The secretive AR startup Magic Leap moves into the movie world by developing a new lab together with Lucasfilm and ILM. The announcement followed an augmented reality video displaying characters from the Star Wars franchise interacting, shot through Magic Leap AR technology. The lab will function as a hub where developers and filmmakers can experiment with AR as a new medium of storytelling.
The Magic Leap technology captures its surroundings and augments it with computer-generated imagery. VFX companies like ILM see the potential to create stories that interact with surrounding environments, characters that can make eye contact and plot lines based on viewers actions.
Magic Leap closed a $793.5 million C round earlier this year with a whopping $4.5 billion post-money valuation. Meanwhile, companies like Google, Snapchat and Microsoft are racing to market with their own AR technologies to get a share of an industry predicted to be valued $150 billion in 2020. A series of Magic Leap prototypes is scheduled for production this summer, said founder Rony Abovitz.
This article was written by Johan Friedner from PSFK and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.