【Thailand】

After years of boasting about its game-changing augmented reality technology,Thailand Magic Leap finally revealed its first headset, the Leap One.

Set to ship in early 2018, the Leap One promises to bring your wildest sci-fi dreams to life, letting users do things like layer digital screens and objects on top of the real world. It looks like really kickass stuff, but can we talk about the design of the headset for a second?

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Designing attractive headsets, especially ones loaded with as many cameras and sensors necessary for accurate head and body-tracking, is hard.

Just look at all the AR or VR headsets released in the last few years -- i.e. Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR, Microsoft HoloLens, Acer Windows Mixed Reality headset, etc. -- and you can easily see a common trend: They're all kinda bulky and look dorky.

The Leap One, however, appears to be one of the thinnest and lightest (if not themost compact) mixed reality headsets we've ever seen.

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It's also got some serious steampunk vibes going on, which you have to give its designers a little credit for.

It looks distinctly different -- the many cameras and motion sensors littered on the front sort of looks like a spider's face -- and the company says it's comfortable to wear for extended periods of time.

The slim design is largely in part because the processor and graphics chip aren't housed inside of the headset, but inside of a disc-shaped "Lightpack" unit that clips onto pants or belt.

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The headset also comes with a small wand-like hand-controller, similar to the ones the come with the Gear VR or Daydream View -- that includes a touchpad on top and haptic feedback.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Like all headsets, the design's will be polarizing at first, but at the end of the day the only that matters is what you can do with it.

And Magic Leap's promising a whole lot.

The AR startup says it's empowering creators to build new experiences that blend the digital and physical into one. Magic Leap lists a few experiences it sees as "a jumping-off point" for developers.

Like being able to open and pin virtual displays of varying sizes within physical space. Its website says you'll be able to "walk with them or leave them hanging."

Glixel's Brian Crecente was invited to Magic Leap's HQ in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to try out the headset and he was blown away:

"After the screens, I tried a little demo that created a floating, four-sided television, each showing live TV. I could walk around the object, watching different channels. All of the channels kept playing whether I was watching them or not."

Or transforming the real world into a video game world. For example, you might be playing a game where you have to shoot a bunch of aliens that appear from your walls or the ceiling. Magic Leap showed off a concept demo for such an application back in 2015:

Another AR experience listed on Magic Leap's website lets you collaborate with other people via virtual avatars. It looks a lot like Facebook Spaces.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

All of this looks really good so long as Magic Leap delivers on the experience. The company's been super secretive about its headset and has only let a few lucky people try it out.

Despite its secrecy, the headset's technology has been highly praised. Those who have tried it have called it mind-bending. With such impressive tech, it's no wonder the company's been able to raise over $1.4 billion from investors such as Google and Alibaba.

Magic Leap's headset has been the victim of many vaporware jokes over the last few years. And at long last, it's vaporware no more. Magic Leap hasn't announced pricing for the headset, but users can sign up on its website for more information on shipping and content partnerships.

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