Google tosses cash wad into $500m Magic Leap tin – report

3D wearable firm working on 'cinematic reality' interface

Google is leading a sizeable funding round for mysterious “cinematic reality” firm Magic Leap, which is building hardware and software for what its chief exec describes as “the most natural and human-friendly wearable computing interface in the world”.

Is this the mysterious tech of Magic Leap? Credit: Magic Leap website

Sources told Re/code that Google is planning to contribute to Magic Leap’s attempt to get half a billion dollars in investments, with Andreessen Horowitz rumoured to be another of the investors.

This follows from a $50m venture capital funding round in February this year, which the firm used to “advance the product development and commercialisation of its proprietary human computing interface technology, known as Cinematic Reality”.

Other than that kind of marketing jargon, Magic Leap has been pretty secretive about exactly what it is that it’s working on, although it seems likely to be some sort of 3D virtual reality bit of kit.

Based on its website, the company is aiming to beam 3D images more directly into people's vision, without the aid of a larger interface like the Oculus Rift headset. Richard Taylor, board member at Magic Leap and co-founder of special effects firm Weta Workshop, said in a statement on the last investment round that the firm was “at the threshold of giving people a dynamic image interface that harmonises with their senses in a completely natural way”.

In a rare interview with the South Florida Business Journal, Magic Leap chief exec Rony Abovitz, who also co-founded surgical robotics firm Mako Surgical, said that the company was working on a new way for humans to interact with computers.

“We are a stealth company. We definitely need to keep it under wraps until it’s ready to go,” he said.

“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. 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,” he boasted.

In March, game designer Graeme Devine joined the firm and told Polygon that Magic Leap blew his initial scepticism away.

"They invited me out to Florida and I just wasn't interested. But they kept asking so I went out there and had lunch with the CEO. He was drawing pictures of black holes and deep physics on the paper napkins. I thought, this has been a waste of my time.

"Then I went to the offices and I saw something that I did not think was possible. I like to think I know technology and I am not easily impressed. I worked at Apple, but when I saw what they were doing, I just said, immediately, 'how can I help?'"

Abovitz’s previous venture, Mako Surgical, which he described as like bringing the Star Wars droids to life to help people in medicine, sold for $1.65bn.

If Magic Leap is working on a 3D wearable, it’s easy to see why Google might be interested, since that technology could be integrated into Google Glass. However, Google had not returned a request for comment at the time of publication. ®