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Google investing in Magic Leap to deliver cinematic reality [Big News Network (United Arab Emirates)](Big News Network (United Arab Emirates) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) WASHINGTON - Internet search engine giant Google Inc is joining other investors in infusing about $500 million investment in Magic Leap, a Florida-based company building hardware and software that it claims will deliver "cinematic reality", technology website Re/Code said, citing sources. Google is leading the funding round for the company in which venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is also participating, the website cited sources as saying. Google, Andreessen Horowitz and Magic Leap spokesperson declined to comment. In July, Silicon Valley-based Google Ventures launched a $100 million fund devoted to nurturing promising tech startups in Europe. Magic Leap, which has generally kept a low profile till recently, has already announced $50 million in funding earlier this year. It has been drawing increasing interest from Hollywood and Silicon Valley. CEO Rony Abovitz, who previously co-founded a surgical robotics company that sold for $1.65 billion, has said the company is working on "what we believe will be the most natural and human-friendly wearable computing interface in the world," but has kept it mostly behind wraps. Before starting Magic Leap, Abovitz was the co-founder and head of development and technology for MAKO Surgical, which is engaged in human-interactive robotics for orthopedic surgery. Abovitz and Magic Leap have hinted that they're working on delivering a more realistic 3-D experience than the kind offered by current technologies, including Oculus Rift, the 3-D headset. In March, Facebook had acquired Oculus VR, the makers of the virtual reality headset Oculus Rift, for $2 billion. On Oculus Rift and pretty much every other virtual and augmented reality experience, what the viewer sees is flat and floating in space at a set distance. What Magic Leap is trying to do is create an illusion of a real 3-D object on top of the real world. "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," Abovitz told the South Florida Business Journal earlier this year. "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." Magic Leap will show you super-high-resolution images right in front of your face, probably by projecting them onto your eye from some sort of glasses. There will be different angles and depths that you can see when you adjust your focus. It seems Magic Leap could combine virtual objects with the real world so they are more immersive communicative - Magic Leap calls this "a 3-D light sculpture" and "a rocketship for the mind." Nvidia , the MIT Media Lab, and startups like Avegant are also working on vivid high resolution displays via a projector worn on the face though for the purpose of watching movies, not augmenting reality. "Our goal is simple: we want to invest in the best ideas from the best European entrepreneurs, and help them bring those ideas to life," Google Ventures managing partner Bill Maris said (c) 2014 Big News Network. All rights reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |