Magic Leap is trying to build “an operating system for reality”

While Abovitz’s comment is certainly ambitious, he reportedly wasn’t prepared to share solid launch details about the device, including its release date, pricing, and the company’s own expectations for the kit. But Microsoft is hardly the first company to dive into augmented reality.

Magic Leap showed this video at the WSDJ Live conference in southern California this afternoon.

Magic Leap, a startup focused on augmented reality technology, wants to create “an operating system for reality”, according to CEO Rony Abovitz. At this point, it looks like Magic Leap, seemingly being the forerunner in the technology, is the only one that can answer that question.

On October 21st, 2015 – nearly exactly a year ago – Google led a $542 million investment in Magic Leap.

So, what is augmented reality? For example, imagine walking down the street and seeing arrows floating in mid air that direct your path, rather than having to glance down at Google Maps on your smartphone for guidance.

Whatever it is, Magic Leap has boasted that this “game changing” technology will “forever change the way we interact with images and information”. “But we’re not far”.

Mashable reported that Magic Leap posted a demonstration of its augmented reality system on YouTube. This is indeed the experience the company’s current prototype hardware offers, placing virtual objects in the user’s field of view that are incorporated with his or her physical surroundings.

Magic Leap is building a device that looks like eyeglasses which is capable of projecting computer-generated images on top of the real world. We were previously treated to a concept video that outlined the company’s plans for their head-mounted display (at least, we assume that it’s a HMD they’re developing), but it didn’t show us anything substantial in regards to what we should actually expect from the tech.

Magic Leap recently took over a portion of an old Motorola factory, at which it will build its first round of consumer and enterprise products.

During yesterday’s talk, Abovitz revealed that Magic Leap is no longer “in the research lab doing theoretical things”, but far out of the R&D stage and moving on to production phase.