i3 - January/February 2016 - 19

Visit the Gaming and Virtual
Reality Marketplace in the
LVCC, South Hall 2.

Ausloeser/Glow Images

this technology for the film adaptation of the bestselling book that's in production.
Legendary Entertainment CEO Thomas Tull
believes Magic Leap is the first medium that he's seen
that has the opportunity to be truly transformational.
"Most of the improvements that we've seen in
home entertainment have been display devices going
from standard def to high-definition, 3D, 4K, and
beyond, but all of those things are really just significant enhancements of the ways we view content and
experience things," Tull says. "As a tech investor I've
seen variations of this over the years and the reason
I invested in Oculus is that was to me a quantum
leap. Oculus did things that were very special. And
then with augmented reality and the way we interact
with the world with instantaneous information, it's
not just for entertainment. It's a completely different
way of potentially experiencing things, and that's why
I invested in Magic Leap. There is a lot to learn and
there will be bumps in the road, but it's a really exciting medium and something that I'm pretty passionate
about."
MIXED REALITY
Oculus VR Founder Palmer Luckey, who convinced
Facebook his technology was worth $2 billion, sees
virtual reality and augmented reality converging into
something new over time. Oculus has invested in
companies like Pebbles Interfaces and Surreal Vision
to explore those opportunities. But he sees VR as the
leading platform for the foreseeable future.
"It will be quite a few years before we see a convergence between VR and AR because of the different
C TA . t e c h / i 3

Within a few
years we'll
reach that
point where
we, as an
industry, can
add virtual
images to
real world
images and
sensors pretty
seamlessly.

-Noah Falstien,
Google

trade-offs in software and hardware,"
Luckey says. "VR is a lot more understood as a medium because it's been
explored for decades now. You can put
a person inside a VR world and play
games or tell stories. AR has mostly
been shown as a utility tool to get
things done like getting directions
and other information from the world
around you. No one has made a good
AR entertainment tool yet. VR and
AR are very different market segments
today."
A division at Google is currently
exploring new opportunities in "mixed
reality" through Project Tango, where
the real world and virtual world
combine.
"It has some very interesting potential when you turn the camera on in the
back and let that image shine through
your pin, and post super-imposed
virtual images on top of it and use
Tango's tracking and sensors to make
those appear very solid in relation to
the angle that you hold the controller,"
Falstein says. "It's a very convincing
illusion. Within a few years we'll reach
that point where we, as an industry, can
add virtual images to real world images
and sensors pretty seamlessly."
Falstein compares these early days
of VR and AR to Hollywood's transition from silent pictures to talkies.
Over time, motion pictures evolved
into movies. He says terms like "VR"
and "AR" may end up feeling like that
was what existed before the industry
reached mixed reality, or whatever
word or phrase becomes popular.
"It definitely seems like a trend that
we're able to blend the real world and
the virtual world increasingly seamlessly," Falstein says.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016

http://www.magicleap.com/ http://www.pebblesinterfaces.com/ http://surreal.vision/ http://CTA.tech/i3

i3 - January/February 2016

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