magic leap one – Page 3 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

November 26, 2019

Stormland Dev Insomniac Games Release Strangelets for Magic Leap One

Insomniac Games will soon no longer be an independent studio thanks to its acquisition by Sony Worldwide Studios. Before that happens the developer released Oculus Rift exclusive Stormland earlier this month. And today the studio has announced another, this time for Magic Leap with Strangelets.

Strangelets

The title is in fact a sequel to 2018’s Seedling, with Insomniac Games taking the lessons learnt from that first experience and expanding them into Strangelets. The story goes that players have to confront the effects of “The Schmelling Incident,” a catastrophic cosmic event that served as the catalyst for Seedling’s story. As such, they’ll find the Incident has caused alien creatures from across the galaxy to become trapped in pockets between dimensions.

So gameplay revolves around finding dimensional rifts, rescuing these alien creatures then looking after them by using harvested energy from real-world objects. As you do so you’ll be able to build a collection of these lovable creatures.

Insomniac Games has created its own proprietary tech for Strangelets, experimenting with news to use spatial computing. Gameplay is affected by a players real-world time and weather as they nurture, grow and customize alien plant life forms.

strangelets

“After the launch of Seedling, our small team of spatial computing pioneers were more inspired than ever by the potential of this new platform. We were ready to dive headfirst into our next experimental experience and to continue collaborating with our passionate partners at Magic Leap. Our goal moving forward was to build on lessons learned from Seedling and to venture into new territories of spatial computing not yet experienced by players,” said Nathaniel Bell, Creative Director for Strangelets and Seedling in a statement.

Strangelets is the second videogame announced for Magic Leap One this week, the other being detective experience Glimt: The Vanishing at the Grand Starlight Hotel by Resolution Games. But while the latter is still months away from launch, if you own a Magic Leap One device then you can download Strangelets today from Magic Leap World.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Insomniac Games and Magic Leap, especially as the former heads into new territory as a Sony studio.

November 21, 2019

Detective Game Glimt Will be Resolution Games’ Second for Magic Leap

Last year Resolution Games diversified into augmented reality (AR) with Angry Birds FPS: First Person Slingshot for Magic Leap One. Thanks to the Magic Leap Independent Creator Programme the studio has just announced its next project, an original IP called Glimt: The Vanishing at the Grand Starlight Hotel.

Glimt Teaser

The videogame is a detective mystery filled with psychic powers, magic and of course a little murder. Glimt: The Vanishing at the Grand Starlight Hotel looks to take place in the early 20th Century, with you taking on the role of a psychic detective. “New puzzle elements encourage players to think outside the box to solve a crime by using his or her psychic tools and abilities to fill in the gaps during the course of the investigation,” explains a brief synopsis.

“Our upcoming game taps the imagination like no other AR game we’ve made or even seen before, immersing players in a fantastical world of make believe,” stated Tommy Palm, CEO of Resolution Games in a statement. “This will be our third true AR title, and we are excited to be continuing our path of exploring how games can fully leverage the full spectrum of head-mounted AR’s inherent qualities. We can’t wait to share more details and release it to the community.”

Further details regarding locations, psychic powers and storyline have yet to be revealed. Resolution Games will be doing so in the coming months.

Angry Birds: First Person Slingshot

While this is Resolution Games’ second title for Magic Leap, the studio also released AR videogame Angry Birds AR: Isle of Pigs for both iOS and Android devices. When Glimt: The Vanishing at the Grand Starlight Hotel does arrive it’ll be the tenth immersive experience the studio has released. The most recent was local multiplayer Acron: Attack of the Squirrels featuring one player in virtual reality (VR) with up to eight others playing on mobile devices.

The studio is probably best known for its 2015 fishing title Bait! which supports most headsets and offers a casual angling experience. VRFocus will continue its coverage of the studio and Glimt: The Vanishing at the Grand Starlight Hotel, reporting back with further updates.

September 7, 2019

Magic Leap Teams With Brainlab, SyncThink, And XRHealth For Medical AR

Magic Leap’s $2,300 spatial computing platform Magic Leap One may be too expensive for most consumers, but like other early augmented reality devices, enterprise users with bigger pocketbooks are embracing its potential as a business tool. One particularly promising category is health care, where Magic Leap says it’s now collaborating with at least five different companies to bring its hardware into labs, clinics, and even hospital operating rooms.

On the surgical side, German medical technology company Brainlab is working with Magic Leap on a collaborative 3D spatial viewer for Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) content, enabling clinicians to work together when viewing medical images. Brainlab’s software could, for example, let a doctor and radiologist talk through multiple brain scans before a surgical procedure, or enable a surgeon to rely on a heads-up display of scanned imagery while performing a procedure.

Another brain-focused initiative involves SyncThink, a company that uses eye tracking analytics to help diagnose patients’ concussions and balance disorders. Having worked with Magic Leap One for the last year, SyncThink hopes to make it “the gold standard in brain health assessment” by letting doctors use the platform’s collection of sensors to easily determine what wearers are seeing and experiencing.

On the patient side, XRHealth (formerly VRHealth) is working to bring a therapeutic platform called ARHealth to Magic Leap, offering users rehabilitation, pain distraction, psychological assessment, and cognitive training tools. Unlike the prior solutions, which one would use at a doctor’s office, the ARHealth tools will let patients analyze and quantify their own results, then pass the information back to their doctors.

Magic Leap also says that it’s working with the Dan Marino Foundation on a tool to help young adults with autism spectrum disorder practice for in-person job interviews, and creating a virtual person-based medical training application for the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. The company expects to leverage its partnership with AT&T to incorporate 5G, AI, and edge computinginto future Magic Leap-based medical solutions, enabling low-latency collaboration and co-presence, among other benefits.

This post by Jeremy Horwitz originally appeared on VentureBeat.

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August 1, 2019

BBC Earth Is Bringing A New AR Experience To Magic Leap

BBC’s next immersive experience won’t be appearing on the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive; it’s coming to Magic Leap One.

The organization today announced BBC Earth – Micro Kingdoms: Senses for the AR headset. Developed by Preloaded and BBC Studios, the experience will use the AR headset to digitally project micro habitats from the natural world into your living room.

Imagine, for example, placing an ant colony on your coffee table. According to a press release, the experience will reveal “the invisible senses” that make these habitats function. We don’t have any footage to show just yet, but it sounds like it could be a pretty intriguing use of AR tech. Imagine a David Attenborough-style documentary where you could lean in and inspect creatures and environments in close detail without the risk of upsetting them.

Preloaded also worked with the BBC on the excellent Life in VR app for Google Daydream. The team also worked on one of Within’s AR experiences, A Brief History Of Amazing Stunts. This latest experience is being developed under Magic Leaps’ Independent Creator Program. It’s designed to provide funding and mentorship to those looking to get into AR development. Another experience developed under the initiative, PuzzlAR, released last week.

Micro Kingdoms will be hitting Magic Leap later this year. For now, Magic Leap’s headset remains as a Creator Edition, mainly intended for developers. There’s still no word on when a more consumer-focused headset might be released. With the help of the Independent Creator Program, though, Magic Leap hopes to establish a thriving ecosystem for when it does.

The post BBC Earth Is Bringing A New AR Experience To Magic Leap appeared first on UploadVR.

July 25, 2019

Magic Leap Software Update Adds Hand Occlusion, Shared Space Multiplayer

A major software update for the Magic Leap One adds support for hand occlusion and shared space multiplayer.

Hand Occlusion

The last update to Magic Leap One added skeletal hand tracking, meaning developers can retrieve the position of each joint in space.

Today’s update adds a full hand mesh. This lets developers add hand occlusion so objects will render behind the hand, instead of always in front. This should significantly enhance the realism of virtual objects in the headset.

Developers can also use the hand as a surface on which objects can be placed.

Depending on the tracking quality, this should bring the Magic Leap One’s interaction capabilities more in line with Microsoft’s HoloLens 2.

Multiplayer

The update also makes “cloud Map Merge” available to all developers who have purchased the Professional Developer package.

Magic Leap

The technology is designed to support sessions “over several floors within a medium-sized space (1500 sq feet or so)”, and up to 10 users. Leap claims that while these conditions can be exceeded, staying within them provides “the best experience”.

This API should enable multiplayer AR games and experiences.

6 Person Chats, Browser Improvements, Music Control

The built-in spatial social chat app now supports up to six users, though with the device priced at $2,295 this may be a rarely used feature.

The built-in web browser now has a dark mode, and web shortcuts can now be created and placed in the landscape interface.

A new app called Overture allows third-party apps to integrate with the background music service to control the music in the environment.

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July 24, 2019

Magic Leap Update Brings Hand Occlusion, Expanded Multiplayer Support & More

Despite securing $280 million from Japan’s largest telecom earlier this summer, we’ve heard surprisingly little from the multi-billion dollar AR startup of late regarding its flagship headset, Magic Leap One. Now, the company has announced a number of new features coming to ML1 in its latest Lumin OS 0.97 and SDK 0.22 updates, which includes hand tracking with proper occlusion masking, “out of the box” multiplayer support, and a few other goodies that ideally position the platform to appeal to future consumers.

In Magic Leap’s last update, 0.96 (released in May), the company introduced full skeleton tracking of the hand, although now devs can access a hand mesh through API that the company says not only properly occludes the scene when your hand passes in front of it, but should let you hold virtual objects too.

Although hand tracking is getting some more love in this month’s update, the company says they’ve redesigned the interaction model of Lumin OS based around Control, the system’s single 6DOF controller.

Control is now “the default interaction” for Lumin OS, which includes tasks such as selection, placement, and extraction.

Multiplayer Improvements

The company first released its cloud ‘Map Merge’ function in February, which brought the ability for “2+ people” to have shared experiences on ML1. Map Merge is soon slated to be accessible to everyone as a public beta, which Magic Leap says will allow Lumin to support multiplayer scenarios “out of the box” through their PCF API.

The update is available today for Professional Developer package users, although the full roll out is said to land before the end of the month for everyone else.

Image courtesy Magic Leap, Weta Workshop

While the company hasn’t mentioned whether or not they’re ever releasing Weta Workshop’s multiplayer experimental shooter Grordbattle, which was created to showcase the headset’s multiplayer function, the Map Merge pubic beta will technically let developers create large-scale multiplayer games starting today that the company says can span “over several floors within a medium-sized space (1500 sq feet or so),” or an app for 5-10 users, with 4-5 people in the same room and 10 people in other areas of the same building.

It can do more, Magic Leap’s senior vice president of software Yannick Pellet says, although these are the ideal parameters.

Accessibility, Third-party Integration & More

Pellet reports that this month’s big “consumer” reveal (inverted commas since the headset is intended for developers) is a music app called Overture. The first-party app is said to let third-party apps integrate with the company’s background music service to control the music in your environment. With Overture, you can pause and play a track, adjust the volume, skip to the next song, and perform other basic controls.

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the other features hitting ML1 with Lumin’s 6th OS update:

Internationalization and localization for UK, France and Germany
Officially support for Unity 2019.2 (binary builds for Unreal available through the Epic Launcher)
OAuth support for 3rd-party apps through C API. Universe and Helio use a Secure OAuth Window as a preferred method of integrating OAuth services into an app
Introduction of a new Direct Rendering API for improved stereoscopic rendering quality in immersive apps; allows users to render their own 3D content using WebGL
Six-person calls in Avatar Chat
Helio browser Dark Mode
Helio browwer environment-based shortcuts/bookmarks
Device Stream toolset (SDK), developers can access a device stream on their desktop

Check out Magic Leap’s full blogpost for more detail.

The post Magic Leap Update Brings Hand Occlusion, Expanded Multiplayer Support & More appeared first on Road to VR.

May 14, 2019

ThinkReality A6 Is Lenovo’s New HoloLens And Magic Leap Competitor

One has to admire Lenovo’s determination in both the AR and VR markets. Since late 2017 the company has launched a Windows VR headset, standalone Google Daydream device, its own phone-powered AR gaming platform and, in a few weeks, will help Oculus bring the Rift S to market. That’s a lot of headsets in the space of 18 months, but it’s not done.

Yesterday the tech giant announced the ThinkReality A6, a new enterprise-focused AR headset. From the looks of it, it’s the company’s answer to both HoloLens and Magic Leap. Like those headsets, ThinkReality A6 consists of a pair of see-through lenses that can project virtual images into the real world. You interact with this content using a three degrees of freedom (3DOF) motion controller similar to Magic Leap One. HoloLens 2, meanwhile, uses hand-tracking.

Sticking with the Magic Leap comparisons, the device is also powered by a compute box it’s tethered to. It features Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 Mobile XR platform and an Intel Movidius Vision Processing Unit. This helps keep the headset light, weighing in at 380g. It also has a 40-degree diagonal field of view. That’s about 10 degrees smaller than those offered by Magic Leap One and HoloLens 2. Display resolution is 1080p per-eye and there’s also integrated eye-tracking.

As we said, this is an enterprise-focused device, so don’t expect to see games like on Lenovo’s Star Wars AR headset. In fact, Lenovo is also launching a wider ThinkReality platform designed to make both AR and VR applications compatible across different operating systems, cloud services and devices. There isn’t much other info out there right now.

As for pricing and release date, no updates yet. Given that this is a business-first device, though, we wouldn’t expect to be able to simply order it online.

Tagged with: AR headset, HoloLens 2, Lenovo ThinkReality A6, Magic Leap One

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April 29, 2019

Magic Leap und Epic Games verschenken 500 AR-Brillen an Entwickler

Im Zuge der Epic MegaGrants stellt Epic Games 100 Millionen US-Dollar zum Support von Devs, Kreativen und Medienschaffenden bereit. Zusätzlich verschenkt das Unternehmen dank einer Partnerschaft mit Magic Leap insgesamt 500 Magic-Leap-One-Brillen an Entwickler. Interessierte können ab sofort eine der AR-Brillen beantragen.

Magic Leap und Epic Games – Epic MegaGrants zur Unterstützung von Devs & 500 AR-Brillen for free von Magic Leap

Mit der Initiative Epic MegaGrants möchte Entwicklerstudio Epic Games Support für Kreativschaffende, welche mit der Unreal Engine arbeiten, vergeben. Insgesamt 100 Millionen US-Dollar werden dafür bereitgestellt, wie es auf der offiziellen Webseite heißt:

“Epic Games stellt 100 Millionen bereit, um Spieleentwickler, professionelle Unternehmen, Medien- und Unterhaltungsentwickler, Studenten, Pädagogen und Toolentwickler zu unterstützen, die mit der Unreal Engine erstaunliche Dinge tun oder Open-Source-Funktionen für die 3D-Grafik-Community verbessern. Zeigen Sie uns Ihre Projekte und Sie können einen finanziellen Zuschuss erhalten, der Ihren Erfolg fördert!”

Neben der Finanzspritze sorgt zudem eine Partnerschaft mit Magic Leap für die kostenlose Vergabe einer Creator Edition der Magic Leap One. Die Kooperation wurde auf der Unreal Engine Build: Detroit 19′ bekannt gegeben.

So findet Simon Jones, Director, Unreal Engine Enterprise bei Epic Games, optimistische Worte zur Zusammenarbeit:

“Wir freuen uns sehr, dass Magic Leap das Epic MegaGrants-Programm mit diesem großzügigen Geschenk von 500 Magic Leap One Creator Edition-Brillen unterstützt […] die Option, diese Hardware als Teil des Epic MegaGrants zu erhalten, bedeutet, dass Entwickler mehr Mittel für andere Bereiche zur Verfügung stehen und dadurch mehr finanzielle Flexibilität und Freiheit erhalten.”

So können sich Entwickler aus verschiedenen Bereichen ab sofort für eine der AR-Brillen bewerben. Egal ob Gesundheitswesen, Entertainment-, Automobilindustrie oder völlig anderer Bereich, auf der offiziellen Webseite erhält jedes Projekt eine Chance auf die Hardware. Eine Deadline gibt es nicht, die Brillen sind jedoch in limitierter Anzahl vorhanden.

(Quellen: Unreal Engine MegaGrants | Magic Leap)

Der Beitrag Magic Leap und Epic Games verschenken 500 AR-Brillen an Entwickler zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

April 25, 2019

500 Magic Leap One Creator Edition’s Being Given Away as Part of the Epic MegaGrants Programme

Epic Games has been heavily giving back to the videogame developer community over the last few years, first with its Unreal Dev Grants initiative, and then its new Epic MegaGrants programme which arrived last month. Today, the company has announced a new partnership with Magic Leap, offering 500 Magic Leap One Creator Edition headsets for Unreal Engine creators.

Magic Leap hero-scene_3x

As this is a grants-based initiative, if you’re a developer working on spatial computing applications across entertainment, architecture, automotive, healthcare and other industries using Unreal Engine then you can submit an application to receive a free Magic Leap One Creators Edition headset. That’s right completely free of charge, saving on the regular price of $2,295.

“The Epic MegaGrants program allows developers to pursue new goals and raise the bar for what they can accomplish, and we’re glad to support that mission by making Magic Leap One Creator Edition available to creators working in the spatial computing arena,” said Rio Caraeff, Chief Content Officer, Magic Leap in a statement. “Putting these devices directly into the hands of promising developers, along with the financial grant from Epic, will help accelerate the industry and lead to new innovation.”

There is no deadline, with grants awarded on a rolling basis and hardware available on a first-come-first-served basis, based on project merit. So the sooner you submit the application the better.

Magic Leap One

“We’re thrilled that Magic Leap is offering their support to the Epic MegaGrants program with this generous giveaway of 500 Magic Leap One Creator Edition devices, which offer incredible opportunities to explore applications from digital humans to product design,” said Simon Jones, Director, Unreal Engine Enterprise, Epic Games. “The option to receive this hardware as part of an Epic MegaGrant means that more of the funds can be available to spend in other areas, so developers have more financial flexibility and freedom to create.”

Epic MegaGrants is a brand new $100,000,000 programme to support any developer using the Unreal Engine. Apart from free Magic Leap headsets, studios can apply for grants ranging from $5,000 all the way up to $500,000. Plus they will continue to own their IP.

For more information and to apply, head to the official Epic MegaGrants website. As further updates are announced, VRFocus will let you know.

April 25, 2019

Magic Leap is Giving Away 500 AR Headsets as Part of Epic’s $100M Unreal MegaGrants

At Unreal Engine Build: Detroit 2019, Magic Leap today announced that the company will be giving away 500 Magic Leap One Creator Edition AR headsets as part of the recently unveiled Epic MegaGrants.

Epic MegaGrants is Epic Games’ $100 million initiative designed to support developers of media, entertainment, and games, as well as enterprise professionals, students, educators, and tool developers working with Unreal Engine.

Magic Leap says that developers building AR apps with Unreal Engine dealing in entertainment, architecture, automotive, healthcare “and many other industries” can apply now for a free Magic Leap One. The company maintains that there’s no deadline, as grants will be awarded by merit on a rolling basis, while hardware will be on a first-come first-served basis.