– Rachel Metz, writing about Magic Leap for MIT Technology Review and explaining exactly what it actually is, and what separates it from other projects like Oculus and Sony’s Morpheus.
“Magic Leap had to come up with an alternative to stereoscopic 3-D – something that doesn’t disrupt the way you normally see things. As I see crisply rendered images of monsters, robots, and cadaver heads in Magic Leap’s offices, I can envision someday having a video chat with faraway family members who look as if they’re actually sitting in my living room while, on their end, I appear to be sitting in theirs. Or walking around New York City with a virtual tour guide, the sides of buildings overlaid with images that reveal how the structures looked in the past.
Or watching movies where the characters appear to be right in front of me, letting me follow them around as the plot unfolds. But no one really knows what Magic Leap might be best for. If the company can make its technology not only cool but comfortable and easy to use, people will surely dream up amazing applications.”
Last year Google invested half a billion dollars in Magic Leap, as well as hiring Neal Stephenson as their ‘Chief Futurist’, with Stephenson stating: “I sometimes feel that the creative minds who make games have done about as much as is possible in two dimensions. It feels like the right time to give those people a new medium: one in which three-dimensionality is a reality and not just an illusion.”