Author Neal Stephenson joins AR upstart Magic Leap as Chief Futurist

Neal Stephenson, the author of science fiction classics likeSnow Crash and Cryptonomicon, has joined the augmented reality startup Magic Leap as itsChief Futurist. A press release from Magic Leap announces the appointment.

In his first blog post for the company, Stephenson elaborates on what Magic Leaps technology does, and what he brings to the table. Magic Leap is mustering an arsenal of techniquessome tried and true, others unbelievably advancedto produce a synthesized light field that falls upon the retina in the same way as light reflected from real objects in your environment. Depth perception, in this system, isnt just a trick played on the brain by showing it two slightly different images.

Im fascinated by the science,but not qualified to work on it, he says. Where I hope I can be of use is thinking about what to do with this tech once it is available to the general public.

Stephenson highlights the potential for Magic Leaps technology to revolutionize gaming. It feels like the right time to give those people a new medium: one in which three-dimensionality is a reality and not just an illusion laboriously cooked up by your brain, and in which its possible to get up off the couch and movenot only around your living room, but wherever on the face of the earth the story might take you. Making such games is not going to be a matter of porting existing ones to the new system. Its going to mean redefining the medium from the ground up.

Oculus Rift makes screens more immersive, but ultimately remains limited to the two-dimensional plane supplemented by optical trickery. Magic Leaps technology, as Stephenson describes it, purports to interface more directly with the way our eyes works to create a natural and immersive way to interact with virtual objects and spaces.

Related:En garde! Clang goes medieval with realistic sword controllers

Stephensons idea-saturated work has dealt with subjects like mathematics, cryptography, currency, the history of science, and philosophy, but he holds particular sway over VRenthusiasts for his revolutionary conceptualization of online virtual reality in his 1992 cyberpunk classic,Snow Crash. In thatseminalwork of near-future science fiction, the internet is represented as the Metaverse, arichly-realized, shared VR environment. Notably, Stephenson popularizedthe modern use of the word avatar in the book, co-opting the term from the Sanskrit word for a deitys earthly representation.

The authors last foray into gaming wasClang, a Kickstarted sword-fighting game under development by his Subotai Corporation. Subotai was developing motion controls to represent sword-fighting more accurately than any game previously had. That project was put on indefinite hold in September.

Magic Leap was founded in 2011 and has been gradually drawing the interest of investors from both Silicon Valley and the entertainment industry. The companymadeheadlinesin October for generating$542 million in funds from a group of investors led by Google.

CEO and founder Rony Abovitz has chosen to foregovirtual reality and augmented reality in favor of cinematic reality. Those older terms, he explained, are associated with things that didnt necessarily deliver on a promise or live up to expectations. Googles investment might point toward the possibility of Magic Leapss technology being integrated into Google Glass at some point in the future.

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Author Neal Stephenson joins AR upstart Magic Leap as Chief Futurist