Zero to Start Podcast: VR development for beginners

What’s everyone excited about at AWE 2025? What’s still needed as we build the future of XR?

🎧 Listen in for quick-hit insights from leading XR innovators, direct from the expo hall floor.

Featuring:

• Cognitive3D - Build Better XR Experiences with 3D Spatial Analytics
• VR Chat Avatar Marketplace - The First Avatar Marketplace Inside VRChat
• Convai -  Conversational AI Characters
• FS Studio - Synthetic data, digital twins & enterpris...

AWE USA 2025 delivered on its promise of feeling spatial. 

Not only was the mantra XR is Going Mainstream, AWE founder Ori Inbar optimistically declared 2025 as the year of the Master Builder - passionate domain subject experts creating XR solutions for their community filling in diverse content gaps that are shifting the balance between big brands and dedicated niche audiences.  

Today's show features clips from our favorite mo...

XR pioneer Avi Bar-Zeev has been at the forefront of Spatial Computing for over 30 years: from launching Disney’s groundbreaking Aladdin VR ride in the early 90s and crafting Second Life’s 3D worlds to co-founding Keyhole (Google Earth) mirror-earth spatial browser, co-inventing the Hololens AR headset in 2010 and leading the Experience Prototyping team for Apple's Vision Pro and more from 2016-19. 

Bar-Zeev's so ubiquitou...

On today's show we're spotlighting our AWE day one itinerary. Elevate your conference vibe with our AWE playlist !

Heading to AWE USA 2025 next week? Road to VR readers can still get an exclusive 20% discount on tickets: https://geni.us/7ijTS - BEN LANG

JUNE 10 ITINERARY HIGHLIGHTS

• 09:00 AM - 09:25 AM AWE USA 2025 Welcome Keynote - XR Is Going Mainstream! - Ori Inbar - AWE & Super Ventures
• 09:30 AM - 09:55 AM Acc...

How can we create XR experiences with purpose and why does it matter? 

Last week's MeaningfulXR conference at UC Davis and in VRChat brought together a dynamic XR community from across the globe to explore the answers and featured some of the latest academic research using XR across disciplines including education, psychology, design, AI, health and wellness, tracking data and more. 

On this special episode, I’m sharing the audi...

Today’s bite-sized episode is a quick shout out to the Meaningful XR conference  happening Thursday May 22nd and Friday May 23rd at the UC Davis International Center and virtually in VRChat.

On Friday at 12:30pm  I’ll be joining the panel, Creating platforms and apps to better people's lives 

Led by Carsten Becker Faculty, Media Design and Extended Reality at USC Iovine & Young Academy 

Featuring Guljaha Shaik Neely Fellow 20...

It’s Game ON with GDC in San Francisco at the Moscone Convention Center, March 17th through the 21st. 

On our first episode of 2025 we’re checking out

• The Top Game Developer Trends heading into GDC 2025 
• The Meta Horizon Start Guide to GDC 
• XR events and other happenings featured on gdcparties.com

Find out why you don’t have to have a GDC pass to enjoy some of the best gaming industry panels and networking of the year! 

Thanks f...

Happy New Year's Eve! Before the clock strikes midnight I'm sharing a quick message of thanks and appreciation to all of my guests this year and to you, the listeners, who've downloaded episodes in 37 countries across the world.

Our top listeners are from the U.S., Germany, Australia, Canada and the UK.

Our Top podcast episode of 2024 is:
Retail Therapy: My inner child said no to a $4500 Apple Vision Pro

Followed by...

I recorded this episode on the afternoon of Election day in the US...

During the storms of change and chance I take shelter in making VR, buying vinyl and listening to The Cure. 

So I’m in the midst of making a creepy crawly experience based on Lullaby from The Cure’s Disintegration album to match my post-halloween haunted garden. 

However, on today’s episode I wanted to briefly reflect on what I learned - and earned - from returning ...

Since 2018 Virtuleap has been at the cutting edge of combining neuroscience and virtual reality to help increase attention levels, and address cognitive illnesses, disorders, and learning challenges. 

On this episode, Amir Bozorgzadeh, Cofounder and CEO of Virtuleap is back to tell us all about the release of Cogniclear VR, an immersive cognitive screening test that uses gamified scenarios to assess a wide range of crucial cognitive...

Former NASA AI scientist turned VR creative director and producer, Nathalie Mathe, has been pushing the boundaries of VR since the early days of the Oculus DK1 and DK2. 

From creating visual effects on blockbuster films like Total Recall, Fast & Furious6, Skyfall, and The Dark Knight Rises to directing and supervising cutting-edge VR projects for Google, Facebook, JauntVR and Condition One, Nathalie is a powerhouse of innovation...

GameDriver enables video game developers, testers, and producers to automate playtesting; improving time to market, test coverage, and overall quality and revenue.

The company brings over 30 years of test automation expertise to the massive gaming industry, as well as Enterprise - where next-gen user experiences are built using gaming technologies including AR and VR, to deliver consistent, repeatable testing to the app development ...

In just a few short years, mobile gaming has exploded, now accounting for almost half of all gaming, with the market worth an astounding $90 billion dollars.

According to Statista, by 2026 the mobile AR market is predicted to reach $36 billion dollars in revenue. 

As mobile AR gaming evolves beyond Pokemon Go, one company is going all-in to redefine the space with a first-of-its- kind multiplayer augmented reality fighting...

Apple Vision Pro doesn't have anything I really need, just everything I want. They're the coolest goggles on the planet. 

While hot takes about the price, the returns, the meaning of this moment continue to light up our news feed, I’m still integrating the 3 days I spent with The Vision Pro. 

Using Apple's spatial computer for the first time consumed me with intense, satisfying, emotional connections between ...

It's Apple Vision Pro Day! 

• Will it be as paradigm shifting as the first iPhone? 
• If Apple is hedging its bet on spatial computing, did oculus/Meta do the hard excavation work to prove there is an innovative market for XR?
• Does an early adopter really need another headset in their vast collection of goggles, glasses and gadgets?

These are some of the questions Ash Baccus-Clark, Director, Keynote Speaker & Creative Str...

The Apple Vision Pro presale on Friday Jan.19th was a resounding success, erasing any doubt about Apple’s ability to capture the public’s imagination - and their wallets, with its first spatial computer. 

The Vision Pro marks a new day in the XR industry, or rather, a new tune that has the potential to transcend the friction and failures of the last decade. 

Despite some early device limitations and the steep price tag, speculation i...

"The new era of spatial computing has arrived."  Our first episode of 2024 brings you a readout of last week's proclamation from Apple CEO, Tim Cook on the news of the highly anticipated Apple Vision Pro launch, which is just hours away from pre-sale, on Friday January 19th at 5am pacific. Vision Pro will be available in the U.S. on February 2nd.

Are you walking up at 5AM tomorrow to pre-order? We are! (hope...

This holiday we’re celebrating our 25th episode of Zero to Start with a very special guest, Kent Bye, host of the Voices of VR podcast.

Since May 2014, Kent has published over 1,300 Voices of VR podcast interviews featuring the pioneering artists, storytellers, and technologists driving the resurgence of virtual & augmented reality.

Kent is an oral historian, experiential journalist, & philosopher, helping to define...

Are you game for a full-body haptic suit? HaptX Inc. takes us one step closer with the imminent launch of their G1 Glove. 

HaptX invents and builds wearable technology that simulates touch with unprecedented realism, enabling haptic interaction in virtual reality and robotics.  

Joining me to explore the magic of the HaptX G1 glove and the future of human-computer interaction is Linda Jacobson, the Director of Marketing at ...