14 DAY TRIAL // Google and several others are looking to invest in the next big virtual reality company, Magic Leap, who builds hardware and software to deliver “cinematic reality.”
Re/Code reports that unnamed sources indicate that Google will be leading what could be a $500 million (€393.5 million) funding round for the company. It seems like Andreessen Horowitz may be one of the other investors chipping in with some cash for the Florida company.
Magic Leap has received $50 million (€39.35 million) in funding earlier this year, but there’s been little information about the company and its activities until recently, as it has kept a low profile.
Stating that “it’s time to bring magic back into the world,” the company wants to make technology “mindbogglingly awesome.” On that note, it states that most of us know that a world with dragons and unicorns, elves and fairies is just a better world, wondering what would happen if we used technology to bring magic back into the world.
The company is led by CEO Rony Abovitz, who previously co-founded a company specialized in surgical robotics, which sold for $1.65 billion. Abovitz says that Magic Leap is working on what they believe will be the most natural and human-friendly wearable computing interface in the world.
Cinematic reality is different from “virtual reality”
Details about exactly what the company is doing are scarce, but it seems like they may be looking to deliver a device that’s similar to Oculus Rift and other 3D headsets, which are becoming increasingly popular these days. Facebook has acquired Oculus VR earlier this year for $2 billion (€1.57 billion), much to everyone’s surprise considering that Facebook doesn’t really seem like a company that could do much with such a device.
“Those are old terms – virtual reality, augmented reality. They have legacy behind them. They are associated with things that didn’t necessarily deliver on a promise or live up to expectations. We have the term ‘cinematic reality’ because we are disassociated with those things. When you see this, you will see that this is computing for the next 30 or 40 years. To go farther and deeper than we’re going, you would be changing what it means to be human,” Abovitz said earlier this year, which is a very interesting statement.
This means that Magic Leap might be looking into bringing super high resolution images right in front of your face, Re/Code estimates, which could be projected onto people’s eyes from some sort of glasses.