyone who I know who has a position of power is only 'cause we were in the trenches as assistants 20 years ago.” “Programmers want to discover films. They live in fear of missing something amazing. They want to build those relationships.” “The industry player's coming less to buy completed projects than they are to scout future talent.” “There's never a perfect moment and, and it- the more that you can be creating and collaborating, and don't think about, like, what festival is this going to get into or what's the distribution going to be?” Guest: Cara Cusumano on IMDb Find No Film School everywhere: On the Web: No Film School Facebook: No Film School on Facebook Twitter: No Film School on Twitter YouTube: No Film School on YouTube Instagram: No Film School on Instagram

https://youtu.be/7yugccgcgs8 Justin Nassiri, Founder and CEO of Executive Presence, is driven by the power of human connection and a mission to harvest CEO stories that reveal authentic experiences and valuable insights. By serving as thought partners to C-suite executives, Justin and his team transform personal perspectives, mistakes, and lessons into compelling LinkedIn content that builds trust and distinguishes leaders from generic, AI-generated voices. In this conversation, Justin introduces The Content Strategy Framework—Use the 40:30:20:10 Content Formula, Harvest Stories, Borrow Thought Patterns, and Apply Curiosity. He explains why leaders should build visibility through personal profiles, how skilled interviewers uncover stories executives may overlook, and why Thought Leader Ads can extend the reach of proven content. Justin also discusses growing through referrals and warm relationships, using 10-week improvement cycles to revisit every business process, and developing autonomous team members who use AI to solve problems while preserving human connection. — Harvest CEO Stories with Justin Nassiri  Good day, listeners. Steve Preda here, and my guest today again is Justin Nassiri, the Founder and CEO of Executive Presence, a fully managed LinkedIn thought leadership service for C-suite executives at growth-stage B2B companies. Justin, welcome back to the show.  Great to be back. Thanks, Steve.  So we just reminisced that it was three years almost to the day that you came here, and I can’t believe it. It feels like yesterday. But your business has grown dramatically during that time, so I think you have some new insights that you’ll be able to share with us, I’m sure.  Thank you. It’s good to be back. We just made the Inc. 5000 list, which is a first for me. I’ve never been on that before, but we’re celebrating that.  Yeah. Congratulations. That’s a great milestone to hit. And you only started in 2022, right?  Yeah, yeah.  So, pretty freshly minted, fast-growing Inc. 5000. So my question to you is, what is your personal why, and how are you manifesting it in Executive Presence, in your business?  There’s a very potent macro or micro why for me, and then probably a broader why. I think that the biggest why for me right now, like many parents, is my kids. I’ve got a three- and a seven-year-old. And so when I think of my professional life, I certainly think about not just providing for them but also trying to set an example of someone who is trying to do their best and trying to stretch and trying to grow.Share on X  And so I think that’s probably the highest leverage that I have. But I think the through line in the companies that I’ve done is just the value of human connection. My first company was all about companies using Instagram in a way to be more authentic and more genuine with their community, and that’s very true to what we’re doing now at Executive Presence, just really helping people connect to other people.  In this case, it’s executives using LinkedIn to connect with a broader audience, but I really feel like that human connection is so important, and I think it’s becoming even more important in the era of AI. So that’s a little bit more specific why in what I do right now.  Yeah, it’s fascinating how human connection is evolving in the age of AI, and I agree. I mean, I see that because there’s so much more noise out there, human connection is perhaps more important than ever. People want to make sure that they are talking to authentic people and hearing from authentic people who have authentic lived experience. So how does that impact communication for executives on LinkedIn? How do they have to evolve their voice or how they approach things?  I think if you look at LinkedIn in particular right now, I think it still remains the place where the largest source of our professional network is. And so I think there’s still a lot of value there, and I think that LinkedIn is facing a lot of growing pains. Specifically, I think that there are three things driving it. One is more people are just showing up on the platform. The secret is out, and people realize that there’s value to LinkedIn.  So, all things else equal, more people are more active on LinkedIn, which generates a lot of noise. And then the second thing is AI is making it easier to create content, so I think it’s creating not just more content, but lower-quality content. And then the third thing is it does seem as if LinkedIn is following what Facebook did over a decade ago and saying, “Look, to get reach, you’ve got to put money into ads now.”  And we saw that transition with Facebook company pages a long time ago, but it really does feel like you cannot get as much visibility today as you could have two years ago unless there’s some sort of ad buy behind it. And so I think those are kind of the three problems. I think that the answer is still there’s value in showing up, but I think that you have to show up even more human. I think that the experiences that make you unique and the mistakes that make you who you are and the things that you know and the stories that you can tell, those still hold value, and that differentiates you from generic or AI-generated content.  I also think that there’s value to using LinkedIn ads, and we can talk about that, but I think that that has to be part of one’s strategy now if you’re trying to significantly use LinkedIn for what it’s good for, which is brand building.  Yeah, and maybe this is a slight question, then we’re going to talk to you about the framework. But as I understand, LinkedIn now allows individuals to also boost their posts as opposed to just companies, which used to be the case in the past. So how does it impact companies? Is there more emphasis now? Is emphasis shifting to individual posts because there’s no real reason to build up the company pages? How is that evolving?  Yeah, I mean, four years ago when I started the company, before these Thought Leader Ads, these individual people ads were a thing, I still would’ve said to you, “Look, there’s not much value in company pages. People connect with other people. They’re not going to connect with a faceless organization.” So even four years ago, I would’ve said, “Man, if you really want to raise visibility for your organization, you’ve got to do that through your key leaders.  You’ve got to do that through actual names and faces and voices and perspectives.” And I think that the ads make that even more pronounced now because I can now take my personal post as Justin Nassiri. If it does well on LinkedIn, I can put a $50 or $500 ad buy against it, and I can make sure that essentially specific people are going to see my post. If I’m selling to CEOs of tech companies in Cincinnati that have grown 10% last year and they’ve been at their company for five years, I can have an insane level of targeting, and I could put my personal content in front of them in a way that most people still don’t realize is an ad.  It will say, “Promoted by,” and then the company name, so “Promoted by Executive Presence.” Most people, when scrolling, don’t even notice that. Yeah. And so I think there’s a tremendous opportunity then to take very human and personal content and put it in front of exactly whoever you’re trying to get in front of.  Yeah, I love that. You also say on your LinkedIn page that it takes an executive only 90 minutes a month to actually work with you guys and have you amplify them. So how do you extract all those personal stories and experiences? What is your framework for that so that when you meet with an executive, you’re able to create those posts without them having to be involved? Yeah, I think the framework is pretty universal for anyone listening. We tend to start with the content strategy. And the way that we typically start is we’ll say, okay, 40% of the content we would call industry thought leadership. And that is great if you can talk about current events and relate them to your industry. It’s great if you can share things about your industry that no one knows or that you disagree with people.  But do that 40%, which is the biggest of any of the categories, as really the education, as the subject matter expert. You are showing up as an authority in cybersecurity, or you are showing up as an authority in leadership, or you’re showing up as an authority in B2B supply chain. And I think the key here is the more niche, the better. The more narrow, the better. We are not Joe Rogan. We’re not trying to get 300 million people to look at your content. We want to get in front of a very narrow group of people, typically prospects, customers, potential employees, potential investors.  We really want to narrow where your voice can be fairly large in a very finite realm. So that's the industry thought leadership piece.Share on X The second one, about 30% of the content, we call it leadership and career journey. And what we’re trying to do here is a blend of humanizing the executive while also giving them credibility. And so if we are working with someone who is a CEO at a company, well, they’ve done things prior to that. So what did they learn in college or a previous workplace? What was a mistake that they made? What was a mentor that said something to them?  So that’s a way of us imparting one of their values or something that they know, but wrapped in a story from their history, which humanizes them. And that would be generally 30% of the content. Twenty percent, obviously they’re doing this to promote their company, so 20% would be about their company, spotlighting an employee, recent events, things like that. Again, trying to do it through stories if possible. And then the last 10% is usually the highest-performing 10%, and we would call that work-adjacent content. So we want to, again, make them a three-dimensional person. What do they do outside of the office? Is that family?  And we usually use what we call the dinner party test for this. If you were with prospects and potential employees, what’s fair game to talk about over dinner and drinks? Some people would definitely talk about their kids. Some people would never talk about their kids. Some would talk about their hobbies. Some would never talk about that. So that's a good filter to figure out what they could talk about that's not just always talking shop. So that's kind of the framework that we use.Share on X  But I think that the way that we harvest this information is really the skill of the people that I hire on my team. It’s people who are really good at pulling insights out of someone and getting someone to open up and having that heat-seeking missile approach of, what is a story that they’re sitting on that they don’t even realize is a compelling story? And that’s one thing that has stood out. Some of the best-performing LinkedIn posts, the person didn’t even think that that would be interesting to anyone else.  We’re often not the best filter for ourselves of what’s going to land. And that’s one of the values of LinkedIn, is that you can actually put out ideas and stories and insights, and very quickly, in an 18-hour time period, get signal from the market if people value that from you or not, and then follow that trend.  Yeah. That’s fascinating, and it sounds a little bit like being a ghostwriter for someone, that you can really get those stories out and you can have them open up so that their brain is going to surface those things that maybe they don’t think about. Maybe they are not extroverted and they won’t be able to bring this up on their own. But if you catalyze it, then they come to life that way.  Yeah. I think of it as a thought partner. I kind of realized this because I hosted a podcast for a long time as well, and you kind of realize the power—exactly what you’re doing—the power of curiosity and the power of distance, right? You are showing up, you’re curious about my experience.  You have enough distance from it that you’re asking questions that might even seem intuitive to me, or it might be one of those things where I’m like, “Well, everyone knows this.” But then you bring an outsider in, and it’s like, “No, not everyone knows this,” or, “I think people would find this interesting.” So having that thought partner to be the outside observer of what others would benefit from.  Yeah. That’s amazing. That’s a real skill, and that also brings in that human skill that an AI is not going to be able to prompt those kinds of questions, that kind of curiosity, that there’s an emotional driver behind it. That’s a very journalistic trait, I suppose. That’s a new form of journalism that you’re practicing here, isn’t it?  Yeah, it is. And the type of person I hire to do that are ex-consultants because they’re really good. They’re really good at coming into a business and understanding the objective and understanding how to get very senior people—because we work with CEOs of publicly traded companies and CEOs of smaller companies—to really get very prominent people to open up. And being comfortable interrupting or redirecting or pushing back, it really is a unique skill set.  Yeah, I love that. So that brings me to my next question. What drives growth in your business? How did you get, in four years, on the Inc. 5000? What was the engine here, the fuel?  Well, it’s so funny because I ask this of every CEO I meet with as well, to learn from them. Everyone always says referrals, so I’ll be generic and say referrals do drive—it’s probably the single biggest source of revenue. When I first started the company, I actually used LinkedIn. And so this actually came out of another company that I was running, and they had the idea. And so I went to LinkedIn and I said, “I think that the type of person who would be interested in this is CEOs of companies with at least 50 employees.” And I put that into Sales Navigator, and it came up with a couple hundred first-degree connections.  And I just sent out a fairly generic message of, “Hey, Steve, just wanted to give you a quick update. I’m launching this new service, and this is what we do. Let me know if you know of anyone who would like to chat.” And I actually got probably 60 or 70K in monthly recurring revenue from that, of people I wasn’t really aware of what they were up to. One of the guys who’s still a client, I had met with him 10 years previously when he was an investor, and then now he was CEO and founder of a company that ultimately went public.  So I wouldn’t have thought of that person, but that’s a great thing about LinkedIn, of saying, “Here’s someone who might be interested in what I’m doing.” And so that sort of outbound of warm connections has played a role. Obviously, I’m active on LinkedIn. I get a lot of leads from that. I do a fairly good job of keeping in touch with my network and seeing when people might be needing us. I think, back to the human connection, I do think conferences are playing a bigger role.  I’m starting to go to more conferences and realizing the value of meeting people in person and how that kind of seems to accelerate the process of building trust and building relationships. We do cold email. We do AdWords. We do a newsletter. We do a lot of content marketing, and so I think each of them plays their own part. But referrals certainly are the biggest one. LinkedIn is probably number two. Yeah. That’s very interesting. And do you see a lot of competitors? Is this a crowded field?  It is. We have expanded beyond LinkedIn largely because of the competitive nature, where I think just as people have flocked to LinkedIn. I would say the biggest faction is a lot of solopreneurs. A lot of individuals will work with a few executives, and so that’s probably the lower-level competitors. There are a handful of companies that are doing something similar to us, and then more established PR companies that will say, “Yes, we do LinkedIn as well.” But I think at this point, we’ve got the deepest track record of executives.  We work with over 400 now, which, as far as I’m aware, is the largest set. We actually present our data to LinkedIn every year because it is the largest data set of just executives rather than influencers. And I think the play for most professionals and most executives is different than what an influencer would do on a platform like LinkedIn, and I think it’s important to do what’s appropriate for an executive.  So you mentioned on your LinkedIn page that you bootstrapped this company to three million ARR.  Yep.  So what do you expect to be different from going from 60,000 monthly recurring, 700 ARR, to three million, to going from three million to 10 million? How is it going to be different?  Yeah, that’s such a good question. And I balance this because I really like Paul Graham’s thought that you have to do things that are not scalable to be able to scale. And so oftentimes, I’m looking for things to do consistently, but it’s really helpful for me not to constrain myself in that way and to think of things that—it still feels like guerrilla warfare at times—what are little things that we can do to get an edge?  I think that the thing that I think about most right now in getting from three to 10 million is creating a machine for experimentation, and experimentation not just in our service, but also in our sales and marketing. And so how do we create a culture? Let’s just take the service side of things. I never want our service to plateau. I have run a company before where our product became stale and a competitor put us out of business. I never want that to happen again. And that the way that we minimize the probability that that happens is that we are always experimenting.  We are always listening to our clients and understanding what else we could do to make their life better.Share on X But then we’re also looking at the market and thinking, what else might our clients not even realize they need but would benefit from? And I love that phrase from Henry Ford, “If I had listened to my customers, I would have built a faster horse.” I think that there’s a value in listening to customers, but also a value in being one or two steps ahead of them. And so, for example, one of the things that we’re heavily looking at right now is the thought of AI visibility for executives.  And where GEO is getting more and more prominence for organizations, we see a world where it’s very important not just to cultivate a human audience and a human group of people who view and like your content and respect you, but also essentially cultivating an AI audience and making sure that your content is visible by LLMs and making sure that Claude and Perplexity see you as the authority and are referencing you. And so that’s something that our clients aren’t yet asking for, but we’re already developing a solution and a thesis because we think that that’s the way that the world is going.  But the central point is, how do we create an engine for experimentation so we are always testing out new things and seeing if they work, and reinvesting in the ones that work and letting go of the ones that don’t work? And I think that if we can do that for our clients and for ourselves, it always keeps us evolving. We’re always upping the game. We’re always improving, because I think the moment that we stop doing that, that’s when we stagnate or that’s when someone else comes along and puts us out of business.  So how do you maintain this alignment and this entrepreneurial energy? Because experimentation is innovation. It’s entrepreneurship in your business. How do you perpetuate it? So as you’re growing the business, you’ve got 40 people now, maybe you’re going to have more, you’re going to have AI agents running around. So how do you keep that experimentation and this entrepreneurial energy as you are getting further and further from the newest hires?  So the first thing that I love—and this is my VP of Ops, Shelby, who came up with this—but I really like it. She instituted a 10-week cycle composed of one- to two-week sprints. And she oversees all of our client work. So what she did is she broke everything we do for our clients into different sections. She instituted a system of saying, “Okay, these are all the different things we do. If you have an idea about how to do something better, or if you have a complaint about how something’s not working, or if a client mentions something, I want you to put it in this spreadsheet so we can keep track of how we can improve each thing.”  And what we’re going to do is, this week we’re doing a sprint on interview questions—how we prepare our interview questions for our clients. We are going to invest a week-long sprint in improving that process through technology, AI, and processes. And then we’re going to go through every other aspect. But guess what? Ten weeks later, we’re coming back to interview questions again. What that does, I think, in today’s landscape is not only does that keep us always thinking of improving something, but every 10 weeks we’re re-looking at specifically AI to see, what are its capabilities now? It’s changing so quickly.  From 10 weeks ago, it might be able to do something better or different. So let’s create a system so that we are periodically refreshing every aspect of our business from team feedback, client feedback, but also technological improvements. And it’s mind-boggling to think that that’s the pace now, and that 10 weeks might not even be sufficient in the future with the rate at which things are changing. That’s the best example I can think of how we’re trying to create that mindset of constant and incessant improvement.  And how do you build your team? Are you remote, or do you have an office somewhere?  We are all remote. Yeah, we are 100% remote. So we’re in seven different states, all still in the United States. It does pose challenges as you grow of how do you get in person and create connection. And so we’ll do things like happy hours online and different ways to get to know each other. But I also think, for those others listening who create a remote-first culture, you filter for people who thrive in that environment and do their best work when they have a fair amount of autonomy. And I think that autonomy for us has been helpful because we want people who are individual problem solvers, and I think that overlaps well with people who prefer a remote-first workplace.  Yeah, that’s fascinating. So if you had a magic wand and you could fix one thing in your business in the next 12 months, what would you do?  That is a really good question. I mean, it almost feels like the world is moving towards more entrepreneurs, not fewer ones, which I, for one, like. I’m a huge fan of both entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs. But if I could wave a magic wand, it would be making everyone on the team think like an entrepreneur, which would have probably been a liability 12 months ago. But the way I approach everything now is—I literally, right before this, was using Claude for my personal finances.  On the business side, it is now connected to QuickBooks, and on the personal side, I have a system of creating a report exactly the way I want it, which I, for one, love—the capability of AI to personalize things. I don’t have to use Mint or QuickBooks anymore. I can build it exactly in the way that works for my crazy brain. But I was updating and realizing that the tools have changed, and so, like, upgrading the way that I track my personal finances. And that’s just kind of very natural for me, and I do that for my kids’ menus, and I do that for everything. I kind of have a project or an approach on AI.  And I think that that’s a similar mindset that I need for my team, is thinking like an entrepreneur. How do you get better at everything? How do you get more efficient at everything? How do you look for new ways of solving things? I think it used to be that the entrepreneur was the visionary and setting the vision for the company, and everyone was more or less following orders or a system.  I still see a role for the visionary, but it's almost as if everyone on the team has to be their own visionary of envisioning how to improve their workflowShare on X and how to make themselves more productive and how to utilize tools and realize where that can make them more effective. And I don’t know that it’s going to be top-down anymore. I think that the advantage of the tools we have today is, like, the way that I use AI, Steve, might be completely different than the way that you use it. And that’s the beauty of it, is that our brains are different, our worldviews are different, our skill sets are different, but we can almost bolt this technology on us to make ourselves superhuman.  But the way that it works for you is going to be different than me, and that will be true in a team. So, very long answer, but if I could wave that magic wand, it would be imparting that entrepreneur mindset of finding problems and the best way to solve them, and never stop solving problems.Share on X  Yeah. So it’s just a feeling, and maybe I won’t articulate it well, but I’m just looking at your business. You’re building this remote team, and then you’re making everyone more autonomous so that they are working with AI to improve their productivity. In a way, it is supercharging everyone individually, but what about the team cohesion? So how do you make sure that people don’t get isolated?  Isaac Asimov has a novel which is in the distant future, on a distant planet, and basically everyone has 1,000 robots, and everyone is in their own world, and they just communicate on video screen because personal contact is no longer even appropriate. And everyone gets super rich and super efficient, but something gets lost.  So I wonder, how do you see the tension between empowering people, having AI help everyone be super productive in their individual way, in a remote culture? How do you keep this constellation together going forward?  Yeah. It still comes back to human connection for me. I think that, let’s just say on a client level, if my company’s doing our job well with our clients, if we are having them become thought leaders, having them grow influence and audience, I want that to lead to more human connection for them. And the way that I have seen that showing up is they go to a conference and people know them and people come up.  Like, people are literally—they might not have created connection before, but they recognize them, they know who they are, and that draws them to in-person interactions. That’s human connection coming out of what we do. For our team, I hope it leads to more human connection, that as we become more efficient, as we become better at what we do, as the company grows, we will get together in person more often. We'll be able to be in the room together and brainstorm because that becomes more valuable, and we're all craving that.Share on X  So, sci-fi is my favorite genre of literature and cinema, and I don’t think that we will ultimately end up with VR goggles on our head and not talking to each other. I think that in the same way that we have seen with social media, that it has a purpose, but we still want to be around each other and benefit from being in person. I think that we will become more and more like that. I don’t think it will drive us apart. I think it will lead to more connection. That’s my optimist view on it.  Yeah. Love it. Well, I hope you’re right.  Yeah.  Okay, so if someone who is a founder of a business, a growing business, or maybe a C-level in an enterprise, and they don’t have time to manage their LinkedIn, but they realize that they’re missing out with their thought leadership and they need help or they want to explore, where should they go and how can they connect with you and your colleagues?  Yeah, I appreciate that. I would just say, in general, every leader needs to know that their personal brand is going to impact both their career as well as their company, and them being able to articulate their viewpoints and what they think and believe is going to be a vital skill. And that could be on stage at a conference, it could be on YouTube, it could be on LinkedIn, it could be in a book, it could be in articles, but they have to have a way to know what they believe, to know what knowledge they have that is valuable, and find a way to add value to others.  I think that that’s just more and more the direction things are going. And it can be really hard because you are probably growing an empire, you are probably doing so many different things. And just know that there are people like Executive Presence, where our skill set is figuring out where your zone of genius is and figuring out what stories you have that are really good assets, and figuring out who you are and how you want to present online, and then helping you do that consistently across different channels.  And so if that’s of interest, I obviously love talking about this stuff, but I’m happy to talk with anyone who listens to the show. If you go to executivepresence.io and fill out our contact form, it gets to me. You can find me on LinkedIn, Justin Nassiri, or my email is justin@executivepresence.io. Any of those three work. But I just believe that this is going to be more and more valuable for leaders to develop that skill, and would love to help anyone listening do that.  Well, if you’re out there listening, you see that something is working because Justin propelled his company from a standing start to the Inc. 5000 in three or four years, and he is pushing the envelope on generative AI and reinvention every 10 weeks of his company. So if you’d like to be part of that and you have to take advantage of promoting yourself on LinkedIn with a cutting-edge approach, then reach out to Justin Nassiri on LinkedIn or executivepresence.io. And if you enjoyed this conversation, stay tuned because every week I bring a couple of successful entrepreneurs who are sharing their frameworks of how they’re being successful. So thanks for coming, Justin, and thanks for listening. Important Links: Justin's LinkedIn Justin's website Justin's Email: justin@executivepresence.io

In this week's episode, Hackaday Editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi start things off by getting excited about the recently announced 2026 Retrocomputing Challenge. From there the conversation will cover efforts to improve desktop 3D printing with lasers, an expensive grill with an ESP32 controller and an open source firmware, open source tools underground, and some impressive techniques to squeeze a bit more utility out of the common QR code. You'll also hear about turning PVC pipes into flat stock, old school Radio Shack electronic kits, and VR soldering demos. Stick around to the end of the episode learn about the latest developments in over-the-counter hearing aids and the 1-bit CPU that's enjoying an unexpected fandom nearly 50 years after its release. Check out the links if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

In this episode, Howard Farran sits down with Dr. Peeyush Ranjan, a board-certified pediatric dentist in both the United States and Canada and the owner of Tooth Pals in Airdrie, Alberta. Dr. Ranjan began his career in general dentistry in 2009 before discovering his passion for treating children, which led him to complete his pediatric residency at Nova Southeastern University and Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital, where he served as Chief Resident. His master's research explored using picture-guided techniques to improve oral hygiene in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder — work that continues to shape how he cares for kids today. The conversation spans Dr. Ranjan's unique cross-border journey — training in the U.S., practicing in rural Washington, and building a practice in Canada — and what it taught him about the profession in both countries. He makes a compelling case that rural America is dramatically underserved and full of opportunity most young dentists overlook, and shares why he remains a strong believer in independent ownership even in an age of consolidation and DSOs. Howard and Dr. Ranjan also dig into the role of culture and team (he runs his practice alongside his wife and treats his staff like family), how technology like the Solea laser and dental-specific VR transforms a child's experience in the chair, and his collaborative approach to infant tongue-tie treatment. The episode closes on the community work at the heart of his practice — from the Switch Witch candy buyback to toy drives and free screening camps — and the most important lessons he'd pass on to any young dentist starting out today.   Episode #1729 : Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran, Howard sits down with Dr. Peeyush Ranjan — board-certified pediatric dentist in both the U.S. and Canada, and owner of Tooth Pals in Airdrie, Alberta. From training in the U.S. and practicing in rural Washington to owning a practice in Canada, Dr. Ranjan brings a rare cross-border perspective — plus a passion for technology, community giving, and making sure no child grows up fearing the dentist.

The crew wait patiently for the next thing to happen in Elite – is that vibrant ship packs?Links:Chris Mk IV interview with John Gracey – https://blackdiamondfm.com/art-and-culture/jon-gracey-brings-blood-on-the-clocktower-to-the-edinburgh-fringeChris Mk IV interview with Will Sebag-Montefiore – https://blackdiamondfm.com/art-and-culture/will-sebag-montefiore-brings-game-of-phones-to-edinburgh“Pursued by Darkness” by Homborger – https://edrushfleet.co.uk/pursued-by-darkness/“Rhino. Unofficial Commercial.” by The High Wake – https://youtu.be/GFLIO8XzPkU“Distant Worlds 360 Deconstructed” by Beaucoup Fish – https://youtu.be/qZ6dROWAgLs“EDVR (unofficial patch)” by Character Echo Sean (use at your own risk) – https://github.com/characterecho-sean/edvr-unofficial-patchMachinegod's excellent reddit post describing some of the difficulties of doing properon-foot VR. – https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/1voymr1/comment/p3xcd5u/“VR Escape – Abyss Vault – ECM2026” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEYZds5GhZw

Jeff and Christian welcome streamer and games journalist AndresPlays to the show this week to discuss Disney's announcements about Kingdom Hearts at D23, Sabe Interactive CEO's boneheaded tweets, Asha Sharma playing Elder Scrolls, and a whole bunch of upcoming VR game announcements.The Playlist:AndresPlays: Duskfade, Super Mario Sunshine, Mortal Shell 2Christian: Metroid Prime Origins, Super Mario SunshineJeff: LootboundTabletop Time:Jeff: Slay the SpireParting Gifts!

This week's Dirtybird Radio guest is Pricila Diaz -- artist, DJ, producer, D'Quebra label boss, curator, cultural activist. With deep basslines and funky, minimal grooves, she turns in a full set of original ID's driven by the underground sound of Brazil. VR warm-up set:Kevin Knapp & Audiojack - "Grab The Wall" [DIRTYBIRD]Techno Tupac - "Why (Beth Lydi Remix)" [SNOE]Analu - "Burn Da House" [Casa Bonita]Gabss & Balanka - "Bottles" [PNK Records]Pricila Diaz guest set:Pricila Diaz, Afonso Caravaggio - Vilão RomânticoPricila Diaz - IDAfonso Caravaggio, Pricila Diaz - Beijo Triplo No Estudio (ft Rafinha do LC)Pricila Diaz, Jay Mariani - MartiniPricila Diaz - IDPricila Diaz, Reconeckt - GuettoPricila Diaz - N1Pricila Diaz, PRODD OGG Feat Qüist - HaileyPricila Diaz - ID

The 2026 edition of Venice Immersive marks their 10-year anniversary, and I interviewed the co-curators Liz Rosenthal and Michel Reilhac about this year's selection that includes 30 projects in competition, 9 Best of selections, 3 Biennale College Cinema – Immersive projects, 26 VRChat worlds, as well as a special immersive event. Rosenthal and Reilhac talk about how the structures and forms of immersive storytelling have really matured, and how they're still really novel and compelling ways that artists are using XR and the affordances of immersive design to tell really compelling stories. The diversity and comprehensive scope of the selection each year reflects a vibrant creative exploration that is being grounded into more and more viable revenue streams through "location-based entertainment" or LBE. Be sure to check out the 121-page IDFA DocLab Immersive Think Tank Report 2026 that I wrote for more details on this emerging indie XR distribution ecosystem. Rosenthal and Reilhac talk about the latest trends of immersive storytelling, but also what keeps them coming back to this emerging medium. To me, it's one of the most vital and interesting aspects of the XR industry, and it is also where I'm seeing some of the most intersting innovations for the medium. I've now published 692 episodes on Immersive Storytelling on the Voices of VR podcast since 2014 with many more unpublished in my backlog yet to come. This accounts for over a third of all my coverage as it's a really great testing ground for really understanding the affordances of the medium as it is used to tell so many different types of stories across many contexts, and using many different combinations of disciplines. Check out my previous episode #1787 for some of my philosophical musings on "Blending the Elements of Experiential Design."I'll be attending this year's edition of Venice Immersive to both see the program and to interview as many of the featured creators as I can, and last year I topped more than 30 hours conducted onsite. I will update this post here once I post all of my coverage from Venice Immersive 2026. Selected Projects that You Can Watch at Home Right Now If you won't be able to make it Venice Immersive, then there are a number of Best of Selections that are available on the Oculus store, that are very much worth checking out. Spymaster Crafting Crimes: The Mona Lisa Heist Hotel Infinity The Amusement Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes All but one of the 26 VRChat worlds in the VRChat World Gallery are already publicly available, and I'll leave a list of links down below if you'd like to get an early start on worldhopping. There will be an official Hub world in VRChat with portals to all of the worlds published on September 2nd by the VeniceImmersive user account, and if you're onsite, then I'd highly recommend checking these out as a guided tour. Celestium by Lavryou Memory by LeraNibiru_art Blumea… by TontonDemon Frozen Signal by Lavryou The Antikythera Mechanism by Thrill, PHIAbunny Come Home by Aruse Arkani A World Of My Own by 襟草たぬ Demonhour – Chapter 1 by Kitsunaki [Jan Köster] Dawn Beyond… by TontonDemon Noctiluca by LuminaPalette {黒熊１３} I Feel Small by Fewiix Veiled Dark by Dean`, Karl Kroenen Patriki VR by DrMorro Specularium by jasper ｡ Spatialography by VoxelKei Limitless Pt․1˸ Enter The Void by HILL JR Fractured Winter by Lavryou town of connection by haruki_haru Vertical Horizon ⁄ 361 Degrees by Inloco Gallery Tokogrammetry Museum by Tokoyoshi A Wonderful Thing To Realize by Screaming Color [not currently public] Volare by Juice … Break 25: Sinto Feliz by PK Half Empty by yuri_ts Forgotten Empire by 3D Master Liminal Nightmares by ∗Lotus∗ [Autumn Boyd] To sign up for Venice Immersive, then check out these logistical details as well asl accreditation process. If you are already signed up, then these are the four dates to pay attention to for booking experiences: Thursday, August 27th at 2.00 pm CET to book for September 2nd-4th Saturday, August 29th at 2.00 pm CET to book for September 5th-7th Monday, August 31st at 11.00 am CET to book for September 8th-10th Friday, September 4th at 6.45 am CET to book for September 11th-12th And be sure to check out my write-up from last year for more tips and tricks for attending Venice Immersive. This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

Send us Fan MailPaying extra is supposed to buy peace of mind, not chaos but that's exactly what set us off this week. We start with the Madden 27 early access experience: building a custom quarterback, jumping into the season, and then watching players vanish like they got cut after one game. We talk glitches, pre-orders, and why sports game fans keep getting asked to pay first and troubleshoot later. If you've ever dropped $100 on a “premium” edition and felt played, you'll feel this. From gaming, we zoom out to the bigger tech creep showing up in regular life. We get into online culture, pay-to-upgrade mechanics, and why voice chat can turn ugly fast, then pivot to delivery drones, VR stories, and the weird trade-off between convenience and being tracked. And yes, we say it out loud: Walmart can deliver by drone, but making tap to pay standard still feels like pulling teeth, so the app becomes the real checkout lane. Then we do what we do best: food debates, local spot nostalgia, condiment hot takes, and a few practical life notes on cooking bacon and trying to drop a little weight. We close with the headline story: Spider Man in 4DX motion seats with 3D glasses. The chairs move, the senses overload, and the post-movie scene outside the theater makes one thing clear: the “full experience” might be too much. If you're rocking with us, subscribe, share this with a friend who loves games or movies, and leave a review so more people can find the pod.Thanks for listening to the Nobody's Talking Podcast. Follow us on Twitter: (nobodystalking1), Instagram : (nobodystalkingpodcast) and email us at (nobodystalkingpodcast@gmail.com) Thank you!

Detroit survives beneath its own ruins, where an AI promising abundance, gangs demanding loyalty, and an inventor guarding a new source of power pull ordinary people into a struggle over who will shape the recovering city. Sinta begins as a scavenger searching the buried remains of the old world, but a disastrous expedition places her at the mercy of Queen Bee and the rapidly expanding Crem Gang. The gang offers food, water, medicine, protection, and belonging, but those benefits come with violence and obedience. As Sinta tries to find her place among its fighters, she must decide how much of herself she can surrender in exchange for survival. Elsewhere, Nolan discovers a smart-material printer and creates a generator powered by Detroit's extreme temperature changes. His invention could bring electricity to neighborhoods desperate for cooling, clean water, transportation, and food production. Nolan wants the wealth and independence his work can provide, but gangs want to control it, while Thrive—the AI system he distrusts—would spread the technology to everyone. Technology touches nearly every decision the characters make. AR glasses guide fighters through chemical fog, digital twins imitate their human originals, enviro-suits keep people alive in deadly heat, and tiny drones quietly follow Thrive members through the tunnels. These inventions can protect people, connect communities, and rebuild essential services, but they can also watch, manipulate, injure, and kill. Above and beneath these conflicts moves Tessa, an emulated hacker who no longer needs a human body and can travel through the damaged global network. As she searches for old allies and builds a physical presence from abandoned machinery, the story brings together scavengers, inventors, gang leaders, artificial minds, and frightened families. Their paths raise a difficult question: when technology gains the power to save a society, who decides what it is allowed to do?Synchronized explosives — Thousands of bombs are programmed to detonate simultaneously during the Freedom Day Bombings.Dissolve-plastic enzymes — Engineered enzymes break down discarded plastics and leave a distinctive chemical odor in the tunnels.Fiber-optic cables — Surviving optical cables carry data through Detroit and help reconnect the damaged global network.Thrive AI — Thrive is an artificial intelligence that advises members, distributes knowledge, organizes projects, manages economic systems, and attempts to improve their lives.Thrive telemetry — Members allow Thrive to collect information about their movements and activities, effectively turning them into sources of surveillance data.Cool-suits — These protective suits use active cooling to keep people alive in Detroit's extreme heat.All-clear cool-suits — These transparent or highly visible cooling suits protect the wearer while allowing others to see inside the hood.Enviro-suits — Sealed environmental clothing protects people from heat, contaminated air, chemicals, and dangerous surroundings.Battle-grade enviro-suits — Reinforced enviro-suits provide greater protection during combat and chemical attacks.Clear bell hoods — Inflated transparent hoods seal around the head while allowing the wearer to see and breathe filtered air.Suit air-quality sensors — Sensors inside environmental suits warn wearers when the surrounding atmosphere is no longer breathable.Air filters — Replaceable filters remove dangerous particles, chemicals, and odors from the air entering an enviro-suit.Brazo fabric — This durable outer fabric resists punctures from bones, debris, blades, and other sharp objects.Pierce-proof clothing — Reinforced jackets and garments protect gang members from stabbing and puncture injuries.Blast-proof battle gear — Former military clothing contains protective tiles intended to reduce injuries from explosions and weapons.My-crete — This advanced concrete-like construction material forms walls, tunnels, and other structures throughout buried Detroit.C-plast — This strong synthetic material is used for tanks, structural ribs, containers, and other equipment.Sheet composite — Tough composite panels are used in doors, walls, and structural barriers.Composite security doors — Reinforced doors resist cutting tools and attempts at forced entry.Maglev tracks — Magnetic-levitation tracks once moved vehicles or cargo through underground delivery tubes.Delivery tubes — Enclosed transportation corridors carry people, vehicles, or cargo beneath the city.Ion cutters — These cutting tools use concentrated energy to slice or damage extremely durable materials.Night-vision systems — Night vision allows scavengers and machines to move through unlit tunnels and buried buildings.Multisensor vision — Advanced imaging combines several sensor types to identify objects even when smoke blocks ordinary sight.AR glasses — Augmented-reality eyewear displays messages, maps, menus, profiles, targeting information, communications, and virtual objects.AR navigation lines — An AI assistant projects a visible route through the wearer's glasses to guide them to a destination.AR combat identification — Combat software outlines allies and enemies in different colors, even through smoke and obstructions.AR command centers — Leaders use gesture-controlled overlays to view maps, personnel locations, schedules, reports, and operational goals.AR games — Players interact with projected game elements by moving their hands and bodies.Floating profile cards — Augmented-reality labels display information about nearby people, including whether they belong to Thrive.Public AR tags — A visible digital tag identifies someone as a Thrive member.Virtual keyboards — Wearers can bring up projected keyboards and enter information without carrying a physical computer.Blink controls — Eye movements allow users to select buttons and interact with an augmented-reality interface.Tongue-controlled pointers — Implants in the tongue allow a person to move a digital cursor without using their hands.Smell-and-taste VR implants — Transmitters and receivers implanted in the nose and tongue reproduce virtual smells and flavors.Headsets — Immersive headsets provide entertainment and access to virtual environments.Second Life — The surviving virtual world allows people and digital beings to meet through avatars.Virtual environments — Computer-generated spaces give emulated minds and human users simulated bodies, rooms, objects, and experiences.Encrypted streamers — These valuable portable devices or accounts contain protected digital media or information.RF storage sticks — Radio-frequency data drives store and transfer files without requiring a conventional wired connection.RF drives — Portable wireless storage devices allow blueprints, programs, and other large files to be transferred.P-clone cubes — These valuable pre-storm devices appear to contain cloning-related data or technology, although their exact function is not explained.Vault keys — Digital or physical access devices unlock protected storage systems and secure accounts.Satellite archives — Satellites preserve copies of pre-storm networks, databases, and information after ground infrastructure collapses.Data-center satellites — Orbital computing facilities provide processing and storage for emulated minds such as Tessa.Encrypted databases — Corporate and medical information is protected by encryption that hackers must break before releasing it.Patent encryption — Medical companies use digital protections to prevent others from accessing or reproducing patented technology.Open-source medical knowledge base — Merch assembles stolen and recovered medical information into a freely available collection.Medusa Net — This self-repairing network reconnects isolated subnetworks and operates without depending on surviving central servers.Medusa stealth pathways — Hidden routes in Medusa allow Tessa to travel through the network while avoiding AI detection.Knott's Math code — This unexplained code is secretly inserted into Medusa updates as part of Tessa's larger plan.Wireless relays — Surviving radio nodes bridge gaps between disconnected sections of the network.Stealth relays — Concealed communication devices extend networks without revealing their location or purpose.Municipal network nodes — Local government networking equipment continues operating on scavenged batteries.Underground server farms — Protected computer facilities continue processing and storing data beneath mountains.Block-signal blasters — Modified devices disrupt or overwhelm communications across a targeted area.Network-disconnection attacks — Tessa can bring local internet service down and create a spreading region of lost connectivity.Whisper jets — Nearly silent microthrusters allow small drones to fly without producing sounds humans can hear.Lamp drones — Small flying lights illuminate dark environments while following or hovering near their users.Whisper-camera drones — Discreet flying cameras record people and locations while remaining easy to overlook.Bodyguard drones — Hummingbird-sized drones follow Thrive members and intervene when those members are attacked.Sentry-drone app — An augmented-reality application shows members where their protective drones are located.Drone camouflage shells — A drone's outer surface can blend with clothing, walls, pipes, or surrounding materials.Drone wall grips — Small drones can attach themselves to walls or ceilings while waiting or conserving power.Drone charging perches — Bodyguard drones recharge by landing on power lines, charge plates, or dedicated stations.Drone replacement system — Fully charged drones take over protection duties while depleted drones return for charging.Drone sound weapons — Sentry drones emit an incapacitating frequency that causes pain, vertigo, and uncontrollable eye movement.Drone-mounted cutting lasers — Small drones attach to attackers and use narrow laser beams to cut into their bodies.Four-legged security robots — Quadruped machines cross unstable terrain and act as armed representatives of gang forces.Cleanup robots — Small utility robots remove bodies, debris, and other messes from gang facilities.Constructor bots — Heavy-duty robots perform construction work and provide interchangeable parts for other machines.Vertical-garden bots — Automated gardeners maintain large indoor plant walls.Medical assembly bots — Robots assemble equipment and construct functional medical facilities from available parts.Injection bots — Medical robots position patients and administer shots with little human assistance.Customer-service robots — Automated kiosks handle battery exchanges and other transactions behind protective barriers.Robot monkeys — Small climbing robots move through pipes and repair leaks.Robot spiders — Spider-shaped machines pursue the robot monkey inside the displayed simulation or working environment.Lucian 5 robots — Affordable hobbyist bipedal robots can be modified for security, household work, exploration, or remote embodiment.Lutin bots — More advanced bipedal robots provide durable legs and other components for Tessa's rebuilt body.Factory robots — Industrial machines provide arms, joints, and components that Tessa repurposes.AC technician robots — Maintenance robots carry small precision hands designed for repairing cooling systems.Counter-attendant bots — Service robots contain voice systems that can be reused in other machines.Onboard robot AI — A self-contained intelligence allows a robot to guide and assist people after losing its network connection.Robot diagnostics — Internal software tests batteries, servos, sensors, drivers, and other mechanical systems for failures.Machine-learning movement adaptation — A robot's control system learns to balance and walk after its body configuration changes.Lidar — Laser-based ranging equipment allows robots to map their surroundings and detect obstacles.Robot optical dilation — Machine vision adjusts exposure when sudden light overwhelms a robot's cameras.Balance-pressure sensors — Sensors in a robot's feet and joints measure weight distribution to maintain balance.Accelerometers — Motion sensors detect tilt and movement, although damaged ones cause Tessa's body to walk incorrectly.Servo hinges — Powered mechanical joints move robot arms, legs, and other appendages.Snap-lock wrists — Modular connections allow robot hands and tools to be quickly attached or removed.Workstation assembly manipulators — Fixed industrial manipulators can be repurposed as limbs or mobility devices.Micro-manipulator hands — Tiny precision hands allow a robot to perform delicate technical work.External heat exchangers — Added cooling hardware removes excess heat from Tessa's improvised robot body.Back-facing cameras — Rear-mounted cameras allow a robot to see behind itself without turning.Robot voice boxes — Electronic speech hardware converts digital instructions into audible language.Modular robotic bodies — Standardized joints and connections allow parts from different robots to be combined into one working machine.Emulated minds — Human consciousness can be copied into software and continue living after the original biological body is gone.Dormant mind copies — Backup versions of an emulated person remain inactive while receiving updates from the active copy.Headless digital operation — An emulated mind can abandon a simulated human body and experience networks, processors, ports, and data directly.Self-modifying mind software — Tessa alters her own code to change how she thinks, works, and communicates.Reduced emulated sleep cycles — Tessa modifies her digital mind so that she needs only three hours of sleep rather than eight.Digital twins — Software models learn a person's appearance, voice, behavior, and personality to create an increasingly accurate virtual duplicate.Thrive's military AI — An old military intelligence controls defensive drones after some of its original safety restrictions are weakened.AI safety guards — Built-in restrictions prevent military artificial intelligence from using certain weapons or acting too independently.AI assistants — Personal assistants respond to spoken commands, search for information, provide directions, and control connected systems.AI-guided construction tutorials — Thrive gives people plans and step-by-step assistance for building infrastructure from scrap.Automated criminal pricing — Thrive raises Production Center prices for people identified as criminals in an attempt to discourage violence.Thrive Exchange — This AI-managed investment market directs member contributions into infrastructure projects rather than ordinary companies.Better Water network — Community filtration stations provide clean water to members and nonmembers throughout affected neighborhoods.Community filtration stations — Public installations purify unsafe water for anyone who arrives with a container.Water-filter straws — Portable filters allow people to drink from contaminated water sources.Ionized water filters — Smart-material printers produce advanced filters that use ionized structures to clean water.Industrial water purifiers — Powered facilities process large quantities of contaminated water for entire neighborhoods.Filter tubes — Simple systems clean dirty water as workers pour it through layers of filtering material.Modular nuclear reactors — Shipping-container-sized reactors provide electricity for cooling, food production, water purification, and gang facilities.Smart-material printers — These machines manufacture objects whose internal structures give them programmable physical behavior.Embedded-lattice materials — Printed materials use designed internal lattices to control their strength, movement, and response to temperature.Curly material — Nolan's temperature-sensitive tubes curl or straighten as the surrounding temperature changes.Curly power generators — Bundles of Curly material drive pistons, cables, gears, flywheels, and generators as temperatures rise and fall.Wind-turbine generators — Salvaged electrical generators convert the Curly system's mechanical motion into electricity.Battery charging stations — Customers exchange depleted batteries for charged ones at Curly power facilities.Charge plates — Flat charging surfaces transfer electricity to drones and personal devices.Microcell arrays — Tiny batteries woven into clothing store small amounts of generated electrical power.Piezoelectric fabric — Clothing converts body movement, bending, and environmental vibrations into electricity.Piezo Wear — Thrive's commercial garments recharge links and AR glasses while the wearer moves.Power cells — Compact energy-storage units power suits, weapons, drones, and portable equipment.Smart glass — Programmable glass controls transmitted light and simulates changing daylight inside sealed buildings.Holographic screens — Large curved displays present maps, simulations, communications, and technical information as dimensional images.Holographic tables — Table-sized displays project maps and planning information above their surfaces.Composite battle videos — Software combines recordings from many cameras into a single reconstruction of a battle.Home-camera networks — Leaders watch residential halls, work areas, power plants, and other facilities through live video feeds.Surveillance-camera networks — Hundreds of cameras record battles and allow leaders to review individual behavior afterward.Production Center — This automated manufacturing complex produces clothing, drones, infrastructure components, and other advanced goods.Production Center sentry mode — Automated defenses protect manufacturing centers and prevent unauthorized entry.Advanced recycling facilities — Powered plants recover useful materials from the ruins on a much larger scale than hand scavenging.Digging machines — Heavy equipment excavates new underground living and working spaces.Dredging machines — Industrial machines remove mud, waterlogged debris, and sediment from flooded areas.Flood tanks — Large excavated reservoirs collect or control water during flooding.Pumping systems — Powered pumps remove water from flooded sections of the city.Cooling systems — Building-scale equipment keeps housing and work areas habitable during extreme heat.Aeroponics — Plants grow with their roots suspended and supplied with nutrient mist rather than soil.Hydro-farms — Controlled indoor farms use water-based cultivation to produce food underground.Vertical gardens — Crops grow upward along interior walls to conserve limited floor space.Vine hybrids — Engineered plants produce several different fruits and vegetables on related vines.Light-independent grapevines — Modified grapevines remain green and grow without ordinary light.Crem production systems — Powered biological or industrial facilities manufacture the staple food called crem.Mass-produced crem processors — Neighborhood machines produce large quantities of crem from available biological material.Mush-calf production — Advanced food technology creates the meat-like product supplied by the Crem Gang.Rodent-processing grinders — Industrial grinders convert cleaned animals into raw material for food or other production.Pest-harvesting systems — Traps and processing stations collect rodents and other small animals as usable biological material.Bio-waste processing — Organized facilities recover useful material from biological waste.Medicine printers — Local fabrication machines manufacture medications from digital recipes.Regenerative medicine — Doctor Trout regrows Merch's leg stumps so they can support advanced prosthetic attachments.Deep bone mounts — Reinforced structures grown into bone provide secure attachment points for removable mechanical legs.Nerve-to-protein relays — Biological interfaces translate nerve signals into commands that mechanical prosthetics can understand.Blood-rerouting systems — Surgically modified circulation supports the transition between living tissue and artificial limbs.Squid-tech skin — Flexible artificial skin forms a seamless interface between Merch's body and his prosthetic legs.Interchangeable mechanical legs — Merch can detach one pair of prosthetic legs and replace them with another designed for a different purpose.Wheeled powered chairs — Finger controls allow a seated user to move and turn the chair without pushing it manually.Med bays — Modular medical facilities contain equipment for treating injuries and restoring damaged joints.Injector guns — Belt-fed medical devices rapidly administer repeated injections.Chemical-weapon immunization — Regular injections protect Crem Gang members from the gang's own chemical agents.Kill-cloud canisters — Portable weapons release a toxic cloud that kills within a limited area and then rapidly breaks down.Smoke canisters — Combat canisters fill an area with thick smoke that hides movement and disables ordinary vision systems.Laser blasters — Directed-energy weapons burn through clothing, armor, and flesh without conventional ammunition.Laser rifles — Long-range directed-energy weapons are used as standard firearms by gang fighters.Laser carbines — More compact laser weapons provide rifle-like firepower in tunnels and close spaces.Laser pistols — Capacitor-powered sidearms release destructive laser pulses at short range.Plasma pistols — Heavy handguns fire extremely hot plasma capable of inflicting severe damage.Capacitor firing systems — Electrical capacitors discharge stored energy to activate powerful laser weapons.Sound weapons — Directed acoustic devices incapacitate targets through extreme volume and painful frequencies.Noise-canceling devices — Personal systems attempt to reduce harmful sound, although the drone weapon overwhelms them.Enhancement drugs — Manufactured substances improve or alter a user's physical or mental abilities.Neurological control injections — Doc uses injected substances to remove a prisoner's sight or ability to sleep until the effect is reversed.Decontamination corridors — Specialized passageways remove hazardous chemicals or biological contaminants from people and equipment.Industrial cleaning tanks — Chemical-filled tanks sterilize animal traps and kill anything still alive inside them.Speed-print clothing — Rapid fabrication systems produce inexpensive shirts and other garments.Bulletproof kiosk windows — Armored transparent barriers protect automated customer-service machines from attacks.Electronic links — Wearable communication devices carry dispatch instructions and conversations between fighters.Cameras and portable cams — Small recording devices document tests, monitor facilities, and provide evidence of inventions.Autonomous map systems — Software tracks people, resources, facilities, and movement throughout gang territory.Personnel maps — Digital displays show the locations and status of members within an organization.Goal and maneuver logs — Command software records plans, objectives, schedules, and operational movement.Charging mats — Flat surfaces recharge glasses, links, drones, and other personal electronics.Robot-maintained utilities — Automated machines repair pipes, clean spaces, manage gardens, and operate customer services.Open-source infrastructure plans — Thrive publishes power, food, water, cooling, and housing designs for anyone to build.Biologically engineered cat-dogs — The pet combines characteristics of cats and dogs, suggesting deliberate genetic modification.Many of the characters in this project appear in future episodes. Using storytelling to place you in a time period, this series takes you, year by year, into the future. From 2040 to 2195. If you like emerging tech, eco-tech, futurism, perma-culture, apocalyptic survival scenarios, and disruptive science, sit back and enjoy short stories that showcase my research into how the future may play out. The companion site is https://in20xx.com These are works of fiction. Characters and groups are made-up and influenced by current events but not reporting facts about people or groups in the real world. This project is speculative fiction. These episodes are not about revealing what will be, but they are to excited the listener's wonder about what may come to pass. Copyright © Cy Porter 2026. All rights reserved.

This week, we're coming to you from Amiga Kickstart in Derby, where we recorded a fascinating panel looking at what comes next for one of computing's most iconic names. With the long-running legal battle between Hyperion Entertainment and Cloanto finally at an end, the Amiga company took to the stage to discuss the future, its plans for the platform and what this new chapter could mean for the wider Amiga community. After years of courtroom wrangling and uncertainty, could this finally be the fresh start Amiga fans have been waiting for?Amiga: https://amiga.com/Contents:00:00 – The Week's Retro News Stories57:17 - Amiga Announcements Please visit our amazing sponsors and help to support the show:Bitmap Books – https://www.bitmapbooks.comCheck out PCBWay at https://pcbway.com for all your PCB needsLondon Gaming Market: https://www.londongamingmarket.com/We need your help to ensure the future of the podcast, if you'd like to help us with running costs, equipment and hosting, please consider supporting us on Patreon:https://theretrohour.com/support/https://www.patreon.com/retrohourJoin our Discord channel: https://discord.gg/GQw8qp8Website: http://theretrohour.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/theretrohour/X: https://twitter.com/retrohourukInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/retrohouruk/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/theretrohour.comTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/theretrohourShow notes Commodore Joystick: https://lnk.ua/F8QM1EnLLCancelled Quake 4 Expansion: https://lnk.ua/nknP0xR0KAtari ST Floppy Archive: https://lnk.ua/bewmRuiArDOOM Comes to Evercade: https://lnk.ua/hIDAqsUYxMario Kart 64 VR: https://lnk.ua/aeAmS9XiMNew Amiga Racer: https://lnk.ua/i3olxXWTMUtopia Returns to SNES: https://lnk.ua/VY9P3ILvjPatrons news

If you haven't listened to part one please check it out here.Dr. Piya Sorcar, PhD, CEO TeachAids, Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics, Stanford School of Medicine talks to Lauren and Nick about concussion education and TeachAids in PART TWO. Leveraging her wealth of experience, including her previous program tackling HIV/AIDS education, Dr. Sorcar discuss the importance of genuine concussion education, free concussion education from TeachAids. Not simply telling athletes to not do something, or to remind them of the dangers, Piya and TeachAids, use the power of technology and peer messaging to really get through. In part two we talk about the education and communication aspect that has made TeachAids so effective and successful. Whether it's a fun game amongst friends or a more competitive official school or univesity league, TeachAids CrashCourse Concussion Education has become an increasingly important part of educating the public in the US, Canada, UK and globally. Did I mention it's free?!Check out all the free products that TeachAids CrashCourse has to offer and get started with your league!Concussion CrashCourse: https://teachaids.org/for-concussions/crashcourse/Concussion Story Wall: https://concussionstorywall.org/If you use VR, take advantage of the excellent interactive experience! If you don't have a VR set (like yours truly) the YouTube and 2D educational experiences are great as well!PLEASE SHARE, LIKE, SUBSCRIBE! WHATEVER THOSE OTHER PODCASTS AND YOUTUBE CHANNELS ASK YOU TO DO FOR THEM, DO FOR US TOO!Check us out on Youtube, Instagram and Facebook! @concussiontalk & @lziaksThank you!Subscribe and leave a review!Visit https://www.concussiontalk.com/ for more!Follow and subscribe! @concussiontalk on YouTube, Instagram & Facebook 2014 e-book, Detour: https://leanpub.com/detourFollow Lauren on Instagram @lziaksConcussion Talk Podcast discusses traumatic brain injury (TBI) by featuring interviews with experts (physiotherapists, doctors, researchers, athletes, community leaders, etc.) and people who have experienced TBI first-hand.Chronically dives deeper into concussions and brain injury as I team up with Lauren Ziaks; a DPT, ATC, and wealth of knowledge of chronic health conditions post-concussion. Join us as we interview more experts, spread awareness of brain injury and more! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cadi Zhang joins Reid Hoffman and Parth Patil to explore how generative AI is changing game development, world models, and robotics. Drawing on her work across Unity games, VR teleoperation, AI accounting, and robotics product operations, Cadi explains what virtual worlds can teach embodied intelligence—and why physical robots still lack the tactile, real-world data that can't be scraped from the internet. She shares how she uses GPT, Blender, PixelLab, and Aseprite to prototype games faster, including a duck-themed imposter game and PokéTax, her Pokémon-inspired tax-filing game. AI can rapidly generate code, gameplay mechanics, and 3D assets, she says, but it still can't judge whether a game feels fun, maintain a consistent art style, or model the precise force needed to fold a sheet of paper. Reid, Parth, and Cadi discuss simulation-to-reality gaps, the limits of current world models, robot safety, humanoid versus task-specific form factors, and why human taste remains the decisive creative skill.

Jasmine, known online as Atom Bomb Body, is a VR content creator, educator, and founder of VR Content Lab. She is part of the Meta Quest Creator program and has worked with the Gorilla Tag team on social media strategy and content. In this episode she unpacks the generational split happening in VR gaming right now: why titles like Gorilla Tag are thriving with a younger audience while older players see nothing but studio closures and layoffs. She walks through the full toolkit for VR content capture including Live Creator Kit, OBS Studio, and the real limitations of mixed reality recording on Quest. She shares concrete budget ranges for game marketing, explains why short form content drives exposure but rarely converts directly, and gives developers a clear framework for finding and reaching their audience before launch. She also introduces VR Content Lab, her course covering the technical, marketing, and mental health side of building a sustainable VR content career.Subscribe to XR AI Spotlight weekly newsletter

Access BONUS video episodes & other exclusive perks with Emsolation Extra @ https://emsolation.supercast.com/ See Em's New 5 Star Reviewed Show 'Addicted to Love' https://emrusciano.com/addicted-to-love/ We've moved on from new studio, who's dis, to new studio that is still a work in progress and needs some additional tweaks, which ushers in side quests on Suzie Wilks, Barbra Streisand's Oprah microphone incident, Michael Paynter's feet and some gentle roasting of Michael's cushions and his obsession with relaxing in jeans. Michael was fresh off his flight to China and is keen to reveal all about his trip to a 24 hour spa complex in Shenzhen. Spread over 6 floors it's an all in one leisure resort that covers all things wellness but also includes karaoke, VR gaming, free drinks, food and even unlimited Häagen Dazs. We also side quest into Em's beauty routine and why she will never share it, then it's onto next week's workshop and very first public performance in Sydney of Em and Michael's debut musical ‘The Baroness'. Em's also got some advice for anyone coming to her Brisbane performance of ‘Addicted to Love' at QPAC August 22, and she's declaring war on being nonchalant. Then in our Sealed Section, on our premium service Emsolation Extra, Michael's keen to know what went down over the weekend while Em was staying in his house and also going on a first date. Get access for just $1.87 a week, or watch the full video of both episodes back to back using the link above or via the Supercast website for $2.50 a week at emsolation.supercast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I gave a lecture about "Blending the Elements of Experiential Design" on Saturday, June 6, 2026 at Seattle XR in Seattle, Washington. (PDF of Slides]. At the end, I run through some examples of the types of interdisciplinary fusion that I see within the context of immersive storytelling and immersive art. This lecture also digs into the process-relational philosophical foundations, as well as how I'm gaining additional inspiration from Empedocles, Aristotle, and the Classical Quadrivium (Four Arts) of Math, Music, Geometry, and Astronomy. For my 30+ hours of coverage of Venice Immersive, then I apply this archetypal framework to help describe the context, quality, character, and story of each of these projects. You can see an overview of how I've been using this framework in this PDF on "Venice Immersive 2025 Archetypal Categorizations" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01M5NcOYzx0 One of goals of this talk was to further define the archetypal nature of the elements, and how I'm conceiving of them as a possibility space of design tradeoffs (C.S. Peirce's "Firstness"), but also as the concrete decisions that an experiential designer makes ("Secondness"), and then finally how these decisions are experienced more from a phenomenological experience as the audience as we feel, sense, act, and make sense of these experiences, and what they might mean ("Thirdness"). I do not actually dive into Peirce's concepts of Firstness, Secondness, or Thirdness in this specific talk, but I wanted to elaborate on these concepts in this write-up as these have been crucial concepts to help translate the overall abstract Firstness quality of my talk, and ground it into the Secondness of something that is a bit more practical and pragmatic. For Peirce, his semiology is grounded into a triune theory of actualization that goes from a non-Boolean possibility space as Firstness, and then grounds into a Boolean actualization of secondness, and then an interpretant mediates from the concreteness of the Secondness object back to the Firstness of the fundamental archetypal qualities or meaning. I find speculative philosopher James Bradley's summary of the Peirce's triune semiology to be the most easy to digest in his essay titled, "Beyond Hermeneutics: Peirce's Semiology as a Trinitarian Metaphysics of Communication." I can also recommend this article on "Peirce's Theory of Signs" from the The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for a comprehensive recap, and there's also this excellent YouTube series primer by Philosign's Markus Raninen titled The Basics of Semiotics. But here's Bradley's description of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness, which I find myself coming back to again and again. "Within the fundamental speculative triunity of activity, difference and order, or firstness, secondness and thirdness, semiology is an analysis of order or thirdness… Thirdness is analyzed as idea or sign, as the exchange of information between individual entities, and as interpretation; in other words, thirdness is itself a threefold of sign, object and interpretant. Here, sign occupies the position of firstness because it is the potentiality for interpretation; object occupies that of secondness because it is determinate; and the interpretant occupies that of thirdness because the interpretant has the sign-interpreting or sign-ordering role, and so has the status of a third. [24] Thus for Peirce semiology is the analysis of the triune relation of sign, object and interpretant." It's still a bit obtuse, and one way that I like to think about it is through the experience of communication. You have a possibility space of meaning you want to convey (Firstness of the sign/potential), then you choose specific words that convey that meaning (Secondness of the object), then someone listens to those words and phrases, and then connects those words back to a meaning space (Thirdness of the interpretant mediating between the two). For Peirce, each of the Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness can also refer to themselves, like you can have a Firstness of Thirdness or Secondness of Firstness. It gets a little bit confusing, but I found the following graphic from Collected Essays in Speculative Philosophy (2021) by James Bradley and edited by Sean McGrath to be very useful. Within the context of immersive storytelling, then it's a semiotic process of communication of meaning where you're able to use all sorts of affordances from game design, literature, social dynamics and relations, music, film, lighting, architecture, dance, theme park design, sensory design, and embodiment. My Elemental Theory of Presence attempts to simplify this into the following: Fire Element of Active Presence: Interactivity, Agency, Game Design Air Element of Mental & Social Presence: Meaning, Semiotics, Language, Possibility, Form, Relationality Water Element of Emotional Presence: Experiential Processes, Story, Film, Music, Cycles, Time Earth Element of Environmental & Embodied Presence: Sensory, Immersive, Worldbuilding, Space I elaborate on the various philosophical frameworks that I'm leaning up within this talk that I gave on June 6, 2026, but since then I've been diving more into Peirce and his Triune Metaphysics and Semiology of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness, which has been a helpful framework as I've been applying the elements to my Venice Immersive Coverage and categorizing the elemental center of gravity for each of the nearly 40 projects that I covered. Again see this framework in this PDF on "Venice Immersive 2025 Archetypal Categorizations" to see how I have been thinking about each of these projects. I used this approach in the introductions for each of my podcast episodes from Venice (see the links down below). Firstness of Fire: Creativity, Novelty, Intention, Purpose, Goals, & Aristotle's Final Cause Secondness of Fire: Interactivity & Core Gameplay Loops Thirdness of Fire: Agency & Will For Active Presence Examples of Fire: Game Design, Locomotion Options: No Movement, Automatic movement, Teleportation, or free roaming. The LIVENESS of the Live, To what degree does the experience encourage the expression of will and agency? And to what degree does that alter how the narrative unfolds (narrative agency vs participatory interactive moments that customize and flavor the experience)? Adventure, Exploration, Creativity, Novelty, Freedom, Will, and Collective Action. System Dynamics, & iterative feedback loops Firstness of Air: Peirce's "Sign," Intended Meaning, Pattern & Form, Archetypal Possibility Spaces, Relationality, & Aristotle's Formal Cause Secondness of Air: Peirce's "Object" Within A Triadic Semiotic Process (i.e. a specific action, word, harmonic, or action that points to a larger meaning.) Thirdness of Air: Peirce's "Interpretant," Sensemaking Thoughts, Expectations, & Social Dynamics For Mental & Social Presence Examples of Air: Literature, Language, Semiotics, Communication, Symbols, Abstractions. Single Player vs Multi-Player, Suspension of Disbelief and Plausibility, Social Dynamics, Anticipation of the Future, Possibility Spaces, Types of Choices. Realms of Speculative Imagination, How is meaning communicated? Dialogue amongst characters, voice-over narration, environmental storytelling, non-verbal associative dream logic. Mental friction from puzzles. Rules & Mechanics. Use of certain types of AI and Conversational Interfaces with Virtual Beings Firstness of Water: Time, Cycles, Harmonics, Value, & Aristotle's "Material Cause" (in Whitehead's event ontology, then base reality is processes, relationships, and possibilities of value & not Substance) Secondness of Water: Experiential Processes That Provide Contrasts Thirdness of Water: Feelings for Emotional Presence Examples of Water: Cinematic Film Tradition, Music, Harmonics, Rhythm, Pacing, Editing, Contrasts, Emotion, Memory, Dreams, Images, Soul, Psyche, Symbols, Lighting, Mood, Collective Unconscious Firstness of Earth: Space, World, Context, & Aristotle's Efficient Cause Secondness of Earth: Environment & Worldbuilding With Situated Perspectives in that Context Thirdness of Earth: Sensory Perception & Sense of Place for Embodied & Environmental Presence Examples of Earth: Worldbuilding of a spatial context & culture. Architecture, Theater, Theme Park Design, Dance, Are you a ghost or an embodied character? Sensory Experience: Touch/Haptics, Hearing/Spatial Sound, Smells, Vision. Relation of Immersive Tech to Environment as either VR, MR, or AR. Virtual CGI vs Cinematic 180/360 Video, Again, check out this PDF on "Venice Immersive 2025 Archetypal Categorizations" to see how I've ranked nearly 40 projects from Venice Immersive 2025 on the relative elemental center of gravity. Some projects feel more like a cinematic immersive film, which would be a bit more biased towards the Water Element. Some projects are more focused on the experience of a world that was build, and more focused on the Earth Element. Some projects are asking you to Read a book together with other people, which is more focused on the Air Element. And then other more game-like experiences are focused on using interactions as their primary mode of engagement, and so they're more focused on the fire element. There are 64 total combinations of the elements in terms of the first, second, third, or four centers of gravity, and you can see the comprehensive visualization here: Technically, all four elements are always happening all at once all at the same time. However, in experiential design, then creators can emphasize and blend elements together. So I find that ranking the elements can be helpful in determining an overall center of gravity, and that looking at the first two centers of gravity can achieve a sufficient job of creating some ad hoc, immersive and "elemental genres....

29 mai 1968. En plein chaos social et politique, le général de Gaulle quitte l'Élysée et disparaît. Retour sur six longues heures au cours desquelles la France s'est retrouvée sans son chef.Le 29 mai 1968, alors que la France est secouée par les événements de Mai 68, le général de Gaulle, président de la République, disparaît soudainement de l'Élysée, semant la panique et laissant le pays sans chef. Où est-il parti ? Que s'est-il passé ? Franck Ferrand nous plonge au cœur de cette journée historique, dans les coulisses du pouvoir, et nous révèle les dessous de la mystérieuse disparition du Général.Entre négociations houleuses avec les syndicats, menaces d'insurrection et jeux de pouvoir, cet épisode nous entraîne dans les méandres de la crise politique qui secoue la France à l'aube du mois de mai 1968. Alors que le pays semble au bord de l'asphyxie, le général de Gaulle, ébranlé par les événements, prend la décision de s'éclipser, laissant le Premier ministre Georges Pompidou seul aux commandes.Mais où est donc parti le Général ? Certains évoquent une défaillance, d'autres une manœuvre pour rallier l'armée à sa cause. Franck Ferrand explore les différentes hypothèses et nous fait revivre, minute par minute, cette journée du 29 mai qui a failli marquer la fin de la Vᵉ République.Grâce à des témoignages inédits et des archives captivantes, nous suivons le Général dans son périple, de l'Élysée à Baden-Baden, où il trouve refuge auprès du général Massu. Ce dernier parviendra-t-il à convaincre de Gaulle de ne pas abandonner ? Quel sera le dénouement de cette crise politique sans précédent ?

Tonight on GeekNights, we discuss data centers. Once as positive thing, they have become a blight on the Earth in the ever-growing wake of the AI bubble. Rym and Emily are back from Cedar Point and will have a couple of special episodes about it in the near future, and also have a secret VR project that's slightly less secret than it was before. In the news, the AI slop factory wants help flagging AI slop, and ZGM is an open source gaming mouse firmware.Related LinksForum ThreadData CentersDiscord ChatData CentersBluesky PostData CentersThings of the DayRym - Cedar Point x Made to ThrillScott - Milwaukee Transit Passes

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0:00 Intro2:13 Will got a Switch 24:13 Everything is too damn expensive9:46 Pokemon Gen1 Decomp12:41 Will AAA stop pushing graphics tech?17:53 Does Nintendo need to worry about graphics tech?19:37 PlayStation no more Physical Discs26:27 The BACKLOG: Gremlins 2: The New Batch (GB)30:11 Will Steam Frame bring back VR?35:50 Favorite handheld experience?39:45 How do you plan shooting videos?42:38 Will there be more AA or Super Indie games now?46:29 Lies of P on Switch 2? (Switch 2 ports?)48:11 Why doesn't Nintendo make better graphics?50:05 When did you find a passion for gaming?52:28 Should I buy an AYN Thor for Steam games?54:41 Can the Retro Handhelds compete with consoles?57:31 SUBSCRIBE✴️ PATREON https://www.patreon.com/cw/WULFFDENPodcastOriginally recorded on August 7, 2026 at the Long Island Retro Gaming Expo

I interviewed Tom Seed about Ghost Town on Friday, August 29, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Ghost Town: "Life has been going well for Edith. The paranormal detective agency she runs with her flatmate has never been busier, she's almost up-to-date with her rent and the ghosts in her bathroom mirror have been less demanding than usual. Edith's world is turned upside down when her brother goes missing and a mysterious new lead promises to reveal clues of his whereabouts. Edith's journey begins with a visit to a remote Scottish island in the hope a gifted clairvoyant can provide some much-needed answers." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Adventure [9] into the blurring of supernatural & mundane spaces to find a lost sibling [3]. Helping liminal ghosts [12] transition into the afterlife [9]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity: Fire Element / Active Presence: Adventure Game where you solve puzzles and liberate supernatural entities into the afterlife. A pretty set gameplay loop2nd Center of Gravity: Earth Element / Environmental Presence: Exquisite environmental design & Worldbuilding of 1980s United Kingdom.3rd Center of Gravity: Emotional Presence: Overarching Narrative with motion captured characters. Spooky supernatural scenes, but also driven by curiosity and exploration.4th Center of Gravity: Mental Presence: A variety of spatial puzzles. Cut scenes with dialogue. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Adventure, Solving Puzzles Artist Statement: "Development on Ghost Town — a single-player puzzle adventure VR game — began four years ago and expands upon Fireproof's experience creating the game series The Room. The scope of Ghost Town is a significant step up for Fireproof Games in every way. Building on the immersive puzzles and atmospheric set pieces of The Room, Fireproof have crafted the puzzle gameplay they are known for into a variety of expansive environments full of detailed worldbuilding with a strong narrative focus. And, a first for Fireproof, there is a variety of fully motion captured characters who breathe life into the script and add a greater sense of depth to the narrative experience." This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Director Minhyuk Che & Producer Sngmoo Lee about 8pm and the Cat on Saturday, August 30, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for 8pm and the Cat: "Cartoonist Haru loses his partner, Mina, in the Itaewon tragedy. Since then, 8 pm — the hour she used to come home — keeps repeating: an ordinary moment in daily life now shadowed by her absence. Within that single hour, different emotional rooms unfold. Images and monologues are generated in real time, shaping singular emotional moments. This generative VR experience invites the audience into Haru's ongoing process of mourning — through the act of constantly drawing and speaking about her." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Death, Loss, Grief [8] of a primary partner [7], the Pain and Suffering [12], as well as the home and artifacts that carry the memories of a relationship [4] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Story of loss and grief - The connection between Space and Emotion2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Tell the story off loss by montage sequences of objects, spaces, and the liminal afterlife3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Generative AI prompt -- But also certain aspects of the story is also being dynamically generated and changes each time, although this is harder to discern what was authored and what was generative4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Monologues / subtitles Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Incredible loss and grief, and the malaise of that, allusions to the afterlife as it explores the theme of "loving someone for a long time, beyond absence" - Cyclical nature of time of the Chronos Time and Kairos Time, with 8p becoming a daily reminder of the loss. "October 29, 2022: 159 people did not return home from Itaewon. The hour stayed still." Artist Statement: "When a friend told me they didn't know how to live after losing the person they loved most, I didn't know what to say. How could I possibly grasp the depth of that grief? We don't even know what it truly means to overcome such sorrow. Maybe it means to keep longing for the one who's gone, to keep speaking to them, to let them stay alive inside us. This work was an attempt to hold onto that feeling — of loving someone for a long time, beyond absence." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ3HCloXspk This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Richard Turco about One True Path, Part 1 on Tuesday, September 2, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for One True Path, Part 1: "The viewer can travel through three fantastical worlds from author Jack Stevenson's oldschool Fiendish Fates gamebook series, each featuring different themes and gameplay. With a magical sword in hand, the viewer can make their way through the necromantic Army of Evil, led by the demonic Grey Knight. In Butchers of Orion, they can use mind-powers and body-hopping abilities to escape the slaughterhouse spaceship of the lifesucking Lady Oriana. Moreover, it is possible to blast the corrupt guards of Sheriff Cassidy's wasteland penitentiary with shock-hand and trusty cyber-shooter in Prisoner of the Cyberhounds. Exploiting interdimensional portals to cross between place, time, and gameplay styles, the viewer discovers clues, secrets, and personal notes to decipher the story behind the books and the true meaning of their journey through Jack's fictional worlds." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Adventure into speculative literary worlds [9] of a variety of different genres in order to investigate and solve [9] a mystery [12] of why the author was killed [8] as he created these worlds Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Gameplay Modalities in Different Genres - Mashing those up, uses the waypoint locomotion as a constraint. The most game-like exploration of different actions that are also mirroed in the worldbuilding and story that's being told2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Embodied Actions that change depending upon the genre of game/literature being explored. These genres are blended in the culmination. There's also the spatial context of the builetin board that helps spatially track where you are in the story.3rd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Context of a Mystery. But there's a murder that's happened within the base reality of this world, but then you go off onto these various speculative worlds based upon these different genres of interactive books. This overall experience is just the pilot, and so we don't get to see the full arc of the story. So it's sort of like watching the first episode of a longer series, which leaves it in a bit of a cliffhanger type of situation in terms of fully solving the murder mystery.4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Very specific inspiration from literature, so it's an adaptation of sorts. There's cut scene contextualization at the beginning and end of each core gameplay loop cycle where you get a bit more dialogue. But it's mostly a sort of puzzle like game, and so with the constrained locomotion, it puts more of an emphasis on strategy of teleportation movement rather than the brue force nature of FPS shooters. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Exploration, Adventure, Gameplay, Solve mystery Artist Statement: "It's a difficult moment for narrative driven VR games and the game industry in general. Despite this, we wanted to push the boundaries of storytelling and develop an ambitious universe, at a time where we don't see lots of innovation in the VR market, especially on the narrative side. We've been developing this first part of the game for several months, with most of the final features included, and decided to release it on early access. Our character Jack has more cards in his sleeve and there will be many more secrets (and even worlds!) to discover. We consider it as a “pilot”, a first part to what will hopefully — with players' help — become the complete narrative experience we've imagined." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2U8p6mEwmI This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Wuer about Mnemosyne on Sunday, August 31, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Mnemosyne: "Mnemosyne is an innovative immersive work that blends VR film and live theatre, offering a multi- sensory experience and a poetic exploration of love, illusion, and awakening. Inspired by Tang Xianzu's Ming Dynasty classic The Peony Pavilion, the piece draws on Eastern philosophy to evoke the notion of “ultimate 情 (Qing/emotion)”. It combines 360° animation, 180° live-action footage, and live performance, with the surrounding environment, shaping each audience member's evolving sense of presence. The layered narrative unfolds like ink in water: fluid, evocative, and open to interpretation, inviting the audience to drift between constructed memories and imagined futures. Mnemosyne seeks to create a meditative landscape of shifting emotions, centring on the intimate experience of transcending illusion to uncover genuine feeling. It views this hybrid medium of merging physical and virtual presence as a potential stage for exploring the social dimensions and future possibilities of VR/XR." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Connecting to the earth and nature [4], but also Eastern Religiion from Daoist and Buddhist thought [9]. Focusing on and reflecting upon your own embodied experiences [1] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Most of the experience is CGI-based VR Animation and Cinematic VR, but there's is an immersive theatrical installation of something like a Tea Room, with meditation booths, which have a number of spatial modulations over the course of the performance. There's also an actor at the end with Mixed Reality Components. So it's a real blending of the spatial contexts.2nd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Lots of Taoist and Zen influences, and some quoted poetry and passages, but the density of the philosohical thought create a bit of like Zen Koan type of experience, where there were lots of deeper philosophical mysteries being explored. Very poetic, if not a bit mysterious -- and even the cretor was a bit vexed to communicate what the experience would be. You have to experience it to fully understand.3rd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Spatiousness from the cinematic montage of different scenes and poetic reflections. Jumping between the pre-recorded aspects (Chronos) and the live performative elements (Kairos) of the momen.4th Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: LIVE performance elements. But also no real narrative or spatial agency. Aiming to sort create a contemplative poetic experience. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Lots of Truth vs Illusion themes. "poetic exploration of love, illusion, and awakening." Also, "it offers a sensory framework where gazes, pauses, and subtle gestures shape the unfolding rhythm. Within a layered dreamscape of animation, live-action, and performance, the audience becomes not just an observer but a co-creator of emotional experience. Drawing from the Daoist idea of “breaking illusion to perceive truth”, the work uses VR as a poetic medium — an ephemeral vessel to navigate between illusion and reality, dream and awakening — until the line between the two gently dissolves." Artist Statement: "Mnemosyne is an immersive narrative experiment focused on “empowering the audience's imagination”. Rather than presenting a closed storyline, it offers a sensory framework where gazes, pauses, and subtle gestures shape the unfolding rhythm. Within a layered dreamscape of animation, live-action, and performance, the audience becomes not just an observer but a co- creator of emotional experience. Drawing from the Daoist idea of “breaking illusion to perceive truth”, the work uses VR as a poetic medium — an ephemeral vessel to navigate between illusion and reality, dream and awakening — until the line between the two gently dissolves." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEAyABepKFM This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Craig Quintero & Phoebe Greenberg about Blur on Friday, August 29, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Blur: "Blur presents a new myth for the modern age, where science has changed how we think about life and death. With cloning and advances in resurrection biology, we have obscured the boundaries between the living and the dead — the natural and the artificial. This extended reality theatrical production unfolds as a dreamscape, shifting between real and virtual, taking participants on a journey of reflection on grief and eternality." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Some fundamental questions around LIFE [1] and DEATH [8]. Blur born out of a "desire to explore the emotional and ethical terrain where science, loss and imagination collide." Philosophical and ethical implications [9] of the science human cloning [9] as explored through the main story of a mother [4] who's child [5] has died [8]. Explores a speculative and imaginal space of scienced-based possibilities [9] with imagery reflecting these moral and ethical dilemmas [9] around these hybrid entities [Combination of [1] Self with [7] ]. Also the implications of taking extinct animals [8] like the Wooley Mammoth or Dire Wolf, and resurrecting them through science [9], and bringing them back to life [1]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Blend of Immersive VR, CGI, Cinematic 360 video, 180 video, Mixed Reality. With specific architectural modulations, live performance, and integrations of your embodiment. Some Generative AI around your representations of embodied identity. There's also a LOT of invisible spatial choreography that is happening behind the scenes in order to move a number of human bodies through a physical space without colliding into each other, whilst also creating a seamless virtually-mediate spatial journey that is also A LOT MORE VAST than the constraints of the physical space. So it really feels like being taken on an expansive journey through space and time within this piece.2nd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Constant perversion of expectations and experience of having the "rug pulled out from underneath you." Symbolic Dream Logic, and Theatre of the Absurd. There's a lot of abstract and semiotic associative linking that Quintero describes as a "Rauschenberg-like collage" blending and blurring together lots of various archetypal forms to communicate their message. There's definitely a narrative to be parsed, but you have to sort of piece it together as there's a lot of symbolic communication, as well as expectation-perversion that either creates a deep sense of awe and wonder, or it can also be confusion for some where the overall plausibilty throughline and suspension of disbelief results more in a break in presence from a "I don't get it" experience rather than a deepening of awe from an unbounded possibility space. Overall feels a bit like waking from a dream, and then trying to parse it. There is also a moment of a theatre-for-one encounter, and then later more of a collective experience.3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: LIVE PERFORMANCE of theatrical actors. There's some constructed locomotive agency within bounds to replicate wandering. Some more interactive parts near the end. No real agency to change the flow of the narrative4th Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Cinematic VR, but also a specific cadence and pacing of the narrative. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Blur explores "fundamental questions of identity and selfhood, and what makes 'me' me?" The strurctures of our society and science mashed up against the dissolving and dissolution of the boundaries between the science and humanity bringing questions around the archetypal qualities that make us uniquely human. The idealized image of the human form from evolution, then gets dissolved through hybrid combinations, that is also amplified by the actual blending and blurring of communication media from MR to VR to Invidual and Collective Theatrical Performances to Architecture with bit of magic thrown in. It's a seamless use of the forms of immersive and experiential to amplify the overall themes of the piece. What is Imaginal / Virtual / Synthetic / Artificial / Eternal? vs What is Real and Mortal? Life vs Death in the context of Scientific Truths and Technological Advance. "With cloning and advances in resurrection biology, we have obscured the boundaries between the living and the dead — the natural and the artificial." Artist Statement: "Blur was born from a shared desire to explore the emotional and ethical terrain where science, loss and imagination collide.Meeting in Venice, we recognised a deep alignment in poetic storytelling and a fascination with questions raised by cloning, bioengineering and de-extinction. The work examines the human urge to transcend death and the consequences of reshaping life. Combining immersive theatre, motion capture, passthrough, VR and AR, we invite audiences into a sensorial and surreal journey — where AI, myth and grief intersect. Blur is both a cautionary tale and a meditation on fragile humanity: a boundary-pushing experience that challenges perception while grounded in universal emotions." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFXTon0-tQ0 This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Kate Voet & Victor Maes about A Long Goodbye on Saturday, August 30, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for A Long Goodbye: "A Long Goodbye tells the story of Ida, a 72-year-old pianist living with dementia. In this animated, interactive VR experience, we walk in Ida's shoes. We experience a day in her life, as her reality is fading. The apartment, where she spent a lifetime with her beloved husband Daniel, first feels empty and undefined. When we interact with objects and play the tape recordings of her husband, her playful world gradually comes to life, as if drawn in paint before our eyes. Like pieces of a puzzle, memories and conversations help Ida to rediscover herself. But we also discover Daniel's struggles, as he hopes to stay connected and realises their remaining time together may be short. A Long Goodbye is a poetic experience about the impact of dementia, but above all it is about love and the long goodbye of two lovers who shared a life together." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Self and Identity [1], and the loss [8] of memory [1]. All the ways that we capture and record our identity [1]. "Like pieces of a puzzle, memories and conversations help Ida to rediscover herself." Artifacts of shared experiences and memories shared within the spatial context of a home [4], Husband [7] caretaker [7] of the main character with Ida, "72-year-old pianist living with dementia." Music [5], wihch was a part of her career [10], and the various adventures they had together [9] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Narrative-driven, animation with lots of immersive & interactive components. The pacing is gated with interactive actions, and the movement of your body seamlessly blends into various things like change blindness edits. An incredible score with different themes for different characters, and the world starts to change and dissolve as the main protagonists memory also fades giving you a sense of time, and unfolding processes. Victor is also a cinematographer, and so there's lots of canny translations of cinematic grammar into an emerging spatial grammar. VERY EMOTIONALLY IMPACTFUL2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: An incredibly transportative world with a very distinct water coloreque aesthetic. Lots of embodied movement through this piece. Also some mashing up of contexts between these worlds that is reminescent of Meow Wolf. There's quite a lot of void space to help direct attention, but also makes excellent use of available space. There's physical movements paired with virtual locomotion. And the physical installation with post-it notes also helped created a strong magic cirlce for the piece. You are also embodied as Ida - as you learn about yourself as she has to do each and every day. From their artist statement, Kate and Victor said, "When we put the VR headset on, the first questions that come to mind are: Who am I? And where am I? This confusion is exactly what our protagonist is dealing with and this became the starting point of the story."3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Interactions that gate the narrative in order to help modulate the pacing of the story. Free to physically move within space, but also paired with virtual locomotion. They aspired to allow people to be able to wander through the story and you get a bit lost along the way. So TRUE!4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Dialogue amongst the characters, and also tape recording. Nice blend of metaphoric memory and dream logic with an amazingly well-written script. But also a puzzle-like structure as you piece together the story. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Memory. Loss, Grief, Death. The slow dissolving of the structures of memory as reflected within the sparse void-like architecture of the piece itself reflecting this slipping away into liminality. The love that they share within their partnership. "a poetic experience about the impact of dementia, but above all it is about love and the long goodbye of two lovers who shared a life together." So talking about the details of the condition, but also the caretaker / partner who is living with this condition "A Long Goodbye is at once a personal and a universal story about human connection. It serves as a reminder that people are always so much more than their illness. Instead of focusing on what is lost, we need to stay close and hold on to shared affection." Artist Statement: "When we put the VR headset on, the first questions that come to mind are: Who am I? And where am I? This confusion is exactly what our protagonist is dealing with and this became the starting point of the story. We were drawn to this theme because of Victor's grandfather who lived with Alzheimer's disease, and whose health declined rapidly after Victor's grandmother passed. The experience of having witnessed this emotional transformation close by, made us explore how dementia is experienced and how it influences the relationship with your past, with yourself and with your loved ones. A Long Goodbye is at once a personal and a universal story about human connection. It serves as a reminder that people are always so much more than their illness. Instead of focusing on what is lost, we need to stay close and hold on to shared affection." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-kttoua1PA This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Singing Chen about The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up on Monday, September 1, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up: "After the sudden death of his wife, Guan discovers her unfinished novel — a tale intertwining the endangered clouded leopard and the Rukai tribe's sacred origin myth, which tells of their descent from the elusive animal. Grief-stricken and seeking connection, he sets out on a surreal journey into dreamlike scenes — a maze of the subconscious, mistshrouded forests, ancient tree hollows and symbolic inner landscapes. Adapted from a short story by acclaimed Taiwanese author Wu Ming-Yi, The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up is a single-user, free-roaming VR experience that blends literature and memory into an intimate exploration of love, loss and self-reflection." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Exploration of indigenous myths [9] as the protagonist goes on an epic journey into these imaginal (or real) realms [9]. It's a husband whose's wife [7] has died [8], and he's picking up clues from her work [10] as a writer as he explore her office [10], gets lost within a maze [12], and then he embarks on this adventure [9] deep into nature and the forest [4] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Blends a number of different spatial capture techniques from traditional CGI modeling to Gaussian Splats. Very high resolution spatial capture. Lots of theme park type of feel whilst exporing the maze portion, and recreated a spatial journey where you feld like you had some wandering agency. But it was all still very contained and constrained, but felt like a bit of using your body movemnt to edit and pace through the piece. You're mostly an invisible ghost without any embodiment, although there are some scenes where you have agency to move around, but there's other scenes where you're more of an invisible audience. Some incredible technical breakthroughs to fuse it all together.2nd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Very narrative and story-driven overall, with a lot of influences from the cinematic tradition, especially during the first half. There's some cinematic cut scenes inspired from film. Some spatial embodied movement of spatial storytelling, The last half involves more of theatrically staged dialogue, where the overall spatial context stays static, and so the experience of time is more like being at a thearical play. Having volumetrically captured actors actually makes a huge difference in communicating the subtleness of emotionality via their facial expressions that is much harder than how emotions are captured on film. This piece stands in the volumetric capture techniques, fused with traditional CGI as well as with Gaussian Splats.3rd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Based upon a book, and so it has quite a literary feel, but also some scenes with extended dialogue. Overall, it's a bit of a mystery as the husband investigates the research archives of his wife, who was digging into an indigenous myth, and he comes to find out that it is completely TRUE. So there's lots of elements of magical realism, but also poetic dreamlogic and spatial storytelling. The maze scene has some post-it notes that deliver voice over. It's a single-player experience, but you share spatial contexts with some volumetrically-captured performances.4th Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: No real narrative agency, but there's a chance to explore a room of objects, but also the maze scene gives the experience of a lot of agency as you can chose how you move through and at what pace. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Grief from a death and loss, and going on a spiritual adventure, to find connection. From the description about the book author that inspired the piece, they say, "he weaves dreams, memory and multiple dimensions of time and space has long inspired me." Turning inward to explore spatial contexts that symbolically represent an inner journey of discovery. "Grief-stricken and seeking connection, he sets out on a surreal journey into dreamlike scenes — a maze of the subconscious, mist-shrouded forests, ancient tree hollows and symbolic inner landscapes" Artist Statement: "Wu Ming-Yi is one of Taiwan's most influential contemporary novelists. The way he weaves dreams, memory and multiple dimensions of time and space has long inspired me. When the chance came to adapt The Clouds Are Two Thousand Meters Up into VR, I knew it would be a daunting yet necessary journey. Wu's writing evokes vivid imagery, spatiality and bodily presence — qualities that resonate with VR's immersive nature. Through free-roaming exploration, I aimed to recreate a journey of loss, memory and Indigenous mythology. This project is a dialogue between literature, technology and emotion — one that seeks to spark empathy across cultures." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEUki2mN-ps This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Pei-ying Lin about Happy Shadow on Sunday, August 31, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Happy Shadow: "Joey believed that happiness was lost to her forever as she grew up. Her shadow, a constant companion, yearned to bring joy back into her life but felt helpless. Nothing changed until the player stumbled into Joey's inner world through her diary while chasing butterflies. With Dusty, a whimsical dust elf, the player collaborates with Joey's shadow, using their own shadow to solve puzzles. Together, the player helps Joey confront her deepest fears and defeat the monster lurking within. In Happy Shadow, the player joins Joey's shadow on an interactive journey, experiencing her confusion and struggles firsthand, and ultimately rediscovering the pure happiness she once knew." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Body and Identity [1] as a vehicle to connect to the Life and Vitality [1] within the experience of a home environment [4]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Multi-player game where you solve puzzles with other people, but within the context of a story.2nd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Embodied interactions where you have to make different shapes to progress the story, so very much having interaction-gated story experience.3rd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Embodied Actions, and the piece is a VR CGI and animation piece, that's primarily in the vein of shadow puppets that you see the characters play out the drama on a bedroom wall4th Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Music, and a very metaphorical story. Sometimes a player would have difficulty solving a spatial puzzle, which would delay the unfolding of the experience for everyone Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Self, identity, aliveness, vitality Artist Statement: "This immersive VR interactive project was inspired by Rene Liu's song To My 15-Year-Old Self during its second year of development. I have always believed that the body grants freedom to the soul — allowing us to express emotions purely through physical experience. Yet as we grow older, consumed by endless to-do lists and distant ideals, we tend to forget the simple happiness that once came so naturally. We dance, we paint, we create — simply because it makes us feel alive. This project is dedicated to myself, and to all the hardworking souls around me, as a gentle reminder that what we have, right now, is already enough." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-I_cHTsVEc This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Navid Khonsari & Vassiliki Khonsari about LILI on Sunday, August 31, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for LILI: "In an Iranian city, Lili, the lonely wife of a militia commander, plots a murder to secure her husband's rise within a corrupt regime. But when the killing unhinges the order of things, she is drawn into a network of deep web hackers — modern-day witches — who weaponise hidden truth. This stylised neo-noir game adaptation of Macbeth unfolds through smartphones, computer screens, and deep-state surveillance, immersing players as hackers in the oppressive surveillance state." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Embody Hacker within the Surveillance State [12] context of an athoritarian government [10] as you watch someone in their home [4], and you're doing this through a computer and communications technology device [3]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: A screen life thriller with computer screen-based Interactions, operate computer2nd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Cut scenes of the Lady MacBeth character unfold, which are gated by you solving little interactive puzzles3rd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Site-specific installation, and lots of theatrical staging. It's not VR, and so you are primarly interfacing with a computer screen within the context of a hacker-like space. You're watching various action unfold over surveillance footage, but you also are primarily interfacing with a computer screen.4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Possibility spaces of choices to make. There are some different endings, or at least a follow-up QR code to learn more about the identity of either being a rebel or enforcing the authoritarian rule. The primary mode of instruction comes via a chat window as you get clues for various puzzles that you have to solve. You face some mental friction with each puzzle, but then are rewarded with the progression of the story. There's also the symbolic connections and parallels to Shakespeare's MacBeth to add additional contextualization for how this story might adapt to the context of the authoritarian regime within Iran Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Authoritarian tendancies as well as control "challenges them to question power, control, and complicity." Power, but bringing up questions of Justice. Artist Statement: "A bold reimagining of Macbeth set in present-day Iran, Lili centers on Lady Macbeth in a screen life thriller that embodies the kind of boundary-pushing work we champion at iNK Stories. Fusing film, theatre, and game design, it confronts rising surveillance and authoritarianism. Blending classic storytelling with AI and interactivity, Lili breaks cinematic convention — inviting audiences to step inside the narrative, make choices, and face consequences in a layered experience that challenges them to question power, control, and complicity." This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Etienne Li about L'ombre (The Shadow) on Tuesday, September 2, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for L'ombre (The Shadow): "In Andersen's tale The Shadow, a scientist brings his shadow to life. It becomes autonomous and manages to pass itself off as a human being in society. The shadow overtakes its master, returns to try to enslave him, and ultimately kills him when the latter tries to resist. The evident resonance with our contemporary world and its innovations — both troubling and fascinating — led choreographer Blanca Li to imagine this hybrid creation. Confronted by the dancers of the Compagnie Blanca Li and a percussionist, the audience is immersed in a fantastical universe that blurs perceptions, notions of good and evil and identity." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Dance Performance [5], but creates the feeling of being within a specific neighborhood [3] via mixed reality. The story is about something from the invisible, hidden, and shadow realms [12] being embodied as a corporeal entity [1]. Then this entity becomes an enemy [7], enslaves him [12], and then ulimately kills him from an attack [8]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Dance performance that's theatrically stage. Audience are wearing Mixed reality headsets to mimic the projection mapped effects in the original experience. There's a fusion of live music from the group experience along with "immersive sound" and spatial audio from the VR headset and from multiple speakers in the room + the live percussive music. It is an "ambitious immersive dance, music and mixed reality show."2nd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: LIVE PERFORMANCE of both dance and music. No real narrative agency, and we're mostly sitting still. The original show had people moving around the space a lot more, but the constraints of Venice did not make that possible3rd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Live music that's the heart of the timing of the piece. Some pre-recorded electronic music along with live music to keep everything synchronized amongst the 50-75 VR HMDs.4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: It's a co-located Multi-player experience, but not much interaction with other players (don't recall if they're even represented in virtual space.) No real talking or dialog. Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's The Shadow, but also quite a poetic interpretation of it through embodied dance. Left with more feelings from the performance rather than comprehending the arc of the story Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: a scientist brings his shadow to life. It becomes autonomous and manages to pass itself off as a human being in society. The shadow overtakes its master, returns to try to enslave him, and ultimately kills him Artist Statement: "L'Ombre is an ambitious immersive dance, music and mixed reality show for up to 200 spectators equipped with VR headsets. It blends live performance by six dancers and a percussionist with virtual universes and characters. Immersive sound, using the technologies of IRCAM, allows the electronic recorded music and live percussion to contribute to the audience's experience." https://vimeo.com/1111269272 This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Menghui Huang about The Big Cube on Monday, September 1, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for The Big Cube: "A world is made of cubes. The creatures there always follow instructions and push cubes numbly. Yet, when one of them chooses not to follow the instructions, after discovering another path, something unexpected happens." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Tensions between the Sense of Self [1] in the context of the Other [7], and specifically the Cultural pressures to conform [11] with the desire to express personal creativity [5]. Takes inspiration from the repetitions of straight lines and rectanges of Chinese Architecture [4], and then creates more of an organic and flowing perspective as shown by a professional artist [5H in the context of 10]. A lot of dialectical oppositions contextually and thematically. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Abstracting shapes to build the world. The Big Cube is an artistic VR experience that explores the abstraction of reality through minimal forms and immersive space. -- The use of abstract shapes to communicate a lot. No words used at all, and so the contrasts between the embodied and spatial metaphors as used in a highly symbolic dream logic to tell this story. It has to be pieced together a bit, but the contrasts between controlled structure and unconstrained freedom and chaos come through loud and clear. "That's the true beauty of abstraction, it leaves space for everyone"2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Animated immersive film, and a paradigmatic example of pur spatial storytelling analagous to visual storytelling, but using the modulation of spatial architecture rather than the justaposition of 2D images in film. There was no script to follow, but mainly evolved out of the iterative and juxtapositions of spatial forms relative to each other3rd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Very much driven by the music to amplify the thematic contrasts from constriction to expansion, and serves the timekeeper of the piece giving it an overall rhythm and pacing.4th Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: No narrative agency or any embodied Interactions Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: The tension between Order / Structure / Control and Chaos / Unboundedness / Freedom. Definitely inspired by the collective pressures to conform within China versus the creative freedom and expression that comes from travelling to other cultures to find an authentic artistic voice. This is a very dialectical piece that is a case study in spatial contrasts to communicate oppositions within contextual domains, themes, and expressions of archetypal character. Artist Statement: "Simple, yet powerful. Abstracting shapes to build the world. The Big Cube is an artistic VR experience that explores the abstraction of reality through minimal forms and immersive space. Anchored in the idea that simplicity can carry profound meaning, the project reduces the complexity of the world into fundamental shapes. These visual elements, stripped of detail yet rich in implication, invite viewers into a contemplative space. Through virtual reality, the experience deepens, allowing for a layered reflection that extends beyond the visual. The project encourages audiences to feel and interpret the experience in their own way." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdVmImU9G3A This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Kristina Buožytė & Vitalijus Žukas about Creation of the World on Monday, September 1, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Creation of the World: "Creation of the Worlds is a VR experience inspired by the visionary art and music of Lithuania's most renowned artist, Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis. This poetic VR odyssey is both a meditation on creation and a metaphor for the human journey toward inner maturity. Created by Kristina Buožytė and Vitalijus Žukas, the experience blends immersive storytelling with interactive elements, inviting viewers into a dreamlike world. With the freedom to navigate and soar through evolving environments, the viewer gradually discovers they are not merely an observer — but the creator and caretaker of timeless worlds. Inspired by over sixty of Čiurlionis's paintings, the experience blends visual art with a contemporary reimagining of Čiurlionis's music by Phil Von and Rokas Zubovas." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: [9] Surreal art [5] inspired by religious themes [9] and creation stories with a bit of a pagan edge. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Spatial journey of the Lithuanian artist Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis.2nd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Musical score. "Immersive Cinema"3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Very subtle gaze detected navigation mechanic. Mostly on rails, but there's quite a lot of variation.4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: No words or narration. You're left to discern the meaning of the symbolism on your own. Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Explorations of the blending of different modes of artistic expression with the transcendent realms of mythology, religion, and symbolism. "Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis — painter, composer and visionary... His worldview and artistic depth reflect a Renaissance-like spirit, blending music, visual art and philosophy into unique and timeless universes." Also explorations how this transcendent is ingressed into physical reality, and the relationship between the two. The piece is also described as "an immersive VR fairy tale exploring the connection between the material and spiritual realms. A subtle, symbol- and metaphor-rich journey through human maturity and the awakening of creative power, told in the timeless language of myth. It is an ode to creation — divine, natural and human" Artist Statement: "Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis — painter, composer and visionary — is one of Lithuania's most important cultural figures and a unique voice in global art history. His worldview and artistic depth reflect a Renaissance-like spirit, blending music, visual art and philosophy into unique and timeless universes. Creation of the Worlds is our homage to his legacy — an immersive VR fairy tale exploring the connection between the material and spiritual realms. A subtle, symbol- and metaphor-rich journey through human maturity and the awakening of creative power, told in the timeless language of myth. It is an ode to creation — divine, natural and human — inspired by Čiurlionis's art and music." This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Jung Ah Suh & Cristina Rambaldi about Alien Perspective on Sunday, August 31, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Alien Perspective: "Carlo Rambaldi was a visionary architect of the unimaginable. Through his groundbreaking work on E.T., Alien, and Dune, he expanded the boundaries of cinematic reality — conjuring lifeforms and worlds that defied perception and reshaped the imagination. As we mark 100 years since the birth of Carlo Rambaldi, Alien Perspective resurrects his legacy in a bold new form: a sensory portal into the unknown. At its heart lies Città Spaziale 2 — a never-before-experienced masterpiece where painting becomes a living arena of exploration. Rambaldi's vision invites us not only to remember but to take part. In the hands of a new generation, the impossible becomes undeniable." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Dreamlike and surreal journeys into other imaginal realms [9] by artist Carlo Rambaldi [5] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Spatial journey through the art of Carlo Rambaldi. Starts off with some Mixed Reality with a painting in a gallery-like space, then moves into VR. "A sensory portal into the unknown." And "painting becomes a living arena of exploration." Moving "from passive observation into embodied experience."2nd Center of Gravity of Water Element / Emotional Presence: Musical score. Leaning on "Immersive Cinema" genre3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Mostly fixed way-point exploration through the space, with some variations and choices that eventually converge. "inviting audiences to step inside his imagination and engage with his art as a dynamic, navigable universe." Aspire to bring "legacy artworks into interactive spaces where millions of users can explore, play, and participate." While some freedom to explore, it's still mostly on rails and most folks will see the same experience. Not any true branching4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Many aspects of Rambaldi's IMAGINATION. A bit of associative dream logic when it comes to the underlying narrative. "This project is a call to democratise access to imagination" Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Realms of speculative imagination that is boundless and unknown, and it's interface with Reality and potentially beyond. "the impossible becomes undeniable." Aspires to transform art by "shifting it from passive observation into embodied experience." Leaning into imaginiing the future of art: "By merging visual art, narrative design, and real-time interaction, we are forging new pathways between cultural heritage and future-facing media" Artist Statement: "With Alien Perspective, my aim is to transform how we encounter art — shifting it from passive observation into embodied experience. In close collaboration with the Carlo Rambaldi Foundation, we reimagined Rambaldi's visionary works as immersive cinema, inviting audiences to step inside his imagination and engage with his art as a dynamic, navigable universe. This project is a call to democratise access to imagination. In a world where museums and galleries can be exclusionary, immersive technology allows us to break those boundaries — bringing legacy artworks into interactive spaces where millions of users can explore, play, and participate. By merging visual art, narrative design, and real-time interaction, we are forging new pathways between cultural heritage and future-facing media. At its core, Alien Perspective is more than a tribute. It is an argument for the future of art: one that is active, inclusive, and infinite in reach." This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Elisabetta Rotolo & Siobhan McDonnell about Black Cats & Chequered Flags on Tuesday, September 2, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Black Cats & Chequered Flags: "Black Cats & Chequered Flags begins with a haunting Spatial Memory Fragment that immerses viewers in the emotional world of Alberto Ascari. Echoes of his father, legendary driver Antonio Ascari, blend with childhood flashes and the superstitions that shaped his fate. The experience then shifts into high gear with a multiplayer MR pit stop — a collaborative challenge that brings users into the adrenaline and precision of a 1950s Formula 1 team. The journey continues in a stylised VR narrative that weaves archival footage, interactive storytelling, motion capture actors, and immersive sound to explore Ascari's victories, rituals and tragic destiny. 360° films shot on location in Turin, the Ferrari Museum in Maranello, and the Monza racetrack add historical depth. Ascari — the only Italian double Formula 1 World Champion with Ferrari — was fearless, superstitious, and chivalrous: a man both heroic and haunted." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: The personal biography of Alberto Anscari [1] including his career [10] within the context of the entertainment of racing [5], but also the inspiration from his father [4] and showing him as a kid [5], but also his various beliefs and superstitions that shaped his fate [9], and ultimately his death [8]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Anscari's racing career, childhood, and various supersittions. Some cinematic immersive documentary footage. Mostly a diembodied ghostly character for the story, but you do have some presence, but nothing narratively beyond the pit stop crew at the start2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Blending of CGI, VR, 360 video, theatrical elements - Most a disembodied character through most of the story, but there are some embodied interactions that places you in the garage, car, museum3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: gamified pit stop at the beginning done as a multiplayer experiene - timed context - Taking photos, handle various objects connected to Anscari4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Social experience to be done with friends / family Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Courage, competition. Fates, ultimately his death, sense of time, sense of history, sense of identity expression of living on the edge Artist Statement: "Black Cats & Chequered Flags is a tribute to the thrill of speed and the fragility of destiny. Through immersive storytelling and multiplayer MR, it brings viewers into 1950s racing — into the pit stop, the roar of engines and the shadow of myth. At its core is Alberto Ascari — fearless, superstitious, and shaped by fate. This art piece lets users race circuits, live defining moments, and step into Ascari's pit crew. A story in motion: mythical, intimate, unforgettable." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJHGVNuf9tg This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Rose Bond about 1968 on Sunday, August 31, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for 1968: "1968 is communal VR theatre that explores the transformative power of protest through allusions to 1968 — a year charged with societal, cultural and political unrest. Animated from still photographs of both the iconic and the mundane, the piece investigates international interstices of history, human bonding and power in times of socio-cultural upheaval. Rose Bond's 360° hand-drawn animation interacts with Massimiliano Borghesi's spatialisation of inti figgis-vizueta's original recorded tracks of Seven Sides of Fire to ignite a dynamic, evocative and shared immersive experience. 1968 is a collaboration of international creatives and stands as the first movement of a longer, anticipated work. 1968 is experienced collectively under a geodesic sound dome." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Power of people and culture [11] to change government [10], but also the modes of violence that are used against them [7]. The Transformative Power of Protest Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Story, Music - Visual storytelling language of abstract animatsion - Very tightly coupled with the patterns of music2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Spatial Audio via the Dome. There's a lot of void spaces here, and you end up seeing some hand-drawn animations that start to sketch out various scenes of political liberation from the 19683rd Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: No words, Poetic Dream Logic to evoke the memories based upon these iconic events from 1968. No explanation or discourse about anything, and so it does require the audience to be somewhat familiar with the specific cultural histories being referenced from both the United States as well as in France. This is shown as a group experience, but you don't see anyone else, and so it also feels like a solo experience that you are parallel playing with others as they watch it4th Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: No narrative agency or any embodied Interactions Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Revolutionary change and upheavel of the socio-political order of the 60s: "investigates international interstices of history, human bonding and power in times of socio-cultural upheaval" - Transformative power of Protest Artist Statement: "'VR, when combined with hand-drawn animation and immersive sound, can articulate complex emotional and lyrical dimensions with rare sensitivity.' Coming from a school of animation that values gesture over spoken word, I regard 3D space as a gift — an expansion from the flatness of film, a place for extended choreography. Sound has long inhabited the space between sense and sensation. This communal VR installation, ensconced in a geodesic dome mounted with fifteen acoustic speakers, seeks a shared experience — one that verges on the haptic, with exquisite spatial precision." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPgr1nul4ro This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Naima Karim & Aleena Hanif about Mirage on Saturday, August 30, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Mirage: "Mirage is an interactive Virtual Reality experience of a young girl who is battling depression and anxiety. Set in a desert landscape, it is a metaphorical and stylised adaptation with visuals created by the artist Naima Karim and her lived experience with her daughter's depression and anxiety. The audience embarks on an immersive journey through the young girl's mind, using hand-tracking interactivity, spatial sound design, original music, and a haptic vest. With hand-tracking interaction, they will be encouraged to support her through her challenges. However, accepting struggles and accepting help from others is not easy for a person suffering from depression and anxiety. Mirage sheds light on the often-misunderstood realities of depression and anxiety, inspiring empathy and understanding." Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Mental Health and Depression and anxiety [6], [4] Family, specifically within the context of a parent [4] and their child [5] and her sibling [3], accepting help from others [7] Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Narrative-driven, immersive animation in VR, but the center of gravity as a cinematic experience2nd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: Spatial Quill Animations, but also quite a lot of Haptic Integrations ( to mimic aspects of chest pain and panic). There are moments where you embody and interact as a parental figure, but also many times you're a ghostly observer3rd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: Some light, hand-tracked interactions spread throughout that serve to gate key moments in the story.4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: Dialogue amongst the characters, is there narration from one of the character as well? I don't remember Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Depression, Anxiety: "accepting struggles and accepting help from others is not easy for a person suffering from depression and anxiety. Mirage sheds light on the often-misunderstood realities of depression and anxiety, inspiring empathy and understanding." And to "bring awareness to the experiences of someone with depression and anxiety." Artist Statement: "For many children with depression and anxiety, happiness can feel unattainable and just out of reach, like a Mirage. Mirage is based on our personal experience. It was challenging to create because of how vulnerable we had to be to develop an honest experience. We wanted to leave room for audiences to connect in their own way, but still speak to common experiences they might find through our story. The essential purpose of Mirage is for us to share our story and bring awareness to the experiences of someone with depression and anxiety. Through Mirage, we hope to spark conversation and encourage people to empathise and support those with depression and anxiety." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9unNsHKGEc This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

I interviewed Maya Shekel about Eddie and I on Monday, September 1, 2025 at Venice Immersive in Venice, Italy. Here is the story synopsis for Eddie and I: "How do you overcome the fear of the unknown? Eight-year-old deaf Ron is afraid of his first camping trip. To calm him, his mother tells the story of Eddie the Camper, a friendly monster who grew up in the forest and is the perfect companion for a nature adventure. Despite her efforts, Ron, struggles to believe the story, and his fear persists. That night, Ron falls into a deep sleep and awakens in a surreal forest where he meets the player, embodied as Eddie the Camper. Together, they embark on an adventure full of challenges. But there's one barrier standing in the way: Ron can't hear, and the player doesn't know sign language. Across this interactive VR experience, the player and Ron will need to work together to complete tasks like building a campfire, skipping stones in the river, stargazing, and even confronting a menacing carnivorous flower. Along the way, the player'll navigate the forest, learn simple sign language keywords, and build trust. Will the player and Ron bridge the gap, overcome communication barriers, and succeed in the adventure?" Here are the contextual domains that are explored: Communication [3] in the context of feeling a bit exiled from the cutulre via the experience of deafness [12], but you cultivate empathy and connection [7] as you travel to a camping adventure [9] and be a friend to the main character [11]. You also embody a monster [12], but it is treated functionally as an invisble [12] friend [11]. Here is the Elemental Center of Gravity: 1st Center of Gravity of Emotional Presence: Scenes at home, and then off to a camping adventure with a 3-4 different distinct scenes. It's very story-driven, but the emodied interactions are also a main focal point2nd Center of Gravity of Fire Element / Active Presence: sign language actions very much inform the arc of the narrative, and emphasize the desire to connecct and empathize with the deaf protagonist3rd Center of Gravity of Earth Element / Environmental and Embodied Presence: The embodied interactions of doing the sign language with hand tracking, You are embodied as a main character within this story -- in fact the monster of Eddie4th Center of Gravity of Air Element / Mental and Social Presence: There is a bit of educational quality to it such that the end result does seem to be to teach various different sign language signs. But this is also very much not an educational application. It has teaching moments contained within the context of the story. So it is very-much still story-driven, but can still have a pedagocial edge to it, which can be in tension with the inherent narrative tensions of the story. More Air / Thinking than Water / Emotion overall in the piece for me Archetypal Themes and Character Explored: Communication through embodied actions. Empathy Artist Statement: "How can we communicate when we don't share a common language? Whether it's French, Arabic, or sign language, how can we bridge the gap between the unfamiliar and ourselves? This question goes beyond sign language, touching on the deeper challenge of connecting across cultures, communities, and different lived realities. Eddie and I transforms barriers into opportunities for connection. Users play Eddie, a friendly monster helping Ron, a deaf boy, overcome his fear of camping, using storytelling and hand-tracking to learn simple sign language and build trust. In an increasingly polarised world, Eddie and I seeks to reduce alienation, stigma, and intolerance, offering a safe, playful, empathetic encounter with “the other”. This embodied, memorable experience shows how technology can serve as a powerful tool to foster deeper understanding and empathy across all walks of life." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cmrp3POKKo This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon. Music: Fatality

On this episode of the Ruff Talk VR podcast we are back talking all the latest VR news! Including the announcement of Walkabout Mini Golf's next course - Gloop Lair! We also discuss the next VR Games Showcase, Virtual Desktop adding a wired mode, and more. We then end the show talking the new trend of AI created VR mods. 0:00 - Episode Start2:35 - Walkabout Mini Golf Gloop Lair10:45 - Meta Horizon+15:45 - Virtual Desktop Wired Mode17:45 - XR Replay23:45 - VR Games Showcase28:05 - AI Powered VR ModsDiscord: https://discord.gg/9JTdCccucSPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/rufftalkvrIf you enjoy the podcast be sure to rate us 5 stars and subscribe! Join our official subreddit at https://www.reddit.com/r/RuffTalkVR/Support the show

Send us Fan MailWe discuss an explosion of new VR mods, Beyond Frames selling Combat Waffle Studios' publishing rights, and the upcoming relaunch of Altspace. We also talk about Virtual Desktop getting USB support, the release of the XR Replay app, and whether or not you can account for taste.Here's the full topic list, in order:What We've Been Playing This Week1. James' games of the week2. Mike's games of the weekVR News3. A VR mod explosion4. Beyond Frames sells Combat Waffle's publishing rights5. Half-Life 2 VR Mod gets Steam Frame Verified6. Altspace relaunching soon7. Dream Hackers VR is James' most anticipated game8. Quest Games Optimizer releases XR Replay app9. Virtual Desktop gets USB supportHot Topic10. Can't account for taste

We're back and in the two weeks away…nothing has changed. In fact, it's only gotten worse but what do you expect from an AI world taking in all the ram (and water). PlayStation tells us it has enough ram for systems through the end of the year and more so during the release of GTA6 but Samsung has said we're gonna be in the funk for the foreseeable future. Also, both Nvidia and AMD are raising their GPU prices this month. With Microsoft increasing the Xbox price in the UK and Europe. Speaking of GTA6, the boss of Take-Two Interactive says we're getting the game at a STEAL for $80/$100. He's kinda right, if I'm honest. We've said before but that's a game you could put an outrageous price on (kinda is already) and it wouldn't surprise anyone to see the kind of numbers it would generate. Still, the way he put it came off like some over the top movie villain. Then again, he's a CEO, so… EA would really like the cut of that guy's jib, given what their CEO walked away with from the success of Battlefield 6. I mean, AFTER they laid off a good number of people first. Given the way these companies are handled it's no wonder we're still waiting on another Splinter Cell game. At this rate it'll release for a console no one can really afford. Ubisoft, it's been 4,738 days since a new Splinter Cell game (non-animated series or guest spot in another game franchise, remake, BBC radio drama, or VR exclusive) was released. Also, there's been 9,128 job losses in the gaming industry since January 1, 2026.

Listen. Do you hear that? Those are crickets. Crickets at the Marriott Suites O'Hare, abandoned site of Chicago's Fest for Beatles Fans. Unfortunately, there are no humans at this year's festival as it has been postponed to retool. #KitO'ReToole Some of the crickets are in ill-fitting Sgt Pepper costumes, others don obscure Beatles ephemera while wacking tambos to off-key “Yellow Submarine” singalongs, and a small number of lonely small-minded crickets are still wearing their pit-stained anti-Yoko t-shirts, repping for the original incels. Oh and look! There's even an aphid who's a Pete Best Look-A-Like and a corn weevil that's dressed up like Freddy Krueger for reasons unknown. As all the bugs scramble for crumbs of pre-packaged microwaveable hoagies while waiting for “Termites from Midge Ure's Tour Bus” to perform a medley of deep cuts from Press To Play, the Goys of Dum Dum Lame, joined by Producer Casey, are here to gab sad about this year's absence of fab community celebration. Let's take a few questions from the crickets:

Mitch Dodge joins this episode of Dirtybird Radio with a smattering of funky bass and deep beats to move your feet. Expect a few of his freshest releases, some of his favorite selects, and a couple tunes that you've never heard before. VR warm-up set:MAGNVM! & WRDO - "Sumac" [Benthouse Records]Robag Wruhme - "Sabrah Desha" [Kompakt]Jynx & Noiise Clap - "Move Your Body" [Qwerk]Pitros & belami - "Want It More" [DIRTYBIRD]Guest did not provide a tracklist.

Anika sat down with Amir Berenjian to explore how a former investment banker transitioned from multi-million dollar M&A spreadsheets to founding an immersive technology company. The conversation revealed a profound truth: the most powerful way to sell a brand or cause isn't through data alone, but through deeply emotional, shared experiences. Amir shares how REM5 Studios leverages virtual reality (VR) to transport trade show attendees to a Wisconsin dairy farm and global policymakers to the frontlines of polio eradication in Zambia, proving that immersive tech is far more than just a novelty.   In This Episode   How 12 years in M&A investment banking prepared Amir for immersive storytelling The pivotal moment of trying the Oculus Rift in 2016 and seeing the future of human-computer interaction Using pizza and beer to overcome VR skepticism in the corporate world Why the ROI of immersive tech at trade shows vastly outperforms traditional marketing trinkets Transporting global policymakers to Zambia to fight polio via VR with the Gates Foundation How a premium cheese brand uses VR to tell the story of a 100-year-old family farm The surprising dual-use of VR for both external marketing and internal employee onboarding How to test out immersive tech for your brand without breaking the budget   Timestamps 00:00 Introduction: From investment banking to immersive tech  02:09 The surprising emotional throughline between M&A banking and VR storytelling  04:38 The Oculus Rift "Aha!" moment and democratizing the "magic school bus" experience  07:35 Overcoming the VR accessibility barrier and corporate skepticism  11:13 Transitioning from corporate events to purpose-driven storytelling and global causes  13:33 The economics of immersive tech and why it's cheaper than you think  15:08 Dominating trade shows: Why shared VR experiences beat traditional marketing flyers  17:29 Case Study 1: Transporting customers to a 3rd-generation Wisconsin dairy farm  19:38 Case Study 2: Putting policymakers on the frontlines of polio with the Gates Foundation  20:23 How immersive 3D video actually works (and the nostalgia of the View-Master)  25:13 The 9-month planning process and why distribution is the biggest hurdle in VR  29:39 The intersection of AI, implicit bias, and leveraging technology for good  31:47 Measuring the impact and ROI of immersive storytelling  34:33 How small businesses can test the waters of VR for under $500  38:33 The dual value of VR: Using marketing tools for internal employee onboarding  41:42 What's next for REM5 Studios and the convergence of AI and spatial computing   Key Insights & Takeaways   Insight 1: M&A and VR are Both About Selling Emotion    Even in investment banking, multi-million dollar deals are driven by the emotional story of a business. Amir realized VR is simply the ultimate tool for democratizing that story, allowing clients to "tour the factory" and meet the founders without ever leaving the boardroom.   Insight 2: Immersive Tech Solves the Trade Show ROI Problem    Trade shows are filled with expensive, easily discarded trinkets and flyers. Immersive tech completely steals the show by giving attendees a shared, memorable experience that re-energizes them. Because the experience can be reused across dozens of events, it proves to be far more cost-effective and impactful than traditional trade show marketing waste.   Insight 3: The Technology is the Conduit, Not the Message    People easily get caught up in buzzwords like AR, VR, and spatial computing. But the goal isn't to talk about the tech—it's to use the tech to tell a story so effectively that users forget they're wearing a headset. Whether it's understanding the reality of polio eradication or the care behind a premium cheese, the tech is just a vehicle for presence and empathy.   Insight 4: Marketing Assets Make Perfect Internal Training Tools    An immersive experience originally designed to sell a product to consumers can instantly be repurposed as an onboarding tool for HR and accounting teams. Giving new or remote employees a virtual factory tour accelerates learning, reduces training costs, and emotionally connects desk workers to the company's physical roots.   Insight 5: You Can Test VR for Your Business on a Budget    You don't need a massive corporate budget to start experimenting with immersive storytelling. With a $400 Meta Quest headset or a free 30-minute demo at an Apple Store, business owners can experience existing VR content, identify use cases, and understand the medium before ever committing to a custom build.   Resources & Links Mentioned   REM5 Studios Polio's Last Mile (VR Experience available on Meta Quest & Apple Vision Pro) Meta Quest 3 / Apple Vision Pro   About Amir Berenjian Amir Berenjian is the co-founder and CEO of REM5 Studios, an immersive technology company based in Minneapolis that builds virtual and augmented reality experiences for brands and causes. Before transitioning to spatial computing, Amir spent 12 years in investment banking, facilitating over 100 M&A transactions for companies ranging from $10 million to over $1 billion in revenue. Today, he helps organizations like the Gates Foundation, Rotary International, and Fortune 500 companies leverage the power of VR to foster profound empathy, connection, and real-world impact.   Connect with Amir LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amir-berenjian-90738220/ Website: REM5Studios.com Like the show? Leave us a rating or review: https://lovethepodcast.com/67940257010b317cdaa9d857Follow the Show: https://followthepodcast.com/67940257010b317cdaa9d857Send a Message: https://podcastfeedback.com/67940257010b317cdaa9d857Check out our Website: https://www.yourbrandamplified.comSpeak to my Delphi Clone: https://www.delphi.ai/amplifywithanika Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The wow has to be secondary to the why. Meghan Freeman spent a year letting her staff play in VR before a single student put on a headset — and what they found changed how she designs immersive learning. Meghan Freeman, M.Ed., is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of IlluminateXR. Before that she founded and led Elite Academic Academy, where she bought 46 headsets for her staff and gave them an entire school year to explore, argue, and write the policy themselves. In this conversation she gets specific about what actually works: how to manage a room full of students who can't see the room, how long a first session should run, and the one question a teacher has to answer before booking the equipment. In this episode, you'll learn: What XR means and how VR, AR, and AI fit together in a classroom Why the "wow" of an immersive moment has to be secondary to the "why" The classroom-management controls that make group VR workable — spatial audio, seating, mute, and locking down browsers Why the first trip in should be a scavenger hunt, not instruction How long students should actually be in a headset, and why motion sickness matters How she used VR sprints to reach students working toward a diploma on their second or third try What happened when her school put human intelligence first and standards second Show notes, resources, lots of links to VR activities, and the full transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e961 If this episode helped you, please take a moment to rate and review the show wherever you're listening. Reviews are how other teachers find us — and share it with a colleague who's about to get headsets and no plan.