海角大神

Tiny elephants frolic in people鈥檚 palms. Submarines cruise metropolitan streets, ten feet above the pavement. Seahorses float through a classroom. These are the visions of Magic Leap, an augmented-reality startup from Florida that landed $542 million in funding on Tuesday from Google, Qualcomm, and other investors.

鈥淢ost of us know that a world with dragons and unicorns, elves and fairies, is just a better world,鈥� says Magic Leap鈥檚 website. But what exactly is Magic Leap? Augmented reality refers to technology that combines views of the real world with supplemental computer-generated imagery 鈥� in this case, convincing visions of elephants and other creatures galloping through your morning commute. The company it creates these illusions by means of a 鈥淒ynamic Digitized Lightfield Signal,鈥� and Liz Gannes and Peter Kafka at Re/Code that Magic Leap will use an infrared camera similar to the Xbox Kinect to allow digital objects to go in front of and behind objects in the real world, a capability that current augmented-reality devices don鈥檛 have.

Beyond that, though, details are thin. No one鈥檚 sure if Magic Leap is planning a pair of contact lenses that would lay images right onto a user鈥檚 vision, a wearable device similar to Google Glass, or some other piece of hardware.

So why did the secretive startup catch Google鈥檚 eye? The answer may have to do with Google Glass, which promised to revolutionize the way we interact with our computers by making our information immediately accessible, but which hasn鈥檛 really caught on yet with ordinary customers. It鈥檚 possible that Google wants to apply Magic Leap鈥檚 technology to Google Glass 鈥� the ability to convincingly smear the line between digital images and the real world would allow Glass to become 鈥渕ore than just a smartphone on your face,鈥� Wired鈥檚 Izzie Lapowsky.

But it鈥檚 not yet clear what the Magic Leap鈥檚 purpose is 鈥� is it for education? Entertainment? Does it have business applications? The company website mentions that Magic Leap is reaching out to app and game developers, but the company doesn鈥檛 have any developer kits that we know of, and it has declined requests for interviews. All we鈥檝e got to go on are the rich visuals shown on Magic Leap鈥檚 website and the company鈥檚 promise that it will 鈥渟har[e] 鈥� more information in the weeks and months ahead.鈥�

There are a lot of questions (to put it lightly) still surrounding Magic Leap, but it鈥檚 worth mentioning that much of Tuesday鈥檚 investment came from Google itself, rather than from Google Ventures or another of the company鈥檚 more speculative arms. Google鈥檚 senior VP of Android, Chrome, and apps, Sundar Pichai, has also been appointed to Magic Leap鈥檚 board of directors. Clearly, Google sees real value in augmented reality 鈥� and if Magic Leap can deliver on its promise, perhaps we鈥檒l all soon be able to hold tiny elephants in our hands.