In the 2010s, Magic Leap was one of the most hyped augmented reality companies, with massive amounts of funding, including from Google. When the Magic Leap One headset launched in 2018, it was not the technological breakthrough in display technology that was once teased. Magic Leap has persisted since then, and has now signed a “multi-faceted, strategic technology partnership” with Google.
Announced today, Google says it is interested in “Magic Leap’s leadership in optics and manufacturing.” That will be “combined” with unspecified Google technologies and platforms, with the goal of bringing a “wider range of immersive experiences to market.”
This is all quite vague, with possibilities ranging from Magic Leap using Android XR and getting access to AR services to Google wanting Magic Leap’s display technology and manufacturing capability for headset or glasses hardware it might be working on.
Here’s what Magic Leap says it can do with optics and manufacturing today, while it continues to sell the Magic Leap 2 (launched in mid-2022) to enterprise customers. It’s most akin to Microsoft HoloLens with a true transparent display that overlays graphics over your line of sight. There’s a separate battery/compute pack that connects to the headset.
According to Reuters, Google said its partnership with Samsung is not impacted by the Magic Leap deal.
Android XR was not announced at I/O 2024, while the AR news was focused on bringing virtual experiences to Google Maps. According to the latest rumors, Google is not working on its own pair of smart glasses and pursuing an OEM partner model, like it’s doing with Samsung on headsets. This was before the hardware layoffs in January that impacted Google’s first-party augmented reality hardware team.
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