A leaked photo is finally revealing a bit of info about that Magic Leap, the company into which Google invested into, is working on. An unnamed source has reportedly sent a photo of the secretive augmented reality startup Magic Leap’s hardware to Business Insider.
In a story, BI showed the photo off to the world in what could be our first look at one of Magic Leap’s AR prototypes. It is important to note, however, that at the time of this writing no one from Magic Leap has confirmed the legitimacy of this image and the BI story itself states that, “We attempted to authenticate this information with Magic Leap but the company declined to comment by time of publication.”
The photo in question shows someone wearing a headset wired into a bulky pack full of wires, circuit boards and other hardware. This certainly doesn’t look like a product that is anywhere near ready to ship or even demo publicly. This would be a small concern if the photo depicts a Magic Leap prototype from several years ago, however, the BI source suggests this is a recent prototype.
While it is exciting to see something out of Magic Leap, this is certainly not the photo CEO Rony Abovitz needs right now. Magic Leap managed to raise nearly $1.4 billion in investment from contributors such as Google, JP Morgan and China’s Alibaba. That gargantuan amount, combined with a slew of “concept videos”, captured the imagination of tech enthusiasts around the world. As time has ticked by, though, questions have been raised concerning Magic Leap’s ability to deliver on its promise.
