Google Leaps on Virtual Reality "Magic"

Paul has a new best friend. She’s beautiful, smart, and is always available to hang out. She treats Paul kindly and has never asked for anything in return.

Even better, she shares Paul’s every interest. From music to restaurants to literature, Paul and his new friend are always in agreement. They never argue, and she even roots for all the same sports teams as Paul despite being from out of state.

In Paul’s eyes, everything about his new friend is perfect. From everyone else’s perspective, though, she isn’t even real.

Paul has created what we all know as an imaginary friend — which, by today’s standards, makes him certifiably insane.

But Paul doesn’t live in 2014; he lives in the year 2020. By the standards of his time, Paul is actually just like everybody else.

Augmenting Reality

We all know a friend like Paul’s is simply too good to be true. People are imperfect, and relationships take work. There’s just no such thing as a one-way street… in reality.

But just because Paul’s friend can’t exist in the real world doesn’t mean she can’t exist at all. In fact, if the world’s largest tech firms of today have their way, each and every one of us may soon have a friend like Paul’s. And that would be just the beginning.

According to a variety of sources this week, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is planning to lead what could be a $500 million funding round for mysterious augmented reality company Magic Leap.

Very little is known about Magic Leap right now, but it’s boasting about its ability to deliver “cinematic reality” that can create a realistic 3D experience unlike anything we’ve seen before. Think beautiful holograms projected into real space.

Magic Leap is led by CEO Rony Abovitz, co-founder of MAKO Surgical Corp. — a surgical robotics company that sold to Stryker Corporation (NYSE: SYK) last year for $1.65 billion. He boldly states that Magic Leap is creating “the most natural and human-friendly wearable computing interface in the world.”

But Abovitz doesn’t want the company to be associated with the terms “augmented” or “virtual reality,” stating:

“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.”

That’s a lot to back up for a company that hasn’t yet shown its product to the public. But if its technology can produce what it’s teasing, Magic Leap could dramatically change the way we see and interact with the world.

Exactly what Magic Leap will do and how is unknown, but we can make a few assumptions based on what the company has so far released to the public.

Abovitz has told us this is a wearable device, and one of the company’s patent applications reads, “A three-dimensional image visualization system, comprising a selectively transparent projection device for projecting an image toward an eye of a viewer… the projection device being capable of assuming a substantially transparent state when no image is projected.”

Based on this information, it’s almost certain the company’s technology will project 3D images into the real world using some kind of clear glasses display.

Judging by the images provided on Magic Leap’s website and further patent information, these images will be incredibly high resolution and will be shown at various angles and depths depending on your focus:

“The projection device is configured to project the image toward the eye in a collimated form such that the depth of focus for the eye of the viewer is an infinite depth of focus.” Also, “[The device] comprises [a] high-resolution mini projector.”

The speculation here, of course, is that Google plans to integrate Magic Leap into its Google Glass project, although neither Magic Leap nor Google have publicly announced a connection between the two devices yet.

In any case, it’s quite clear the big dogs in tech are betting big on wearable glasses and augmented/virtual reality. Facebook closed its acquisition of Oculus Rift in July for $2 billion, and now Google is following suit with Magic Leap.

Google’s acquisition is arguably the better purchase. Not only did Google snag Magic Leap for a quarter of the price, but the technology would be far more useful in a real-world context. Oculus Rift removes you from reality completely. Magic Leap adds to it.

The fact is, no one wants to walk around with this on his face.

Not only does Oculus make you look ridiculous, but it also makes you completely blind to reality. Transparent glasses and augmented reality, however, are a completely different story.

A Real Virtual Assistant

Getting back to Paul and his imaginary friend, this is where Magic Leap shines: the ability to project characters into the real world.

Think about virtual assistants like Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana. They can’t hang out on your desk while you work. They can’t point you in the right direction while you’re driving. They can’t dance. They can’t smile. They simply can’t exist in the physical world.

At least not yet.

If you combine a program like Siri with visually augmented reality, you get a true virtual assistant — a sort of imaginary friend that isn’t actually in your imagination at all. How incredibly cool would that be?

Then there are all the games that could be played using a “cinematic reality” platform. Hordes of zombies invading your neighborhood? No problem. A basketball court on your front lawn? On it!

Oh, and I won’t even go into the applications for the porn industry. You can use your imagination there.

Do I think we’re going to see this kind of technology next year? Definitely not.

By the end of the decade? Yeah, it’s gonna happen.

Until next time,

Jason Stutman

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