Gadgetory

you're seeing something that feels glowing and ghostly and especially the particles begin to really feel like they're they're you you can't see everywhere but when you when it comes into your view of things kind of slowly drift in we're outside Fort Lauderdale Florida and magic leaps headquarters magic leaps technology has been a mystery to this point but Here I am wearing magically one magically didn't allow us to show you what we saw through the headset though and we're upset about that because the reality of magic leaves technology has already been under scrutiny I was able to demo the headset for over half an hour experiencing a variety of apps games and some launch experiences that'll be available on the device I'll try to explain what I saw to the best of my ability there's definitely awareness of where my hands are first let's look at the headset the metrically boynes headset kind of looks pretty steampunk and it has circular lenses and inside have little displays if you can make them out that are using lightful technology that creates those holographic projections that I like to see the real world and see things projected on top of it there are speakers inside in the band which handle 3d audio and pretty well done actually the only thing I've tried that's been like that has been oculus go but this is projecting in a room while you're still listening to everything else that's in the room yeah the sound is very seamless to the position of things and it actually really helps find where things are so I'm finding as I move around cues to where I need to look start happening in audio and then I know that maybe something's over there that I might have missed the band is adjustable and it angles up a bit but it actually felt pretty comfortable to wear the cameras that are studded all throughout here these are mostly for spatial tracking this has an ability to mesh up and map the world around you to a degree that I haven't seen in any other headset it did a really impressive job of tracking walls floor and furnitures in the demo rooms that I testing it in to be able to get that map and then to be able to lay her 3d effect so they can actually hide behind some things if they wanted to or rest on top of them now it's supposed to be able to remember that mesh so that when you come back there later you can still use that space and even set apps up to work in that space this is corded down to a wearable pack this is where the processor and the battery are this has an Nvidia processor inside the handle graphics it has a heat vent and it's basically a wearable PC this is the controller and if you've used VR this is pretty familiar in terms of the ability to have full tracking a touchpad here a home button a trigger a second button over here and also haptic so this vibrates a bit when you use it it also a six degree of freedom tracking so it's a step up from other one controller headsets in VR so this also has the ability to work in combination with things like hand gestures and motions so magically one notices where your hands are and a lot of apps don't even need to use the control at all I'm creating a vortex out of my hands that's drifting and becoming this sparkling I mean the best way I could describe it is that everything is definitely around me but you're seeing ghostly layers that are living along alongside with you and right now the music just disappeared into a little black hole okay forgive the weird descriptive beat poetry I'm trying the sigur rós musical AR app - nandi which creates music in a sort of undersea forest air is hard to explain much like microsoft hololens magically projects as 3d illusions into the real world but has a limited field of view magic leap wouldn't let us record what I got to see and experience through the headset but the company did make its own videos for some of the apps it represents the graphic level of what I tried pretty well but keep in mind that what I saw was all in 3d and the viewing area where the field of view is far narrower than what you see here it's more like seeing ghosts through a small window I can still see my entire room but having virtual things and only part of my vision can disrupt the illusion I also got to try magic lips create app which is an art toolkit that allowed me to paint in the air and also drop dinosaurs and knights and other cartoon things and have them run around the room also this headset didn't work with my glasses I needed contacts and anyone who tries it will need special prescription lenses to pop into it I wear glasses and so they were kind enough in the demo version that I saw today to take into account my prescription but that will be the same for other people who are buying this headset when it comes out and if you're wondering how it feels and fits on your head I have to say it's pretty good they spent a lot of time figuring out the weight distribution so it slides over your head and you pull out on the back to adjust to your head size and you wear it tilted up and if you've tried other VR gear you know that it can be very heavy in the front and pull your head down a little bit and that's not what happens here they actually are gonna have two sizes of this headset based on the distribution of how far your eyes are set apart and they also take into account that the bridge of your nose which is where this is going to sit it's different for everyone and that addresses the comfort issue so we'll have five different inserts that you can choose and that will be fitted to suit you when you get your headset so how do we feel well it's a lot to take in and I really wish that I had been able to share a lot of what that looked like with you that's the hardest part with any of these experiences so when you can't do that then you're left for counting it the experiences I had I can tell you I was shooting robots that were sprouting from a wall kind of like early hololens demos that I tried years ago but this time with better graphics the better sound and with a controller that was able to morph into a gun it seems like every major tech player has aspirations for AR magiclip one might be the most complete hardware at the moment but it feels extremely experimental a bit of a magic step forward not a leap