Magic Leap shows up in the weirdest places. Last week, right at the start of World Cup fever, for some reason, the Magic Leap One appeared on a Brazilian television show.
Worn by show presenter Tiago Leifert, a popular television host in Brazil, not only do we clearly see the Magic Leap One, but the host also appears to have it attached to the Lightpack hip-mounted module. On one side of the device, you can clearly see a large white label, the kind that's usually attached to a demonstration unit.
Alas, the entire show is in Portuguese, and since the video doesn't have subtitles, and we don't speak Portuguese, it's difficult to understand exactly what's going on during the show.
But right at the outset, after appearing to make a reference to the Magic Leap One, a trio of animated characters appear in front of the host. The characters, two bears (because the World Cup is being held in Russia, of course) and one which appears to be Brazilian professional soccer player Neymar, play in the middle of the television studio while the host speaks.
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It's not clear if this is augmented reality content designed for the Magic Leap One, or just television graphics to help the audience understand what AR is. (It seems like the latter, but we can't be sure.)
We have so many questions.
Why did the Magic Leap One's first ever live television debut happen on a relatively obscure (at least internationally) Brazilian program? Was this supposed to, in some way, translate to viewers what using the Magic Leap One will be like? Did someone at Magic Leap just get caught up in a World Cup frenzy and decide to get international cool points by showing the device off on a TV show?
Or was this just a rogue developer with early access to the device acting against Magic Leap's notoriously strict guidelines when it comes to showing the device off in public?
Update: It turns out that this was indeed an inside job. As one of our loyal readers reminded us via Twitter, in a story we published a year ago, Grupo Globo, an arm of the Brazilian TV network the device appeared on last week, led the $502 million Series D round of equity funding for Magic Leap. Mystery solved! Nevertheless, it's still rather interesting that Magic Leap would green light the first ever live television demo of the Magic Leap One on a network the vast majority of viewers in the US (where Magic Leap is headquartered) and other countries will never see.
The good news is that this is yet another hint that the long-awaited device may actually be close to being released for sale. Soon, the mystery of Magic Leap may finally be revealed, and we'll find out if the Magic Leap One is really as amazing as so many have claimed.
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1 Comment
I love how things are "obscure" or "weird" just because they're not happening in US.
This tv show is from Globo Group, which is a giant telecommunications enterprise in Brazil, and one of the investor groups of Magic Leap (series D).
Just to help you out: they never mention and never say anything about the glass in the video, besides that it is a "mixed reality glass" in the very beginning. All the rest is just about football (yes, football) tactics.
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