The Android XR floodgates finally cracked open this month with the debut of Samsung’s Galaxy XR headset, but glasses are what we’re all excited for. Google has now announced that its partnership with Magic Leap has been extended for the sake of bringing Android XR glasses to market.
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In the 2010s, Magic Leap was one of the most hyped augmented reality companies, with massive amounts of funding, including from Google. When the Magic Leap One headset launched in 2018, it was not the technological breakthrough in display technology that was once teased. Magic Leap has persisted since then, and has now signed a “multi-faceted, strategic technology partnership” with Google.
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Magic Leap is one of the most hyped augmented reality efforts today, and likely the best-funded startup. Its first headset shipped in August 2018, and a new report today pegs Magic Leap One shipments as not hitting sales targets.
Magic Leap unveiled its first product late last year and in recent months detailed how to develop apps for the “spatial computing” platform. Today, the Florida company revealed pricing for the Magic Leap One Creator Edition, with the augmented or “mixed reality” headset shipping today in certain parts of the country.
Following years of teasing, Magic Leap has finally unveiled its first product and detailed more about its takes on augmented reality. The Google-backed startup has amassed massive amounts of funding, as well as content partnerships, since its 2010 founding.
Today, it introduced a developer kit called the Magic Leap One Creator Edition.
For the past several years, Magic Leap’s augmented reality device has been fervently anticipated due to the various claims made about the company’s technology. However, as 2017 ends, the startup has yet to unveil a product, though a new report today details one app that showcases Magic Leap’s capabilities.
For the past year, Magic Leap has been widely assumed a possible “next big thing” in the tech startup world partly thanks to investments from big players like Google and splashy marketing videos. It now appears that some of those demos were made by a special effects company and that the first consumer product may not be all too different from currently available devices, like Microsoft’s HoloLens.
The Information details all of this and more in a massive new report about the highly-secretive company, and even had a chance to speak to former employees and Magic Leap’s current CEO Rony Abovitz.
In 2014, Google led a $542 million investment in Magic Leap. Even though the augmented reality startup is now valued at $4.5 billion, there are still no concrete details about its technology. A patent filing (via QZ) today, however, might just provide the first glimpse into what Magic Leap’s headset actually looks like.
Google-backed Magic Leap has uploaded a fresh demo of its head-mounted VR (technically AR) on YouTube, and gives us hope that Microsoft’s HoloLens won’t have the augmented reality market all to itself.
Two weeks ago, a report claimed that Google is forming its own VR division, with Clay Bavor (former VP of Gmail and Drive) in charge of the new focus on virtual reality. Now, two job listings have shown up indicating Google isn’t just really interested in VR as a concept, it wants to build its own hardware too.
Google has posted VR job listings for a Hardware Engineering Technical Lead Manager as well as a PCB Layout Engineer. Both of these job listings specifically mention Virtual Reality in the main job roles, and also mention consumer devices, suggesting Google wants to launch its own VR hardware for the general consumer.
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UploadVR reports that Magic Leap has poached Jeff Gattis, the global marketing head of HTC’s Vive, a virtual reality headset expected to ship by the end of the year.
Comments made by Gattis add fuel to speculation that Magic Leap’s own VR headset is close to launch, but also suggest that it is significantly more advanced than the HTC product he’s been pushing for the past eight months …
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Reports surfaced last week suggesting that Google was in talks to invest in secure messaging startup Symphony, and a new report out Monday morning (via Re/code) suggests that the company is about to announce $100 million in funding raised in a recent round from several investors including — as was reported — the Mountain View company…
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Google invested $542 million in virtual reality startup Magic Leap last year, and the group is reportedly working on putting together an augmented reality headset capable of displaying extremely realistic images directly onto the user’s retina. Now, Magic Leap has shared a video (which they were planning on sharing during a TED talk, but were unable to), and it gives us a little glimpse of what the group has been working on…
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Chardan Capital Markets analyst Jay Srivatsa believes that a combination of two Google investment decisions could signal that the company is planning to take “a different direction” with Google Glass, reports StreetInsider.
Srivatsa noted that Google had decided against further investment in Himax, a company specialising in controllers for conventional head-mounted micro-displays, at the same time as investing in virtual reality startup Magic Leap …
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