Magic Leap made headlines after closing a financing round of over half a billion dollars last year. Just in case you wonder what you can do with that amount of cash, the company has uploaded the following video to give us all a hint of what to expect.
The video shows a first person shooting game playing out right in your office or living room. It seems you will have to buy your weapon of choice in the real world, which may make your boss look at you in disbelief unless you have a home office. The game recognizes various objects and weapons, putting them into the game play, just as you expect from an augmented reality platform.
In addition, the video gives a look at the potential user interface that relies on hand gesture.This seems to work pretty well by using hand movements to operate menus and select objects. While this will work well for starting a game that one will most likely play while alone, answering a phone call by punching the air may add to the social awkwardness which augmented reality hardware is already charged with.
One of the remaining questions is how close this game is to reality today? Magic Leap claims that it is already playing the game around its office. Also Magic leap is hiring a massive number of people in the hardware as well as software field at the moment. At the time of writing this article, the company is looking to hire around 100 people.
The game seems to come from Weta Workshop, a special effects producer based in New Zealand. The company has quite a reputation working for some very large and successful cinema productions. The relationship with Magic Leap goes back to 2013 when they published a very cryptic message of a cooperation between Magi Leap, Stardog and Weta Workshop in the field of cinematic reality. – NH
