The InReality Podcast

In this week's episode, the Joe's get snubbed by a bigshot and Joe J attempts to pass a 3D modeling test.

In the most triumphant relaunch of the InReality Podcast, our hosts try to find their footing and make some big breakthroughs in well established audio technology.

This week, we’re wrapping up Season 2 of the podcast with another very special guest. Sterling Hawkins is a global keynote speaker who focuses on the intersection of emerging technology and big business. Sterling grew up a fifth-generation grocery retailer, which gave him an early appreciation of the importance of studying human behavior. After founding several companies, he worked on innovation projects with brands like Mitsubishi, P&G, Synchrony Financial and Energizer. More recently, Sterling’s been traveling the world spreading the good news about how legacy businesses can still push what’s possible for retail. In addition to his speaking gigs, Sterling is the Retail and E-Commerce Committee Co-Chair for the VR AR Association — shoutout VAARA — and Community Chair for RetailTomorrow, an industry initiative that organizes a community of thought leaders from retailers, brands, innovators, investors and universities dedicated to enhancing the seamless shopper experience in retail. He’s been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, The New York Times and Inc. Magazine, among others.

Today we’ve got a special guest on the pod. Anne Flynn Wear is Associate Editor at Furniture Today, the leading publication covering the furniture industry. Anne has spent the last year documenting the furniture industry’s growing pains as retailers look to implement new ecommerce and in-store technology solutions to better move merchandise, manage their supply chain, and improve the customer experience. On May 6, Anne published a piece on furnituretoday.com titled “App-less AR offers a tipping point for technology to become mainstream,” which takes an in-depth look at how Augmented Reality (and to a lesser extent Virtual Reality) have matured enough to become viable enterprise technologies for furniture retailers and manufacturers. “The recent debut of app-less or web-native augmented reality could prove to be a tipping point for the technology’s adoption in home furnishings retail,” Anne writes. “Just as the transition from flip phones to smartphones opened up the world of e-commerce to the mobile phone user, app-less options may have a similar impact when compared with AR apps.”   That’s a juicy starting point, so let’s get to it. Up next, our chat with Anne Flynn Wear of Furniture Today.

Rumors of the death of the VR headset market have been greatly exaggerated. New Virtual Reality HMDs now available for pre-order from Oculus and Valve are poised to offer consumers fresh hardware that builds on existing technology while also taking some baby steps into the future. This week we take an in-depth look at the Oculus Quest and Valve Index, explore how they fit into the existing hardware market, and debate whether these devices represent a clear step forward for Virtual Reality hardware and experiences.

This week, we’re taking a deep dive into Augmented Reality Software Development Kits — also known as ARSDKs by the brevity-obsessed. Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore are the most well-known, but there are a significant number of other SDKs on the market, and figuring out which one to build an AR project around can take a little digging.

This week we’re sitting down with our favorite PHD, Doctor Ken Moser, to talk about the latest and greatest in AR & VR hardware to decide whether they are A. the worst thing humans have ever made or B. the greatest marvels of human technology ever designed.

This week, we talk to Margie Manning, a prolific reporter who covers Tampa Bay’s burgeoning startup culture, about the health of St. Pete's tech scene.

In this episode the Joes explore Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality applications that are already changing the way we shop, train, play, and learn in the wake of CES 2019.

Was CES the death knell for the Oculus Rift? Is Chinese manufacturing giant Huawei already too late with those AR smart-glasses they announced in November with a street date of “sometime in the next two years”? And if Huawei is late, what does that make Apple? And what about all this new gear from HTC, Vuzix, Pico, NReal, Third Eye, Corning, DigiLens and others? Did the world just change … again?

In this episode, we channel our inner Doc Brown and go Back … to the future! One year into the future, to be specific. With 2019 on the doorstop, we’re going to take a crack at predicting as many hot trends, hardware breakthroughs, and unexpected surprises in AR and VR that we’ll see over the next 12 months.

In this episode, we check out Tim Cook’s comments on Augmented Reality from his recent appearance on HBO’s new Axios show. We’re then joined by Scott Perry, Vice President and Executive Director of Digital and Omni-Channel Experience at Bob’s Discount Furniture, to discuss the retailer’s killer new Augmented Reality app.

This week, the Joes are joined by Holly Shively, a reporter covering retail and real estate for the Dayton Daily News. Holly recently published a story titled, “Short on time? Here’s how your holiday shopping experience will be different (and easier) this year,” and we pick her brain for details on how the shopping experience is being transformed by new technology including AR and VR.

This week, we’re casting our gaze upon Augmented Reality smart glasses. Chip-maker Intel made headlines when it recently canceled its planned AR spectacles. Meanwhile, another household name is jumping into the AR market with their own proposed hardware solution — and it comes with a twist. PLUS: Can you tell a real AR app description from a fake one? Let’s find out …

For this week’s episode, the Joes are joined by Dr. Ken Moser, PhD, Marxent’s resident expert. What is Ken an expert on? Why, everything. Don’t believe us? Just click the below link as Ken and Joes take a rapid-fire trip through: recent developments in the world of Augmented and Virtual Reality, technology, self-driving cars, AI bots talking to each other, and whether or not free will exists at all. To push play or not to push play — is it even up to you?

Following on the wild speculation of the Season 2 premiere, the Joes bring in a fresh catch of AR/VR news, including the unveiling of the Samsung Galaxy S9, Google releasing ARCore 1.0, IBM’s Watson making the jump to VR, and eBay adding Augmented Reality Tools. It’s a lot to cover, so let’s get started …

In this week’s episode, we’re talking about what’s to come in 2018, according to a list of predictions graciously provided by Marxent’s resident PhD, Dr. Ken Moser. Will Dr. Ken’s prognostications survive the withering knowitallism of the two Joes? Listen and find out.

In this week’s episode, the Joes are talking about a “limited time” price drop for best known, least successful first-generation VR headset: Facebook’s Oculus Rift. Is this the beginning of a bold resurgence for Facebook’s VR HMD, or just a desperate summer sale meant to keep the low-selling Rift relevant in the VR hardware market?

In this week’s episode, the Joes sit down with Dr. Ken Moser, PhD, a giant in the industry with 7+ years of experience in HMDs, Computer Vision, and a whole slew of other specializations. What’s really in the ARKit’s toolbag, and what does it mean for the AR & VR industry at large? Dr. Ken explains it all.

In this week’s episode, Joe B. squeals like a fangirl over the latest Apple News — the unveiling of an Augmented Reality Software Development Kit for native AR apps, while Joe J. tries to calm him down.

This week we’re looking back at the 2017 Google I/O keynote, which featured news on Alphabet’s plans for Android, AI, Google Home and, of course, Augmented and Virtual Reality. Let’s take a look back … at the future.

This week, the topic is Paypal, which has filed a patent that proposes a world where people can interact — monetarily — with anything they can see. The patent, flavorfully titled “Using Augmented Reality to Determine Information” describes a system that allows for digital transactions — using paypal, naturally — with objects in the physical world. Let’s go shopping!

Welcome back to the In Reality podcast, covering all things Augmented & Virtual Reality. In Reality features industry news, commentary, and perspective from AR/VR veterans and experts. In Reality is co-hosted by Marxent’s Joe Johnson and Joe Bardi. Johnson is the Creative Director at Marxent, and has been in the AR/VR industry for four and a half years following a stint on Microsoft’s Office UX team. Bardi is Marxent’s Senior Content Strategist, and has been in the industry for a year, after having spent more than a decade in print and TV media. For this week’s show, we’re taking a deep dive into Amazon’s plans to sell furniture using Augmented Reality, and how this is but one front in what is shaping up as a war between Amazon and Wal-Mart for the future of retail. Thanks for listening. We really do appreciate it! Enjoyed the show? Please check out previous episodes at the In Reality Soundcloud page. Questions, comments, concerns? Email us at [email protected]. We’ll be back next week for another episode of In Reality.

Welcome back to the In Reality podcast, covering all things Augmented & Virtual Reality. In Reality features industry news, commentary, and perspective from AR/VR veterans and experts. In Reality is co-hosted by Marxent’s Joe Johnson and Joe Bardi. Johnson is the Creative Director at Marxent, and has been in the AR/VR industry for four and a half years following a stint on Microsoft’s Office UX team. Bardi is Marxent’s Senior Content Strategist, and has been in the industry for about a year, after having spent more than a decade in print and TV media. For this week’s show, the Joes are joined by special guest is Vince Kilian, Marxent’s Lead Technical Artist, who joined from a lofty crag, hidden from the world by constant, unending storms and shrouded in a cacophony of wailing electric guitars. Vince has forgotten more about product development than you will ever know. On this week’s show, we’re talking Amazon’s plan to preview furniture using Augmented and Virtual Reality (where’d they ever get that idea?!!?) and what shake-ups at Oculus mean for the future of techies who ascend to big-time management positions.

Welcome back to the In Reality podcast, covering all things Augmented & Virtual Reality. In Reality features industry news, commentary, and perspective from AR/VR veterans and experts. In Reality is co-hosted by Marxent's Joe Johnson and Joe Bardi. Johnson is the Creative Director at Marxent, and has been in the AR/VR industry for four and a half years following a stint on Microsoft’s Office UX team. Bardi is Marxent's Senior Content Strategist, and has been in the industry for about a year, after having spent more than a decade in print and TV media. For this week's show, the Joes are joined by special guest is Patrice Hall, who manages AR and VR projects at Marxent Labs. Patrice uses her background in design to drive provocative and empowering experiences. On this week’s show, we’re taking a look at a sea change for VR content on the Web, as well as a smartphone hardware development that has far-reaching consequences for the mass adoption of Augmented Reality.