The Republican and Democratic conventions are in the books and the Fall campaign is joined in ernest. That means Editorial Cartoonists Ted Rall and Scott Stantis break it all down for you. Also, does RFK, Jr. dropping out of the race and endorsing Donald Trump have any impact? Where does the campaign stand and what can we expect coming up? Also, wh…

This week we're joined by Ryan Chapman, CEO of Motive, focused on business applications of VR. We start with the state of the entertainment business, where Charlie throws around wildly inaccurate numbers to make the point that the music has stopped for the television networks and cable channels like MTV, which are about to be chopped up and sold fo…

Political cartoonists and analysts Ted Rall (on the Left) and Scott Stantis (on the Right) take on the week in politics. The 2024 presidential campaign settles into the new reality following the withdrawal of Joe Biden and the ascension of Vice President Kamala Harris. Donald Trump, 78, is having trouble pivoting and accepting going from a six-poin…

This week the three hosts are here in full force as Rony returns from vacation. Now that a federal judge ruled that Google is a monopolist, the question is what to do about it. Forbidding them from buying distribution is one thing, but now people are talking about forcing them to spin off their browser business. Speaking of Google, they've released…

Google's guilty of monopoly practices, but the result will be unclear for some time. Elon Musk continues to go bonkers while raking in trillions, nonetheless, he is suing people who don't like him, like former advertisers and others unhappy with the lack of moderation on their platform. Meta shuttered Echo Arena, and now they're shuttering the stud…

Internationally-syndicated Editorial Cartoonists Ted Rall and Scott Stantis discuss all things Election 2024. Starting with Former President Donald Trump's decision to join Vice President Kamala Harris in the September 10 debate on ABC, Scott and Ted dive into the bizarre trend of the mainstream media and many voters to project attributes onto the …

This week our guest is Kerestell Smith, creator of Gorilla Tag VR and founder of Another Axiom. Rony is on a farm with no Internet. In the news Canva surprises no one with its acquisition of Gen-AI startup Leonardo.ai. Congrats to Hedra AI text-to-voice, which produces lip-synced short video; they raised $10M. Meta reported earnings Weds. Revenue i…

Political cartoonists and analysts Ted Rall (on the Left) and Scott Stantis (on the Right) take on the week in politics. Kamala Harris has secured the nomination of the Democratic Party officially, via virtual roll call, less than two weeks after Joe Biden dropped out of the race. Scott and Ted discuss how she quickly consolidated control of the pa…

This week our guest is neuroscientist Dr. Cody Rall. Rony's working his super-secret day job (an AI startup). Top of the news is OpenAI's Search GPT, which is now a close beta (you can sign up); AI start-up Cohere valued at $5.5 B in their latest round. There are more than 20 AI unicorns - startups valued at more than $1B. Elon Musk has a supercomp…

Political cartoonists and analysts Ted Rall (on the Left) and Scott Stantis (on the Right) react to a shocking development in the world of politics: President Joe Biden has finally, after weeks of intrigue and pressure from within the Democratic Party succumbed to concerns about his mental acuity and dropped out of the 2024 presidential campaign we…

Political cartoonists and analysts Ted Rall (on the Left) and Scott Stantis (on the Right) take on a dramatic week in politics. Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt and emerged looking great from the Republican National Convention. Meanwhile, Democrats continued to call for President Joe Biden to step aside from the presidential race, Kam…

Charlie and Rony go Tedless this week with Sarah Nagy, founder and CEO of Seek AI, which brings AI to datasets that can be queried with natural language processing and other AI applications. This week's news includes funding for 3D company Jigspace, whose demos are bundled with Apple Vision Pro and tablets. Artificial Agency raised $16M for AI NPCs…

Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt yesterday afternoon when a gunman shot at him at a rally in Pennsylvania, grazing the former President's right ear. He appeared defiant, raising his fist as Secret Service agents spirited him away from the scene. Political cartoonists and analysts Ted Rall (on the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Righ…

Another big news week finds AMD snapping up Silo AI for $655M. Captions lip dub co raises $60M. Odyssey AI out of stealth with hi-res gen-AI. Infinite Reality Raises $350M, Acquires LandVault in stock deal. Apple is launching the Iphone 16 with AI this fall, but Siri won't be out until Spring 2025. Samsung includes Bixby in its new launch. Our gues…

An anxious America is hanging on tenterhooks to see whether Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. will be able to hang on to the Democratic nomination, and whether he might even be compelled to resign amid a whirl of news stories following his disastrous debate performance, indicating that he has been mentally and physically incapacitated, and not fulfilling…

This week the news was all about AI, music labels sue AI music generators Suno and Udio. Etched raises $120M to make AI Chips. Emergence AI scores $97.2M to make AI agents for white-collar work. We share our hot takes on Augmented World Expo, which wrapped last week. Tony, a true XR OG and an old friend, joined Rony in the AWE Hall of Fame last wee…

Political cartoonists Ted Rall (on the Left) and Scott Stantis (on the Right) simulcast their reactions to the 2024 presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Joining them is Angie Wong, political analyst, fundraiser and Ted's co-host on "The Final Countdown" on Radio Sputnik. In a special DMZ America Podcast, Scott, Angie and Ted reac…

This 200th episode of "This Week in XR" is recorded with a live audience on AWE's Expo Stage on June 20, 2024. This is the 15th edition of the largest XR conference and expo in the world. We invited five guests who have never been on our show, AWE Program director Sonya Haskins, developer and blogger, Tony Vitillo, Cosmo Scharf, founder of VRLA, an…

Internationally-syndicated Editorial Cartoonists Ted Rall (from the left) and Scott Stantis (from the right) discuss the pressing issues of the day. First up, there is an asteroid headed for the Earth and will pass the closest to our planet in the history of our species. Happily, the asteroid will miss us but how would humanity react if the next ti…

This week is show #199. Our guest is Jeri Ellsworth, CEO and Co-Founder of Tilt Five. Next week we'll record show #200 in front of a live audience at AWE in Long Beach, CA. This week we review Apple AI (Apple Intelligence), their cross-platform AI implementation. Also in the news, Mistral raises $600 M to compete with OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Anth…

The DMZ America podcast is where you'll hear civilized, spirited debate and discussion about the politics and issues of the day. Editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (Left) and Scott Stantis (Right) deliver a fast-paced look at some stories others are missing this week. First up, a Canadian government assessment of threats to Canadian national security w…

Ted and Charlie welcome Ori Inbar, who is celebrating AWE's 15th anniversary by moving the June 18 - 20 show from Silicon Valley to Long Beach. In the news, big raises for Pika Labs ($80M) and Twelve Labs ($50M) that can understand video. Wevr, maker of the seminal VR experience The Blu, raises $3.5M. The CEO of Sony Pictures says he is "all in" on…

Best friends and Political Cartoonists Ted Rall and Scott Stantis discuss and debate the issues of the day. This week they start by taking on the meaning of the Hunter Biden and Donald Trump trials. Are they "Gotcha Lawsuits"? Next, Ted and Scott dig into the recent Wall Street Journal article quoting people in the West Wing who claim that Presiden…

Our guest is XR consultant and thought leader, Amy Peck, CEO of EndeavorXR, but first, it's Ted's birthday, and yes, we sing (sorry). After a brief celebration, we talked about Elon's monumental $6B raise for xAI, and Google's new partnership with Magic Leap, renewing a love affair that began in 2014, when Google made a whopping $500M bet on the na…

Political cartoonists Ted Rall (on the Left) and Scott Stantis (on the Right) analyze the conviction of Donald Trump. How did it happen? Will he go to jail and/or be put on probation? Will he drop out of the race? How will it affect the campaign? Might we soon have a sitting president forced to govern from prison? The DMZ America Podcast is recorde…

It's the DMZ America podcast, where political cartoonists bring their smart takes on the news to spirited, intelligent, civilized dialogue from both sides of the political aisle. Ted Rall (WhoWhatWhy, Creators Syndicate) comes from the Left, Scott Stantis (Chicago Tribune, Dallas Morning News) comes from the Right and sparks fly. First up: the guys…

This week our guest is Jon Vlassopulos, CEO of Napster, which is now a streaming platform with 170 M + tracks. In the news Scarjo v. OpenAI, data-tagging Scale AI snared another Billion dollar round, Series F, at a 13B valuation. Suno, the text-to-music generator, raised $125 M. A dying man is trying to clone himself in AI. Jon brings a wealth of e…

Editorial cartoonists and best friends Ted Rall (from the left) and Scott Stantis (from the right) take a deep dive into the recently announced two presidential debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. (And RFK, Jr.?). Ted and Scott talk a little about the history of presidential debates (it's pretty short) and the ramifications and expectations…

This week Ted and Charlie celebrate episode 195 without Rony. Our guest is Matthew Celia, of Lightsail VR, who produced Eli Roth's "Faceless Lady," which is now on Meta Quest TV for those with VR headsets. It's the first stereoscopic piece of it's six-episode series. In the news, Google IO drops its Sora competitor, Veo, and using Google Maps to "p…

Charlie and Rony give the show a go without Ted, who's traveling. Very busy news week with lots of M&A activity. We talked about CoStar Group's $1.6B acquisition of 3D scanner Matterport, Lamini AI's $25M raise for secure Enterprise AI, Neurable also raised money, Gen AI company Freepik acquired hit AI upscaler Magninfic, which is also a Spanish co…

Fellow political cartoonists Ted Rall, from the Left, and Scott Stantis, from the Right, conduct a lively discussion of issues facing the world. First up: President Joe Biden breaks with the long tradition of the United States being a steadfast ally of Israel. In a recent statement, Biden has said the United States is pausing sales of arms to Israe…

This week the hosts discuss the new lawsuits against OpenAI. After six months of hype, sentiment about the Humane AI Pin, and The Apple Vision Pro, has become increasingly negative. This week, the press went after the darling of CES 2024, the Rabbit R1, with reviews that called it "unreviewable." This week our guests are Jennifer Tuft and Cassandra…

We rescheduled Friday morning's recording for Monday night in order to bring you one of our most impressive guests ever, Yat Siu, Chairman of Animoca Brands, which has investments in Sandbox, Cool Cats, Yuga Labs, nearly two hundred other Metaverse, web3 and blockchain based companies. We do hit the news briefly before bringing in our guest. This w…

Political cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) debate the week in news and culture as friendly adversaries to bring you spirited debate and smart insight. First up: The Israel-Hamas War seems to be entering some sort of tipping point in terms of international public opinion. As the International Criminal Court wei…

The hosts are all over Meta's release of the new MetaAI with Llama 3, now integrated across all of Meta's brands, and totally free, bringing an exceptional multimodal (does images with short animation) to nearly 4 B users. That's half the planet. Adobe is upgrading its Premiere editing suite, adding Sora for B roll, in-painting (for removing or add…

Editorial Cartoonists and best friends Ted Rall (of the left) and Scott Stantis (of the right) discuss and debate the issues of the week. First up, a USC valedictorian is denyed her earned right to speak. USC authorities claim fear of violence without any actual evidence. Meanwhile, Ted makes a plea to pro-Palestinian protestors around the country.…

Cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) present a Very Special Podcast. For the first time, Ted and Scott do the pod from Hotel Clovis, a.k.a. Ted’s place in New York. As always, Ted and Scott put friendship first in their spirited but civilized debates and discussions about the issues at hand. First up: The world of…

Another episode packed with AI news, in particular an investigative NY Times piece revealing the big tech companies were aware of the copyright issues around vacuuming up the Internet. We also talked about two AI-based startups, Udio, which raised $10M for AI created music, and Spines, which raised $6M for e-book publishing. Our guest is Connell Ga…

This Week the hosts are talking about OpenAI's Voice Engine, which can be trained on fifteen second recording, creating profound questions about privacy and security. The guest this week is Maureen Fan, co-founder and CEO of Baobab Studios, which for eight years has been creating original content for VR, the Metaverse, and traditional media. The co…

Best buds Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) are back after a brief break and, man, is there a lot to talk about! First up, Independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, Jr. picks Nicole Shanahan as his running mate. Ted and Scott explain why this is a dreadfully unserious choice and illustrates the whack-a-doodle natu…

The hosts are joined by Liz Hyman, President and Chief Executive Officer of the XR Association (XRA), the trade association promoting the dynamic growth of the XR industry. First up in the news, Amazon doubles down on Anthropic AI as it adds $2.75B to its previous $1.25B investment. OpenAI's text-to-video generator Sora goes to Hollywood, but what …

This Week in XR "Dear Tim" episode, an SXSW (South by Southwest) feature session was recorded live in Austin 3/12/24, featuring guest Joanna Popper, former CAA, NBC and HP executive. With the launch of the Meta Quest 3 in November, and the Apple Vision Pro in early February, we now have two competing approaches on spatial computing. The comparison …

Ted and Charlie welcome guest Weili Dai, co-founder Marvell Technologies, Silicon Box, and MeetKai. In the news, Saudi Arabia to invest $40B in AI, Nvidia revealed its new Blackwell AI computer at its GTC Conference, which it calls "AI Woodstock." They also showed off AI for robots. The State of Unreal was the main event at the Game Developers Conf…

Charlie and Ted, having recovered from SXSW, are back in their respective man caves, while Rony is on cell, driving through Alabama. Our SXSW panel talk will be posted in three weeks but can be found right now on the SXSW site. After a brief overview of three AI funding stories, we turned our attention back to SXSW, but other topics intruded: the p…

Editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (from the political Left) and Scott Stantis (from the political Right) discuss the week's biggest stories without the boring yell fests but with force and passion. First off, the United States House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed legislation that would force the Chinese company that owns TikTok to divest its…

Charlie is solo at SXSW while Ted and Rony are in transit. We'll be posting our Tuesday panel on the future of XR in the age of Apple Vision Pro at the end of next week. Not a big news week. The Sora freakout continues as they drop more tests on the socials. In AI, Haiper emerges from stealth with $13.5 M to take on Runway. Jabali raised $5M to use…

Editorial cartoonists Ted Rall (from the political Left) and Scott Stantis (from the political Right) discuss the week's biggest stories without the boring yell fests but with force and passion. The first segment of this week’s offering covers some major developments in the 2024 presidential campaign. The US Supreme Court followed Ted’s lead, choos…

Charlie and Ted are without Rony, who is driving across the country. We'll convene at SXSW in Austin to do our show live on stage with Joanna Popper in a session titled "XR in the Age of Vision Pro" on March 12th. In the news, $675M for Figure AI's humanoid robots, powered by ChatGPT, and a new text-to-video tool, Ideogram. Our guests this week are…

Best friends and fellow Editorial Cartoonists Ted Rall (from the Left) and Scott Stantis (from the Right) welcome Leap Day by discussing 81-year-old Mitch McConnell's decision to step down from his leadership position in the U.S. Senate. Should President Joe Biden follow his example? Next , Ted and Scott discuss the glaring hypocrisy of Bible-thump…

The hosts are in fine form as they dissect the AI boom, which will have an internet-like impact on the economy, society, and culture as the Internet, and will happen much, much faster. Nvidia's explosive earnings are a bigger news story than the US returning to the moon. That's how big it is. To discuss the complications and opportunity AI represen…