Magic Leap is an American startup company that is working on a head-mounted virtual retinal display, called Magic Leap One, which superimposes 3D computer-generated imagery over real-world objects, by “projecting a digital light field into the user’s eye”, involving technologies potentially suited to applications in augmented reality and computer vision. It is attempting to construct a light-field chip using silicon photonics.

MagicLeap had created a lot of buzz around it while it remained in Stealth for a large part of its existence. The company is probably the only startup to be valued at over USD 6.3 billion without even releasing a single product to the public.

So far the company has raised over USD 2.3 Billion according to CrunchBase from investors like Google, Alibaba & Axel Ventures.

Recently, magicleap finally revealed a developer version of its headset called MagicLeap One.

How does it Work?

MagicLeap comes with a headset with sensors which is attached to a small “Lightpack”. The Lightpack houses the battery and other electronic circuits used by the MagiLeap headset. The setup also includes a handheld device much like a remote which can be used to interact with the elements of the Augmented Reality world.

The LightPack packs NVIDIA® Parker SOC; 2 Denver 2.0 64-bit cores + 4 ARM Cortex A57 64-bit cores CPUs and NVIDIA Pascal™ GPU with 256 CUDA cores. It also has 8GB RAM.

These specification might change, as this is just a developer version. We at least hope so as the device is prices at a whopping USD 2295.

MagicLeap has been publishing these insane looking videos which have served well in keeping up the hype. Have a look at these “From the future” videos:

A lot of apps and games have already been released on MagicLeap such MagicGarden, Invaders etc. You can see the entire list of experiences here: https://www.magicleap.com/experiences

Magic Garden:

Here is a live Gameplay of Invaders on MagicLeap:

MagicLeap is certainly different from HoloLens and other AR headsets but by not a lot. The field of view is still limited and doesn’t really give you a wide field of view. These are just some feedbacks from early users and MagicLeap is yet to release a consumer version of its headset.

MagicLeap has also released “Lumin SDK” with tutorials on how to get started. You can join Magic Leap Creator to learn how make apps & games on the headset.

So far VR headsets such as Sony Playstation VR & Oculus Rift have had only limited success. What do you guys think, let us know in comments.

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