Magic Leap: the mysterious startup trying to revolutionize augmented reality – The Verge

Magic Leap’s conference teases the thrilling potential of what its hardware can’t yet provide

2018-10-16T15:00:03-04:00

Florida-based startup Magic Leap became infamous for hyping itself as a revolutionary company whose vision for augmented and mixed reality would transform the worlds of computing, communication, and entertainment - whenever it finally decided to show its hyper-secretive technology to the public, that is. The company set expectations high, but when it finally shipped its first headset, the Magic Leap One Creator Editor, the consensus was that some of those expectations hadn't been met. Magic Leap hadn't magically solved AR's biggest challenges, it turned out. Like the Microsoft HoloLens before it, Magic Leap's headset was a glimpse at a compe …

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Magic Leap opens ‘creator portal’ for augmented reality app developers

2018-03-19T12:38:20-04:00

Augmented reality startup Magic Leap is taking the first steps toward opening its platform to outside developers. The company just announced a preview of its software development kit and "creator portal," which will offer resources for people who want to build for its yet-unreleased Magic Leap One headset. You can now download a preview build of the Unreal or Unity engines, designed for what Magic Leap dubs "spatial computing."

The creator portal touts a set of tutorials, a community for technical support, and a "Magic Leap Simulator" that will presumably help people preview apps before they get a headset. The Magic Leap One was announced l …

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Magic Leap’s cheapest headsets will cost as much as a high-end phone, says CEO

2018-02-13T20:06:23-05:00

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Magic Leap is planning multiple editions of its augmented reality glasses for different levels of consumers and professionals, with the cheapest starting at the price of a "higher-end mobile phone to higher-end tablet," says company president and CEO Rony Abovitz. "I think we're trying to establish certain tiers - we're not going to be a single-product company over time," Abovitz told an audience during an interview at Recode's Code Media conference today.

Abovitz says the Magic Leap One, a "creator edition" headset that's supposed to be coming out this year, falls somewhere in the middle of Magic Leap's price range. "We will have a product …

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Will Magic Leap take privacy seriously?

2017-12-20T15:12:06-05:00

Magic Leap has finally unveiled its much-hyped augmented reality hardware platform, promising that the first units will ship next year. These will be first-generation development kits, but they're a step toward Magic Leap's ultimate (if lofty) goal: creating ubiquitous lightweight glasses that add virtual objects to the real world. And that, in turn, sets off major privacy alarms.

Like most smart glasses, Magic Leap's headsets will collect a constant stream of user data. They feature an array of cameras and microphones that capture everything you see and hear. The cameras detect shapes in your surroundings, and the microphones can take audi …

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What to expect when Magic Leap’s headset launches

2017-12-20T11:36:43-05:00

Magic Leap is finally releasing a developer version of its augmented reality system next year. The company has promised an SDK in early 2018 (three years later), to be followed by the actual hardware, called the Magic Leap One.

Magic Leap has already attracted heavy investors in the form of Google and VC firms, but over the years it's offered frustratingly little news about what the tech will actually offer. Its partners include Icelandic rock band Sigur Rós, Weta Workshop, ILMxLAB, and messaging platform Twilio, though its creator portal is expected to open up its software to more interested parties. Here's what we can expect so far.

Mixed …

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Magic Leap finally unveils augmented reality goggles, says it’s shipping next year

2017-12-20T09:34:24-05:00

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After more than three years, Magic Leap has unveiled what it describes as a "creator edition" of its augmented reality system. The Magic Leap One consists of a pair of oversized cyberpunk-y goggles, a puck-shaped external computer called a Lightpack, and a handheld controller. It's supposed to accept "multiple input modes including voice, gesture, head pose and eye tracking," and maps persistent objects onto the environment - "place a virtual TV on the wall over your fireplace and when you return later, the TV will be right where you left it," the site promises. An SDK is supposedly coming in early 2018, and the hardware is supposed to ship …

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Magic Leap invited Pitchfork to its studio, and the results are maddening

2017-12-18T15:36:46-05:00

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Last week, Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz cryptically promised "fun and cool stuff" from the secretive augmented reality startup. Today, we learned what that is: an interactive music experience co-designed by the band Sigur Rós, which Magic Leap invited Pitchfork reporter Marc Hogan to try. Hogan's resulting essay offers an interesting look at Magic Leap's entertainment ambitions, as well as an evocative writeup of the experience. It is also deeply frustrating.

Magic Leap tightly controls reporting with strict nondisclosure agreements, which means that Pitchfork can't say anything about the company's elusive hardware. A few details slip in: th …

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Bullet-time creator John Gaeta is going to Magic Leap

2017-10-26T20:27:42-04:00

John Gaeta has broken new ground throughout his career, from his work as a visual effects supervisor on The Matrix to launching Lucasfilm's immersive entertainment division ILMxLab. For his next chapter, he's moving to the Florida-based augmented reality start-up Magic Leap.

Gaeta tells The Verge that he has joined the company as senior vice president of creative strategy. "It will be a new chapter in a long story for me of pursuing frontiers that I think will one day create compelling experiences for people," he says.

In the case of Gaeta, that's actually not hyperbole. Throughout his career he's demonstrated a unique ability to straddle …

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Why do people keep giving Magic Leap money?

2017-10-22T13:00:02-04:00

Magic Leap, an augmented reality company that has never shipped or even shown a product, has just gotten a $502 million investment on top of its nearly $1.4 billion in existing funding. The round is led by Singapore holding company Temasek, and includes major existing investors like Google, Alibaba, and J.P. Morgan Investment Management. It adds to the mystique around the secretive company, which has been on the verge of unveiling a pair of compact augmented reality glasses since at least 2015. Two years later, its main output is still flowery paeans to its own greatness.

Investors have proven more than willing to throw money at overblown t …

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Magic Leap promises ‘whirligigs and test machines’ soon, complete technological revolution later

2016-02-02T10:30:36-05:00

After months of silence, Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz has promised to complete the human experience with his company's yet-unseen augmented reality technology.

Posted right after the company announced $793.5 million in new investments from Alibaba and several other companies, Abovitz's essay is an ode to the alleged world-changing power of Magic Leap, which he says will transcend the boundaries of a mere gadget. (It's variously compared to a vintage Fender Stratocaster, warm chocolate chip cookies, a great novel, and a kiss.) "Art is everywhere, and can be in everything," he writes. "It is where the feeling of the person (or people) creating …

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