If Magic Leap Isn’t Yet on Your Radar--Here’s Why it Should Be:

You may have heard of the secretive, mysterious Magic Leap around this time last year – the company made headlines when an announcement was made that Google led a $542 million investment in the tech startup.

One year later, our knowledge of exactly what Magic Leap is working on is still limited. However, CEO Rony Abovitz’s recent presentation at WSJDLive, The Wall Street Journal’s global technology conference, revealed a bit more information about the company, bringing the tech world’s attention back to Magic Leap.

For those of you that have not heard of Magic Leap, here is what we know:

According to their website, Magic Leap is building technology that will “deliver experiences that are so unique, so unexpected, so never-been-seen-before, they can only be described as magical.”

What exactly is the Magic Leap product? That’s the question we’re all asking.

Though details are unknown, Magic Leap is working on a wearable augmented reality device that projects virtual 3D images onto the physical world.  

This is different than the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset, made by the company Oculus that Facebook acquired for $2 billion.

Augmented reality is not the same as virtual reality. Whereas virtual reality immerses the user in an artificially generated world, augmented reality is more of a blended experience that incorporates virtual images into reality, meaning it can be more seamlessly integrated into our daily lives.

Magic Leap’s work in progress seems to be most similar to Microsoft’s HoloLens, which also overlays virtual objects onto the real world, or as Microsoft calls it, enables “high-definition holograms to integrate with your world.” The HoloLens developer kit will be available in the first quarter of 2016 for $3,000.

As reported by The Verge, it is believed the Magic Leap technology uses retinal projection, which literally means projecting digital images into the eyes. The Magic Leap website calls the technology a “Dynamic Digitized Lightfield Signal” with little explanation other than that it “respects how we function naturally as humans.”

The most detail Abovitz provided during the conference was that the device is a small, self-contained computer, and seemingly unlike other wearable technologies like Google Glass, people would be comfortable using it in public.

He called the Magic Leap experience “part-Matrix, part-Harry Potter,” and also said, "with Magic Leap, your brain doesn't distinguish what's real and what's Magic Leap, because as far as your brain's concerned, it is real."

Chief Content Officer Rio Caraeff said “anything you can do on a smartphone, you can do with Magic Leap, where the world is your screen.”

Abovitz presented the latest video demonstrating Magic Leap technology at the conference.  The video shows the Magic Leap user seeing a little 3D robot, who waves to the user, as well as a 3D model of the solar system. The video claims to be showing how the images would appear using the device, without use of special effects.

“We’re actually gearing up to build millions of things,” said Abovitz. “We’re not ready to announce when we’re shipping, but it gives you a signal that we’re not far.”

The company is currently using an old Motorola factory in South Florida as a manufacturing facility, but has yet to release more specifics of a release date.

Whether Magic Leap products will be as revolutionary as they claim to be remains unknown, but judging from the investments behind them, they’ve got something in the works that warrants our attention.

If the product does live up to the hype, Magic Leap could have a major impact on a variety of industries such as education, entertainment, and healthcare.

Photo credit: magicleap.com