Magic Leap unveils its development platform to create mind-boggling augmented-reality apps

Magic Leap, the creator of an upcoming set of highly touted augmented reality glasses, today unveiled its development platform for making apps.

The Dania Beach, Fla.-based startup announced at the MIT Technology Review’s EmTech Digital conference that it wants game developers, filmmakers, and other media creators to build augmented reality experiences using its software development kit. This will work with the Unreal and Unity game engines. The kit is not yet available, but Magic Leap says it will release it “soon.”

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Google created excitement about Magic Leap’s technology last October when it and others invested $542 million in the company. Magic Leap superimposes animated objects on top of reality, using a pair of glasses. Last month, it showed a video of what a first-person shooter game would be like using its technology. In that video, you play in your ordinary office. The glasses can take the environment into account and then, through the specs, make monsters spawn in front of you. You have to look around the real environment and look for the monsters to shoot. The ultimate goal is to generate animated images and blend them into reality so that they are indistinguishable from real objects.

At the event, Magic Leap chief executive Rony Abovitz, sci-fi novelist Neal Stephenson (chief futurist), and chief creative officer Graeme Devine said they are starting to train developers on what to do with the technology.