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/

Spritz: No Biggie, Just a New Way to Read

Remember when reading looked like that?

Credits: Morguefile

It has changed a lot over the last decades but hopefully books are still read by many, –let’s say most of the– people. There is always an ongoing debate between people using actual books and people reading them online/on their e-reader/on their phone or tablet. 

Today I’m introducing a new way to read, no less than that!! It might change your view on e-reading. This start-up, whose product was first released to the public in February 2014, is called Spritz. Funny name I must say, which is definitely the opposite of what the 3 co-founders look like (well they’re scientists…)! Anyway they invented a way to read A LOT faster, and without any training. 

How does it work? They make you read without moving your eyes! In their “redicle” they put one word at a time with one letter in red. This letter is the “Optimal Recognition Point”, usually in the middle of the word, which enables you to understand fast and easily the entire word. They start with a speed of 250 words per minute which is a little bit faster than the average speed of 220. But then you can go up to 1,000 words per minute (I’m definitely completely lost there but you can try). 

It’s simply amazing and impressive. And the good part is that you remember what you have read. But it’s true I am not sure I could read a long text with this. You can “pause” the scrolling text but it’s not quite the same thing as when you’re slowly loosing track of what you’re reading in a physical book. I mean your mind can decide to digress, your concentration to take a break. They you realize you’ve been thinking of something else and you go back a few lines earlier and start to read again. With Spritz you can less easily let yourself ramble. 

Though, this start-up might revolutionize our lives. It has already enabled Emails and SMS messages to be read using Spritz technology, but also digital books and news articles. Social media are next on the list. Here’s the link with all the applications using Spritz today: http://www.spritzinc.com/where-can-i-experience-spritz/

And here’s a video of how it works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xxyDVBGHL8

The company's website: http://www.spritzinc.com/

Glowee: Electricity? Like I Care!

 Have you ever heard about lights working with bacteria? Well now it exists! That’s what Glowee, a French start-up, –yes, French people can be innovative! –, has created. This newbie yet future game changer was founded by two brilliant and young women (about 25 years old): Sandra Rey and Maëlle Chassard, with the help of Karim Kotobi and, later, of Gilles, a biologist. The story begins in 2013 when they take part into the contest “Prix Artscience 2013” and win the prize. They took as a starting point the fact urban lighting is local councils’ #1 expense. In order to end this situation, they looked at ways to produce light without electricity. And thought: “why not by taking advantage of nature”? A few organisms have the magic ability to illuminate themselves: that’s bioluminescence. You can do something with that!

How is that even possible? They managed to create bioluminescent stickers with microorganisms living in them. They are encapsulated in little bubbles where there is everything they need to survive: a liquid where they can enjoy their life and as well as food of course. This lighting is especially intended for shop windows. They decided to start their company and named it “Organight”. They changed the name later on for Glowee, which is rather sexier and easier to remember, don’t you think?

Credits: Glowee (official website)

Then, oh boy, things escalated quickly for the two co-founders. In less than two years, they awoken many people’s curiosity and appealed a lot of partners, including Google. Not bad! And as if it weren’t enough, they also won the Parisian session of the Elevator World Tour (last January, less than a month ago). This contest is held in 9 cities so far, with 100 start-ups in competition in each location. It consists in delivering a one-minute-speech about your start-up, in a famous elevator. The French session takes naturally place at the Eiffel Tower. Eventually, they won the contest and thus earned $100,000 of investment!

The Glowee team celebrating victory @Elevator World Tour, Paris January 2015. Credits: La Tribune

Why go for these stickers? It reduces your electricity bills and light pollution for everybody, since its luminescence is close to a night-light or a candle. Moreover it is a great opportunity for your brand. Yes because you are now a formidable environmental-friendly and responsible brand. And people look at your window even at night, which improves your visibility. Plus you get to choose the shape of the stickers you want! Oh and did I mention the whole things is transparent in the day light so people can still see what’s behind your window? Of course there’s also a very valid argument: it will prevent you from being a bandit. That’s right, a law of July 2013 in France forbids shop windows lighting at night.

Okay I might a bit over-enthusiastic for this start-up. Let’s talk about the drawbacks: the biggest one to me is green. Yes there is only one color so far and it’s fluorescent green. And I don’t like green at all. But let’s talk about other more objective issues: how can they be sure to always find enough raw materials? They make the living organisms breed in their lab. Thus, wouldn’t there be a time when they might have too many orders for too few raw materials? I’m not sure these living things multiply that fast… And if they do, they might lack space to actually store all these organisms. Another key issue is the lifespan of such stickers. The first prototype will last only 24 hours.

Though, I guess all these questions are being answered right now, while Glowee is undertaking a 6-month-lab session.

There’s actually a reason I am writing about this today. The start-up really needs to be in demand and deserves to be known. Glowee first products will soon be on the market, around July 2015. Their goal is to supply whole commercial streets so that 1 street lamp out of 5 can be removed. Imagine all what we can gain from this, starting with a better respect of the environment and a reduction in lighting expenses. Though they’re not restricted: they are looking at many other opportunities including roads, airports, areas where there is no electricity …

We will definitely hear more about this so far really successful start-up!!

A summarizing video:
https://vimeo.com/115693812 



Further reading:
http://www.glowee.fr/
http://www.lefigaro.fr/entrepreneur/2015/01/24/09007-20150124ARTFIG00013-cette-start-up-vous-eclaire-grace-a-des-organismes-vivants.php
http://www.latribune.fr/start-up/20150123trib68d49fdda/elevator-world-tour-glowee-la-start-up-gagnante-de-l-edition-parisienne.html