The launch of the Magic Leap One Creator Edition mixed reality (MR) headset was met with an ambivalent reception from users. Many analysts were critical of the device, saying its technology didn’t justify the hype that the company had used to promote its product. The Magic Leap conference, called LEAP Con, was aimed at showing what could be possible in the future with the Magic Leap technology.
LEAP is an acronym that stands of ‘learn, engage, accelerate and program.’ and was the first developers conference for Magic Leap. The focus was very much on potential, though there were plenty of demonstrations and talks on what is currently possible with Magic Leap technology.
Magic Leap founder Rony Abovitz delivered a keynote where he talked up the potential of Magic Leap and its mixed reality technology, something that the company refers to as ‘spatial computing’. He spoke of how spatial computing, and therefore MR, is a new medium that has the potential to be built to avoid the problems experiences by other platforms, including abuse and lack of diversity and representation.
Later on, Abovitz returned to the stage alongside science fiction author, and Magic Leap chief futurist Neal Stephenson as well as Senior Vice President of Creative Strategy, John Gaeta. The three then covered the vision the company has for something it refers to as the ‘Magicverse’, which is described as a virtual destination, which the company hopes will someday be home to vast, city-scale projects.
The idea was brought up of different virtual ‘layers’, which one layer potentially like an overlay that acted like a re-skin of a town or city, where other layers could be entertainment areas, or communications and public utilities.
The flagship demonstration was called Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders, a joint project between Weta Workshop and Magic Leap, which was a shoot-em-up where alien robots emerged from portals to be shot.
Details on the technical work that Magic Leap is working on remained scarce, but the conference proves it is still trying to move forward.
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via Mint VR