Ari Grobman is the CEO of Lumus, a company developing a novel optics solution for AR glasses. Before going any further, let me provide a little perspective up front: When I consider the biggest hurdles to delivering consumer-grade AR, optics and displays are at the top of the list. The display and the combiner optics are two separate, but intimately connected, engineering challenges. Lumus sells an “optical engine” that includes a microdisplay from a third party, but their real magic is in the combiner optics, the part that directs the light from the display system into our eyes and combines it with light from the real world.Lumus has taken a different technical approach than most waveguide combiner optic companies. Rather than use the principles of diffraction to bend the light into and out of the lens, Lumus uses the principles of reflection—effectively partial mirrors—to get the light into and then out of the lens. Proponents of the diffractive approach cite that the manufacturing process is relatively easier and cheaper, and the performance of the lens is good enough with a very thin formfactor. Lumus argues its solution provides better performance with a manufacturing process that is good enough to be reasonably priced for consumer-grade glasses as the market scales.Back to Ari…. Ari spent most of the early part of his career in sales, including 10 years as the VP of Sales and Business Development at Lumus before being promoted to CEO about 6 years ago. Ari has led his team through multiple successful customer engagements, advancements in R&D, and continued success in military and enterprise sales. In fact, Lumus technology is used by spinal surgeons across the US as well as fighter pilots flying A10 and F16 aircraft.In this conversation, Ari discusses what he’s seeing generally across their various customer engagements, including some of the product strategy, potential early use cases, and the timing of new market entries. As a way to help frame some of the discussion, Ari describes some of the similarities and differences between components for smartphones and smartglasses. Ari goes on to discuss recent advancements the company has made in both the waveguide technology—namely delivering a bigger virtual image from a smaller display by expanding the image in two dimensions within the lens—as well as progress in improving the manufacturability of the lenses. Ari also describes how Lumus sets themselves apart from the competition in enabling both enterprise and consumer-grade smartglasses.You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com. Please consider contributing to my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/theARshow.

Damir First is the co-founder and CCO of Matterless, a company creating genre-defining experiences in shared augmented reality—emphasis on “shared.”Early in his career, Damir earned a Master of Arts in both Sociology and Art History before pursuing his Ph.D. in Anthropology. He has been a lecturer for a number of courses spanning design, history, architecture, and art, and he has since worked in blockchain technologies as well as a narrative designer for popular video games. While a tech entrepreneur and academic, Damir is a D&D dungeon master at heart who thinks deeply about the role of technology within our human experience.In this conversation, Damir shares his perspective on how AR fits within the spectrum of key enabling technologies, namely, as the next step in human communication.Damir goes on to share what makes their technology unique, how the approach addresses privacy, the types of experiences they are creating and why, and the power of transformative narratives.You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com. Please consider contributing to my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/theARshow.

Today I am kicking off 2023 with another annual monologue. I hope you and your family were able to have a safe and relaxing holiday, even in the face of another arctic blast and spate of viral diseases.This is the sixth such annual kickoff episode, and when looking back at my notes from last year, the big surprise from 2022 was the resounding commitment shown by Meta and others to continued investment in VR & AR technologies, despite heavy financial losses and Wall Street pressure. That commitment is necessary to see our industry through its slow progress for AR technology, and its still nascent growing pains.I’m going to share my take on some of the highlights of 2022 and what we might see in 2023 as it relates to augmented reality.Please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com/thearshow.You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com.

Chen Zhang and Matt Udvari are co-founders of Aquifer, a company that has developed a SaaS platform to enable creators and teams create studio-level animated video without studios.Matt is a polymath who has persistently pursued education and work experiences across computer science, music, and storytelling. His career has spanned video game design, executive creative director, CTO at a mobile SaaS startup, and filmmaker. Most recently, Matt started Part Time Evil as a story-based technology studio with leading expertise in VR, AR, video games, and mobile. Chen spent the early part of her career in project management, marketing, and user experience design at major brands, including three years at Frog Design. She then joined Matt at Part Time Evil as COO before co-founding Aquifer as the CEO. Aquifer originated from Matt’s efforts as a filmmaker and Chen’s insight into customer needs.In this conversation, Chen and Matt describe how they are helping big and small brands leverage the characters they’ve created through high-quality 3D animation, giving them new ways to tell stories across a variety of platforms.We get into some of the nuances of product management, namely balancing near- and long-term goals, as well as the differences in leading a consultancy vs product-oriented company. We also explore how to ask customers questions about what they really want and need.You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com. Please consider contributing to my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/theARshow.

David King Lassman is the founder of GigXR, a global provider of immersive 3D training solutions that transform collaborative learning, with an initial focus on healthcare. David is a serial entrepreneur who grew up with a passion for music, and has since started 6 companies. His companies have spanned education technology, advertising technology, online content, and social media. He’s also raised an investment fund and operated as a VC.Now with GigXR, David is reimagining training for healthcare workers using mixed reality devices.In this conversation, we dig into GigXR, the impact of XR training on healthcare education and how it differs from VR. Dave also shares their strategy for growth and how he views the current investment appetite for XR companies.David starts with some stories of his musical and entrepreneurial journey and has some sage advice to pass along.You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com. Please consider contributing to my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/theARshow.

Eric Marcellin-Dibon is the Co-founder and CEO of MicroOLED, and Mark Prince is the General Manager for ENGO product line. MicroOLED is a company that develops high-performance OLED microdisplays for near-to-eye applications. Power efficiency and brightness are two areas where they excel, and the company is bringing that display technology to life through the ENGO Eyewear product line.Eric studied physics, optics, and electronics in grad school before working on visual systems for defense contractor Thales. He then went on to work at, what is today named Technicolor, but back then was Thomson, on imager technologies and strategic sourcing. The company MicroOLED grew out of the work at Thomson Technicolor.Mark spent the majority of his career in sales and marketing—initially in the ski industry, and then in technology and connected devices. Recent experiences include Head of Retail for Nokia Health, VP of Consumer Business for Withinings, and CEO of Qardio, a health monitoring technology company. Now he’s the General Manager of the ENGO product line and the Chief Business Officer of MicroOLED.In this conversation, we discuss how MicroOLED competes against Sony as well as their initial focus for the ENGO product line. More generally, Eric talks about his perspective on what will enable AR glasses to achieve mass adoption.We go on to discuss the concept of “light AR”, the thinking behind the full-stack platform offered by MicroOLED called ActiveLook, and their go-to-market strategy. We also discuss the types of early use cases that will motivate users to buy.You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com, and become a patron at patreon.com/theARshow.

Kyle Jackson is the co-founder and CEO of Talespin, a company making immersive learning a reality for the future of work. Kyle is a serial entrepreneur who has worked at the intersection of technology and storytelling for over 20 years. After studying interactive multimedia design and then earning an BFA from the School of Cinema-Television at USC, Kyle has persistently been solving the hard problems around creating and distributing digital media at scale.About 10 years ago, Kyle was digging into the cutting edge of artificial intelligence and the coming age of AR & VR, and thought something was missing.Kyle believes mixed reality, in combination with AI, can enable us to have higher emotional intelligence and enhanced capabilities to communicate, learn and lead. In this conversation, we get into Kyle’s entrepreneurial journey and some of the lessons he’s learned along the way. We dig into the origins of Talespin and how he transformed the company from being focused on servicing one-off projects into a product company that raised a $20M Series C round earlier this year. We also discuss the concept of “proof of skill” and the future of skill development for work.You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com. Please consider contributing to my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/theARshow.

Glenn Snyder is the co-founder and CTO of Red 6, a company that has developed an Augmented Reality solution to allow real pilots flying real aircraft to see simulated threats and other training scenarios. The AR solution works outdoors, in the bright sun and within high speed, dynamic environments.Glenn has long held a passion for aircraft, technology, and visual effects. After gaining acceptance to the Air Force Academy, he shifted course and attended Savannah College of Art and Design to earn a BFA in Visual Effects. He worked on visual effects as an artist, technical director, and director of pipeline for Hollywood blockbusters before starting his entrepreneurial journey. After working for several years on innovative VR and immersive experiences, he met Daniel Robinson, a fighter pilot who would become the co-founder and CEO of Red 6.In this conversation, Glenn shares his background in visual effects and some of the inspiring and difficult moments in his career. He also discusses some of the challenges he and his team have overcome in creating their solution at Red 6, and some of the progress and experiences they’ve made so far.Glenn also shares his hunger for hard problems and belief in the possible, and we start with a story about a fun and slightly crazy early tech demo using VR and remote control of a real car.You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com and become a patron at patreon.com/theARshow.

Today’s conversation is a continuation of my discussion with Matt Miesnieks about LivingCities. Joining us for part 2 are co-founders John Gaeta and Dennis Crowley.John won an Oscar for his visual effects work on The Matrix movies, and after many additional creative and visual effects projects, including Speed Racer, he went on to co-found ILMxLAB as part of Lucusfilm. He then served as the SVP of Creative Strategy at Magic Leap before returning to work on the latest installment of The Matrix franchise.Dennis Crowley was the co-founder and CEO of location intelligence apps, Dodgeball and Foursquare. Both companies focused on using mobile phones to connect people to each other in the real world. Dodgeball was sold to Google in 2005 and Foursquare is still thriving today as a location intelligence provider.John and Dennis have joined Matt at LivingCities to explore new ways of blending the virtual and real worlds. But as Matt explains, they are not making a game; the bigger opportunity is in social engagement and communication.They go on to discuss the hard problems they are excited to solve and provide some hints at new forms of social expression in a 3D spatial environment. They discuss the tradeoffs of different technology choices as well as their ambitions, and what they want to do differently or better compared to their previous entrepreneurial experiences.You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com, and become a patron at patreon.com/theARshow.

Matt Miesnieks is currently the CEO and co-founder of LivingCities, a company reimagining social engagement in the era of the Metaverse. Many of you know Matt as a serial entrepreneur and former investor focused on Augmented Reality. Matt was previously the CEO and co-founder of 6D.ai, a company that built tools to help mobile phones understand the real world and enable compelling AR experiences. Niantic acquired 6D in 2020.Matt started his career in a number of engineering and business roles, before shifting his focus to Augmented Reality more than 12 years ago. Matt was head of customer development at Layar - an early consumer AR company. He founded Dekko, the first mobile mixed reality platform for iOS. Matt worked at Samsung as a director of product development in AR & VR. And he was a founding partner at Super Ventures—an early stage investor in AR & VR—before founding 6D.ai.In this, the first of a two-part conversation, Matt shares the evolution of his perspective on AR and creating successful startups after 6d.ai’s sale to Niantic. He talks about the foundational observations and ingredients for creating something special with LivingCities. Part of that is finding a unique approach to tying the real world to the virtual.Matt goes on to describe key technology trends, his thoughts on market timing for LivingCities, and gives some hints on what social engagement might look like in the future of blended reality.You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com, and become a patron at patreon.com/theARshow.