It’s been a long time coming, but after nearly three years, Magic Leap has finally unveiled their One augmented reality headset— dubbed the ‘Creator Edition.’
The head-mounted alternate reality platform consists of a pair of oversized Lightwear goggles, a portable CD player-looking external computer known as Lightpack, and a handheld controller. The headset is purported to use the company’s ‘Digital Lightfield’ display technology, complete with multiple sensors for spatial awareness.
The Lightpack supposedly packs enough top hardware to rival an Alienware gaming PC or MacBook Pro. This, of course, is in conjunction with another low-powered PC housed in the goggles themselves, which has some machine-learning capabilities (unknown as to what those are and why they are using them). Rounding out the Lightware goggles are four built-in microphones, six external cameras and a pair of speakers— a setup which sounds an awful lot like Microsoft’s HoloLens mixed reality headset.
The Creator Edition was designed for developers, will come with an SDK for building apps, and has a launch point sometime in 2018. It’s important to note that most of the vague information on the One doesn’t come directly from Magic Leap but rather from a Rolling Stone hands-on article about the platform. The only information coming directly from Magic Leap is the device’s capabilities, which include interaction with 3D objects, playing 3D games, the ability to open multiple screens for work and entertainment and exploring the web.
According to Rolling Stone, the One will come in two different goggle sizes with an option for customizing the forehead, nose and temple pads. Additionally, Magic Leap is currently looking into providing prescription glasses for the headset. There’s no word on price yet or the exact hardware details but considering that Magic Leap has raised over $1.9-billion in investments, it should be the most excellent AR platform to hit the market yet. We’ll just have to wait and see!
