The mysterious Magic Leap may finally be shipping soon, albeit in an extremely limited and expensive form.
Bloomberg cites sources familiar with the matter in saying that the augmented reality company is planning to ship out its first device to a “small group of users” within the next six months, and it will cost between $1,500 and $2,000. Whether this will be the first truly consumer-ready version of the device and how people will be able to get their hands on it remains to be seen, but it’s said to be smaller than the Oculus Rift and requires users to carry another device around the size of a phone for wireless processing and information delivery.
The report also states that investment company Temasek Holdings Pte. is considering contributing to a new financing round of more than $500 million for the company. If true, that would value Magic Leap at close to $6 billion following previous investment rounds.
For context, the developer edition of Microsoft’s HoloLens costs $3,000. Magic Leap is thought to offer a similar experience to HoloLens, projecting virtual objects into the real world, but how it stacks up to that experience remains to be seen.
Recently we found a Magic Leap patent that revealed a pair of glasses, though the company stated that this was not the final product. It’s been a long road to actually learning anything about Magic Leap; will the curtain finally be lifted within the next few months?
