WHAT
Magic Leap is perhaps the world’s most well funded Mixed Reality (MR) start up, and the most secretive. They are making Virtual Reality that overlays the real world you see. There’s not even a beta available. Based in Florida.
But the quality of the experience and the way they are doing it looks set to change everything we do in the visual world. Reports are that is beats hololens by far. Recently I attended the innaugural The Spoon VR/AR/MR meetup where speaker Alan Chan, of Vectr Ventures, told this story I paraphrase here.
My VC contact in the US is one of the few how has seen the demo and it shows how this technology could be the biggest BS or truly a game changer. The demo was simply…4 glasses of water on the table. He was asked to touch the one that was really there. He failed. Even those that have admitted that they were guessing.
HOW
With over a billion dollars in investment from companies like Google, Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, Alibaba and partners like Lucas Films – and the founder Rony Abovitz’s background in biomedecine – they are developing a photonoic lightfield chip (yes it looks like a lense you would wear close to your eyes like spectacles). You can see the real world. And you can see and manipulate virtual objects near and far.
SO?
Screens? Who needs them? If you can work on your emails, watch a movie, play a game, do that knee surgery, buy those shoes from an interface that looks like it’s hovering next to you on your sofa or on your desk – why would you need a screen? A computer, a mobile? Are we moving toward a new way to “view things”? Will there be one king? Hard to say but it certainly looks like we are going to expect more out of our visual world in short order.
READ MORE //
Wired > The Untold Story of Magic Leap, the World’s Most Secretive Startup
WSJ >Broadcasting Startup NextVR Grabs $80 Million in Funding
Wired: Magic Leap’s Next Move? Bringing C-3PO to Your House
