Magic Leap Announce Avatar Chat And Two-Controller Support At L.E.A.P Conference

During the recent Magic Leap developer conference entitled L.E.A.P, the company provided a look at the software roadmap of their mixed reality (MR) headset for the next half of the year. Within were a number of small announcements that will see a number of interest and helpful additions coming to the Magic Leap One. This includes a new avatar chat application along with improved controller options to name a few.

Magic Leap One Reveal

As reported by venturebeat, the new Avatar Chat application allows multiple users the chance to talk and interest with each other within a shared 3D space. It looks like it will be launching in three stages with the first being Remote Casting, where one user will be able to sit in a shared environment with another use. Both users will be represented with cartoon style avatars and they will be able to talk, move around the virtual space and share emojis. This experience will offer a more compelling way to communicate over a standard audio or video chat.

Sometime in the future following the initial release, Avatar Chat will allow up to three participants the chance to share the 3D space followed by the option to allow users to customize their avatar for a more personal experience. Having a chat application built directly into the software will be a big benefit to a number of users and allow them to interact with each other with ease and in a more human way.

Magic Leap One Lightwear 2

To help support this and in response to feedback, Magic Leap are planning to make a number of improvements over the next six months to their controls. In the first quarter of 2019, Magic Leap will add two-controller support to LuminOS along with support for six degree-of-freedom (6DoF) controller tracking coming to the platform in the future as well. These will improve the options users have to control their experiences with developers able to leverage the new features to build bigger and better projects.

Both the Avatar Chat application and the new improvements to the controls are part of Magic Leap’s plan to continue to support and develop their software to ensure users have the best experience possible. For all the latest on Magic Leap in the future, keep reading VRFocus.