How do you get people excited about wearing AR goggles on their faces when our flat-screened, 2D media world has some pretty compelling entertainment to offer? That’s one of the challenges that Magic Leap marketing head Brenda Freeman faces as the company tries to justify its years-in-the-making AR product and the billions of dollars it has raised so far. Magic Leap currently sells a developer kit and has shown off interesting demos around sports, entertainment, and fashion, but hasn’t yet made the leap to mainstream. WIRED had the chance to chat with Freeman at Web Summit in Lisbon a couple weeks ago; that interview is a part of this week’s podcast.
Also on the show: The Gadget Lab team discusses the latest Facebook news, Amazon’s HQ2 decision, and Microsoft’s newest hardware.
Show notes: California is facing some of the worst wildfires in US history, which we mention early in the show, so we’re pointing you to a New York Times article on how to help the victims of the fires. WIRED has also done some reporting on how California needs to adapt to climate change and population growth if it’s going to survive future fires.
Recommendations this week: Arielle recommends reading Infinite Resignation by Eugene Thacker; Lauren recommends checking out Code.org’s partnership with popular musicians, which lets you code to their tunes; Mike recommends the Vegan Thanksgiving editors collection at NYT Cooking.
Send the Gadget Lab hosts feedback on their personal Twitter feeds. Arielle Pardes can be found at @pardesoteric. Lauren Goode is @laurengoode. Michael Calore can be found at @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. Our theme song is by Solar Keys.
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