Magic Leap, the Google-funded company building a mysterious but purportedly powerful augmented reality system, has announced that it’s almost ready to let developers start building for its platform. At MIT Technology Review’s EmTech Digital summit, veteran game designer and Magic Leap “chief creative officer” Graeme Devine announced that the company has built a software development kit that supports the Unity and Unreal game engines, both of which have been instrumental in virtual reality development. There’s no set date for its release, but developers will be invited to the program “soon.”
Magic Leap is getting ready to release its software development platform
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
Interestingly, Magic Leap is announcing (and will likely be releasing) the SDK before it’s released any details about its actual hardware, a headset that will manipulate light to create the illusion of real objects in front of the wearer. One of the few glimpses we’ve gotten is the video above, an augmented reality game that’s supposedly a fairly early prototype. Developers can fill out a form to be notified of future news. “Stay tuned!” a Magic Leap spokesperson told The Verge when asked for comment.
@techreview - it's real! @magicleap excited we've got our SDK working with @unity3d @UnrealEngine - releasing soon, stay tuned!
— Graeme Devine (@zaphodgjd) June 2, 2015 While the two companies have largely avoided discussing each other, Magic Leap is implicitly competing with Microsoft, which has been showing off its HoloLens augmented reality headset over the past few months. We’ll likely learn more about it at E3. As for Magic Leap? We can only hope.
Update June 2nd, 6:02PM ET: Added comment from Magic Leap.
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