Magic Leap: When the Virtual World Truly Helps You to Live in the Real World

I kinda have a 'crush' on this start-up. Why? Because when I read their manifesto, I feel close to their ideas, they are answering issues I have (and have been talking about in this blog for a while). They say that their idea is 'based in the belief that people should not have to choose between technology or safety, technology or privacy, the virtual world or the real world". They have realized that "current technologies we use to access the digital world limit, or even take us away, from the real world" and that "the future of computing should be derived from respecting human biology, physiology, creativity, and community". 

So exactly what is their idea? They want to use technologies as a companion to human beings, delivering really unique experiences that one can even consider as magical. In order to do so they use augmented reality and more precisely "head-mounted devices which superimpose 3D computer-generated imagery over real world objects, by projecting a digital light field into the user's eye" (Wikipedia page). They created what they call "a Dynamic Digitized Lightfield Signal™", which basically generates highly realistic images and then place them into the real world.

Credits: Flickr (Eddenghien)

Your possibilities are infinite with such a technology. But I heard they are planning to use their tool for instance for children in hospitals: so that they feel less alone or scared, they will create dwarfs that could be their complete companions, following them everywhere. It's like having an imaginary friend but you get to see him!

What I also like a lot is that they seem to be a funny team: they call themselves 'computing hobbits', 'software ninjas', 'artificial intelligence gurus' and so on. And they are actually looking for 'wizards' right now, quite a lot of them, so please go help them, engineers in this world!

Credits: Flickr (Henri Block)

Though it's true there is quite a lot of mystery on this start-up. Yes they have raised more than $500 million but what are they using it for? They haven't shown anything close to a real prototype so far. And I hope they will keep up to their manifesto, because so far the only video they showed gives the idea they want us to use their product for a first person shooter game, transposed in real life!

Another thing I want to highlight is that, to me, living with something on top of your head all the time is not exactly what I call living in the 'real-world'. Magic Leap has to be careful not to forget what its intentions were in the first place.

So I guess my relationship to this start-up is kind of a love/hate situation: I'm a bit perplexed and I don't trust it completely, but at the same time I really want it to work.

Eagleman Laboratory: You Have Nerver Seen Such a Thing

Oh my this is probably the most mind-blowing thing I have ever seen. Seriously. I guess the best thing to do for you is to watch the following video, so that you can understand what I'm talking about:

So this David Eagleman (well he certainly inspires as much respect as eagles do, and seems free as a bird), wants no less than to "change our experience as humans"! Yes yes, he wants to expand our senses, I mean wowwww

He learned about something discovered for the first time in 1969, something absolutely crucial: your senses do not depend on where your eyes/ears/tongue etc are, they depend on which signal (electrochemical) goes into your brain, in any way whatsoever it uses to get there. Yes your eye gives a clear signal to your brain of what can be seen, but if this same signal comes from another part of your body (let's say your booty of course), your brain understands it as well! I told you you would be amazed.

A few studies have been done and they showed for instance that blind people could get something very close to vision itself, with signals coming from a little object on another part of their body: "they [blind people] get to see through their tongue"explains Eagleman. They could even throw a ball in a basket!!! I didn't realize how much can be done for blind people with new technologies, it's impressive.

Eagleman and his fellow researchers in the Laboratory for Perception and Action at the Baylor College of Medicine, are focusing now on deaf people. They are looking for sensory substitution for the deaf. They came up with a possible solution to hearing problems: a vest that produces signals you brain can understand. As someone speaks, the sound is being translated into dynamic patterns of vibrations on the vest someone else (or himself) is wearing. The person wearing the vest is able to understand the words, after of course a bit of practice. How cool is that!! Plus it's 40 times less expensive than a surgery (the only other option for deaf people).

Credits: Dario-Jacopo Lagana' @Flickr

Despite this success, Eagleman does not stop there. He wants to expand our 'senses' even more: now you get to feel on the vest data coming directly from the internet. This still needs more experimentation but it is already impressive. Eagleman wants us to experience and feel information (and especially big data), more than reading it only. But it's also giving us the ability to do things we never could: for instance knowing instantly what hundreds of people say on Twitter, and get the overall impression (if they're mostly positive or negative in their tweets).

Okay there are a few drawbacks, well mostly one: it's a bit too crazy for us, at least for our current state of mind. I mean it jeopardizes deeply human nature and how human beings see themselves (especially the religious ones). We are playing here with nature itself and by changing how our body works, using technology, it makes us loose our specificity as humans, makes us look a bit as robots.

So we'll see how it goes on, but definitely a situation worth watching!

Mubser: When Visually Impaired People 'Recover' Their Eyesight

Credit: Flickr

Mubser ( مُـبْـــــصِـــر ) is another example of a start-up that could truly revolutionize the life of many people. Besides it's not everyday I talk about an African start-up! Mubser was founded by Khaled Shady in Cairo with three other computer engineering graduates from Menoufia University. Its mission is to assist visually impaired or blind people in their everyday life, with a navigational aid tool that uses ingenious technologies.

How does it work? The pilot product, SensifyTM (only a prototype so far), is a wearable belt working with a Bluetooth headset.Thanks to a 3D depth camera, the product is able to recognize many common obstacles (walls, chairs, tables, staircases, ...), and then to notify the user through an inbuilt audio device or by making vibrations. And this is only the beginning, Shady's dream is to add more and more features so that blind people can almost completely imagine their surroundings. "It’s about the future for them; that’s how I keep thinking about the platform itself. So in the next five years I see Mubser as being the sixth sense that they depend on", says Shady.


Mubser is the kind of start-up you really hope to grow. Its CEO is only 22 years old (about my age) and it's impressive he gets into something that difficult. The story behind its foundation is moving: Khaled Shady wanted to help a close friend who, because of a car accident, lost his eyesight at the age of 15.This can happen to anyone and so suddenly, it's scary! Mubser is now incubated at Venture Lab at the American University in Cairo, but their biggest issue according to the CEO is that there's no manufacturing industry in Egypt. Hence they are trying to find partners in the USA or China but it's not an easy thing to do.

Since it's not exactly a piece of cake to get a guide dog, creating technologies that could quite replace them is a really good thing. Of course you could never replace the happiness of owning a dog but you could still truly help blind people.

Further reading:

http://mubser.com/  (there's pretty much nothing on the website yet)
http://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com/young-ceo-invents-navigational-technology-for-the-blind/34327/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/mfonobongnsehe/2014/02/13/seven-innovative-products-from-africa-you-should-know/
https://www.facebook.com/mubser/