- News broke this morning that Google, alongside a number of venture capital firms, led a $542 million investment in a mysterious startup named Magic Leap. The company is promising to "build a rocket ship for the mind" that will completely reinvent the way we experience the world. Founder Rony Abovitz calls his technology "cinematic reality" and says it goes way beyond what virtual or augmented reality have so far been able to accomplish.
There are very few details about the technology or examples of it in action. There is, however, this completely surreal video of a TED Talk that Abovitz gave in Sarasota, Florida in January of 2013. Neon ape-men, giant candy bar totems, and a soundtrack from 2001 A Space Odyssey. It's a thrilling glimpse inside the madcap mind of the man Google believes is building the future of computing.
theadvancedapes, -This seems like something you would be knowledgable about. Do you know anything about Rony Abovitz or "Magic Leap?"
I've never heard of Magic Leap, but after analysing their website I think they are hitting on exactly what I have been thinking about lately. The era of incredible computational capabilities is here and I think everyone (including developers and companies) are confused about what to do with it (e.g., iWatch). I have no idea what exactly Magic Leap is doing, but if they are focused on creativity and imagination, I'm on board with them. I think these are the areas we need to focus on. We need to bring back magic and empower individual experience. I also think, deeper into the future, that the real transformative breakthroughs will come at the intersection of psychedelic medicines (e.g., ayahausca, DMT) and nanotechnology. There are clearly properties of the human mind that we have yet to explore hardly at all. If such simple chemical compounds can literally blow your mind into a new universe, who knows what types of worlds within our own minds could be unleashed via the application of nanotechnology. They say a little about their projects here. And this line wins me over:exploring human creativity is as great an adventure as exploring space.