The XR Weekly Roundup (July 14, 2025): XPANCEO Achieves Unicorn Status, Upload’s New Showcase, and More!

Hey, you won’t believe what just happened. An Italian tennis player snagged the Wimbledon title for the first time ever. Pretty wild, right? So, as an Italian, I feel this urge to do something historic too. Haven’t figured out what though. Seriously, any suggestions? Hit me up with your random thoughts. Meanwhile, let’s dive into the usual chaos of XR news because, well… why not.

What’s Popping This Week?

Alrighty, kicking things off with XPANCEO. Ever heard of them? They’re out of Dubai and are now officially an XR unicorn. Yup, $1.35 billion and counting. Got $250 million thrown their way to keep tinkering with smart contact lenses. Personally, I dig those lenses, ever since I saw some cool stuff in their lab. Tried a few prototypes at AWE Europe—mind-blowing. Fingers crossed they can get something out to us soon. Oh, and shout out to Roman and Valentyn over there—rockstars!

Okay, Moving On… Other Cool Stuff…

Upload VR just did their Summer Showcase for 2025. Indie games galore! Not earth-shattering news, but lots of awesome stuff on the indie scene. My faves? Elsewhere Electric and Virtual Skate are up there. A prison puzzle game too—Fixer Undercover. Sounds hilarious.

Samsung Unpacked came and went, but no word on Moohan the headset. Total mystery now. Rumors were swirling, and then poof—nothing. Feels odd, doesn’t it? Maybe they’re saving it for another day, or just hyping things up.

Oh, Wait—Here’s Some More…

Meta’s all in with $3.5 billion into Luxottica. More glasses stuff coming, maybe? And Canon’s sneaking into the MR headset game, supposedly with a consumer-friendly option. Keep your eyes out for that. Singray G2 was also shown off, but meh, not mind-blown there.

And there’s this juicy bit about Viture’s new glasses. Super fancy and converts media into 3D on the fly. It’s like your living room, but cooler. Meanwhile, leaks about Ray-Ban Meta 3 sound pretty intriguing—like knowing where you left your socks.

Also, rumors of a new Apple Vision Pro. Consensus? Everyone’s shrugging. Who knows what’s up with an M4 or M5 chip. Guess we’ll see.

CREAL’s out there still doing amazing things with lightfield displays. Shrinking their stuff down to some nice AR glasses. Good luck to them!

Oh, Real Quick… Fun Stuff

This dude, Jeff Baz, pulled off a huge VR LAN party. Like 130 headsets synced up. Imagine the energy. Definitely claps for him. And some startup did a smartglasses hackathon. Curious to see what techy wonders pop out from that.

Shoutouts and Thank Yous

Before I forget—thanks to everyone supporting what I do! Y’all are the real MVPs. Lots of Patrons to list, like Alex Gonzalez VR and Eduardo Siman, but seriously, love ya all. And hey, feeling generous? Think about donating to the Red Cross for Ukraine. Good deed for the day, right?

Okay, I might’ve rambled a bit—but honestly, who doesn’t love a good tangent? Keep living your best XR life and let’s catch up in the next slice of randomness! Cheers! 🍕

(Header pic credit to XPANCEO, by the way!)