Companies
Magic Leap CEO Teases ‘Golden Tickets’ for Augmented-Reality Device
By Issie Lapowsky
Wired
February 26, 2015 — Santa Cruz, CA
[Editor’s note: Magic Leap’s CEO Rony Abovitz did a Reddit AMA ask-me-anything thread on Feb 24 and answered many questions. There’s plenty of buzz on the internet about it. What follows is just one perspective.]
Magic Leap is ‘the only safe way forward’ for VR/AR dev, says CEO
Ever since Google, Qualcomm, and others poured $542 million into an augmented reality startup called Magic Leap, the tiny company has been one of the tech world’s most mysterious ventures. But according to Magic Leap CEO and founder Rony Abovitz, Magic Leap will soon pull back the curtain on its creation.
In a conversation on Reddit today, Abovitz told Redditors that Magic Leap is looking for ways to showcase its technology to the public before it launches. “Stay tuned,” Abovitz wrote, “gold tickets coming.”
Just how or when these sneak peeks might take place is still unclear, as are most details about Magic Leap’s technology. What we do know is that Magic Leap is creating what it calls “cinematic reality,” using head-mounted technology that lets users see virtual objects overlaid on the real world.
In this way, it’s a lot like Microsoft’s HoloLens. The difference, Abovitz said on Reddit, is that Magic Leap has come up with a new way to generate those virtual objects. It’s called digital light-field signal technology, and according to Abovitz, it is safer than any other product currently being developed.
“Our philosophy as a company (and my personal view) is to ‘leave no footprints’ in the brain,” he wrote, noting that other 3-D technology has a proven history of side effects, like nausea and headaches. He said that Magic Leap has been testing the safety of its product using many of the same methods he used for Mako Surgical, a surgical robotics company that sold to Stryker for $1.65 billion.
Continue reading original article here: http://www.wired.com/2015/02/magic-leap-reddit/
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Tagged Magic Leap, magicleap
