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Welcome back to our weekly roundup of happenings from XR and AI realms. Let’s dive in…
The Lede
Augmented World Expo took place in Long Beach, CA, last week. Snap’s long-anticipated new Specs, due this fall at a $2,150 price point, were introduced, as was Xreal Aura XR glasses, which run the new Android XR OS on the new Qualcomm Reality Elite chip optimized for its use. Aura is also coming this fall at a price point rumored to be under $1,500.
Ted Schilowitz and I recorded episode 295 of the AIXR Podcast live from the main stage at the show, where we were joined by former Lockheed and Microsoft executive Shelley Petersen, Agog’s head of production, VR Director, Mary Matheson, and Malia Probst of Scout Studio.
Anthropic’s latest AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, were abruptly pulled offline after the U.S. government invoked export controls over what officials described as a potentially dangerous jailbreak vulnerability. The administration argued the flaw could expose advanced cyber capabilities to foreign actors, while Anthropic countered that the issue was narrow, limited, and not materially different from behavior found in other frontier models. The dispute escalated into a broader fight over who gets to decide when an AI system poses a national security risk. Critics, including cybersecurity researchers, argue the government overreacted and may have been motivated as much by politics as security concerns. The episode marks the first time a deployed frontier AI model has effectively been shut down by government action, raising questions about regulation, export controls, and government authority over AI deployment.
In The Thought Police Are Real Now. Shelly Palmer says as AI becomes a more critical economic and strategic resource, access to the most capable models may increasingly be determined by governments and corporations rather than market demand. In Palmer’s view, the real issue is not censorship of ideas but control over intelligence itself, creating a future in which advanced AI is available only to those with permission to use it.
Odyssey, an AI startup founded by former self-driving car executives Oliver Cameron and Jeff Hawke, has raised a $310 million Series B at a $1.45 billion valuation led by Natural Capital, with participation from Amazon, AMD Ventures, GV, EQT, and In-Q-Tel. Odyssey develops “world models,” AI systems designed to simulate and predict how environments change over time. The company recently introduced a shared simulation environment that allows multiple people and AI agents to interact within the same persistent world. The company also named Amazon Web Services its preferred cloud provider and will use AWS Trainium chips to train and run its models. Odyssey says the new funding will support research and deployment of its technology, which has applications in robotics, gaming, science, and autonomous systems.
Meta does not sound like a particularly well-run company. They toasted $80M on the Metaverse, but surfed away from the problem on the AI wave. After cutting roughly 8,000 jobs and reorganizing large parts of the company around AI, Meta announced a companywide AI hackathon intended to revive its traditional hacker culture. According to reports cited by Futurism, many employees reacted negatively, saying they were already struggling with increased workloads following the layoffs. Meta employees are highly paid, and many are making a fortune in stock options every month. They need to “rest and vest.” Every month, they capture, or vest, soaring stock options. Employees have reported heavier workloads, role changes, and uncertainty about priorities. Everyone is in a greed prison. They hate it, but they can’t / won’t / and shouldn’t quit it. It’s an ugly way to get rich, but if that is torture, chain me to the floor.
Spatial Audio
This column has a companion, the AI/XR Podcast, hosted by its author, Charlie Fink; Ted Schilowitz, former studio executive and futurist for Paramount and Fox; and Rony Abovitz, founder of Magic Leap and Synthbee AI.
Peter Diamandis was our guest on the AIXR Podcast last Friday, June 12th, in what was one of our best shows of the year, or maybe ever. Diamandis is a renowned entrepreneur, physician, investor, and bestselling author focused on accelerating technological innovation. He is founder and executive chairman of XPRIZE and founder of Singularity University. Diamandis is known for advancing private spaceflight, longevity research, and exponential technologies through ventures, philanthropy, and global innovation competitions. He is optimistic about technology, and his arguments are persuasive.
Episodes drop on Tuesdays, and you can find them on podcasting platforms Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube.
Charlie Fink is the producer and co-host of the AIXR Podcast and teaches at Chapman University and ASU. Fink is the producer of the vertical gen AI social media series, “Linda’s Last Podcast” (2026) and serves as CEO of Cinemation.AI, an AI animation studio he co-founded with film director Rob Minkoff, whose vertical anime series, Speed Queen, is in pre-production. He is the author of the critically acclaimed AR-enabled books Charlie Fink’s Metaverse (2017), Convergence, Or How the World Will Be Painted With Data (2019), and the upcoming AI, The End of Hollywood, and What Comes Next.