Magic Leap, the secretive mixed reality startup, has announced that its Magic Leap One Creator Edition will be shipping in 2018 as the company is “adding another dimension to computing” with a platform “built for creators who want to change how we experience the world.”
Those lofty goals could very well have an impact on the sports viewing experience. As part of its campaign revealing the Magic Leap One, the company showcased an image of how watching multiple winter sports events at once can be transformative. Pictured is a household in which four screens are virtually imposed so that hockey, ski jumping and curling can be seen all at once. There’s a virtual ski jumping venue model on the floor, and off to the side are ski jumping stats and a leaderboard.
As Magic Leap describes what it’s going to launch, it’s all about “where digital respects the physical. And they work together to make life better.”
According to the company, the head-mounted display is “engineered to be lightweight and comfortable for hours of exploration.” It has Digital Lightfield technology that generates digital light at different depths to blend with natural light so that digital objects are more lifelike, “making it comfortable to use for long periods of time.”
The platform enables room-mapping technology that “builds a digital replica of your physical environment – detecting and storing the precise location of walls, surfaces and other physical objects.” So that virtual TV of winter sports events? It can be placed on the wall over the fireplace, and according to the company, when you return later, the TV will be right where you left it.
The system also includes six degrees of freedom and audio that’s natural and mimics the real world. There’s going to be voice, gesture, head pose and eye tracking along with haptic feedback. It remains to be seen what it all enables creators and users to do.
Golden State Warriors player Andre Iguodala, a tech investor, seemed sold on Magic Leap after getting a sneak peak and putting on what he described as sunglasses.
“They want to do some things in sports,” Iguodala told CNET’s Brian Tong.
“This would be you control everything with your eyes. Even if you move your eyes, things will move with it. You can shoot something and turn off the lights, turn off the heat, turn off the oven, turn it on, pre-heat it. So it’s a smart home, but at the same time, I could throw an 80-inch screen TV on the wall.”