Magic Leap Finally Unveils Mixed-Reality Goggles (rollingstone.com)

Joosy writes: After raising $1.9 billion dollars, Magic Leap finally shows off it's "mixed-reality" goggles. Was the wait worth it? Rolling Stone gets a look: "The revelation, the first real look at what the secretive, multi-billion dollar company has been working on all these years is the first step toward the 2018 release of the company's first consumer product. It also adds some insight into why major companies like Google and Alibaba have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into Magic Leap, and why some researchers believe the creation could be as significant as the birth of the Internet."

Brian Crecente recalls his first experience with Magic Leap's technology: "This first, oversized demo dropped me into a science-fiction world, playing out an entire scene that was, in this one case, augmented with powerful, hidden fans, building-shaking speakers and an array of computer-controlled, colorful lighting. It was a powerful experience, demonstrating how a theme park could potentially craft rides with no walls or waits. Most importantly, it took place among the set-dressing of the stage -- the real world props that cluttered the ground and walls around me -- and while it didn't look indistinguishable from reality, it was close. To see those creations appearing not on the physical world around me, as if it were some sort of animated sticker, but in it, was startling..."

Comments

AR is very different

[SuperKendall]

We have VR its not hot people dont care about it much.

A) That's not really a true, there is a pretty good subset of people that like VR. However...

B) AR is much different than VR, simply because you can really see your surroundings with a computer overlay. That makes it far more practical to use for most people as they don't have to clear out a giant empty space for it in order to move, and potentially movement could be unlimited. The best AR systems can "see" your environment so they can skin anything around you to complete the illusion you are somewhere else, so for instance your entire house could become a zombie-hunting scenario with zombies behind random doors... much cooler than a VR scenario where you are just exploring without touch a pre-baked environment.

Or imagine sitting at a table and having virtual people sitting all around you, talking with you as if they were there.

The hololens is already really good at this, but has currently a limited field of view and is very expensive. It seems like the tech in Magic Leap has a much better FOV, and also much better effective resolution.

There's really room in the world for both things, VR and AR are kind of for different things. But like I said AR is really much more practical for most people and I think will thus be wildly more popular than VR has been.