Interview with Rony Abovitz: 5G is the key springboard for Magic Leap.

Since the release of Magic Leap One in August last year, Magic Leap has been working hard to build its ecological environment "Magicverse". At present, Magic Leap One Store has 15 applications, including CNN interactive news application and just-launched Star Wars: Project Porg.

In order to speed up content development, Magic Leap launched an independent creator award scheme, and at least 365,438+0 teams won awards. During MWC 20 19, the company also reached a cooperation with South Korean communication company SK Telecom to promote 5G and Magic Leap One headphones in South Korea.

Regarding the future of MR, Magic Leap seems to have a layout. They hope that the Magicverse ecosystem will spread all over the world in the future, and believe that 5G will pave the way for this goal.

The combination of 5G and MR has great potential, but we have to ignore such a brand-new moral issue that needs to be considered in ecology.

Microsoft, which just released HoloLens 2 on the eve of MWC, was strongly opposed by employees for providing MR headphones to the US military. Regarding this matter, Satya Nadella, then CEO of Microsoft, responded that he would not give up cooperation with the US military, and believed that this was the result of technological development. He will communicate and negotiate with dissatisfied employees on this matter.

Regarding Magic Leap, some people think that the introduction of HoloLens 2 is a secret love for Magic Leap One, which makes it less "magical". And it is reported that Magic Leap also participated in this military tender, although the final contract was awarded to Microsoft.

For HoloLens 2' s remarks, Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz expressed unconvinced and said: Please look forward to the future Magic Leap technology, and the good play has just begun. Of course, he didn't respond to the part about the military contract.

However, in an exclusive interview with foreign media Venture Beat, Abovitz called Magicverse a "future system", and the moral foundation will lay the foundation for this system.

Blog explanation Magicverse

Magicverse is a concept put forward by Magic Leap, which refers to a system connecting the physical world and the digital world, and is equivalent to an application set with a lasting MR experience. Perhaps to show that he is different from Microsoft, on the day of the release of HoloLens 2, Abovitz explained the security and ethics of Magicverse infrastructure on the official blog.

He said: One of the inspirations of Magicverse comes from Walter Disney's vision of Epcot's tomorrow world, that is, to build a real city with a sense of the future forever.

In order to realize the infrastructure of Magicverse, we will need to invest hundreds of billions of dollars to lay out high-speed networks and edge computing areas in modern cities to support spatial computing technology. In the process of users' use, Magicverse will extend from their own homes to the whole city and even the whole world.

At the same time, in order to ensure that Magicverse is based on freedom, privacy, health, diversity, tolerance and entertainment, and key data can be protected, Magic Leap has begun to formulate relevant policies and structures. The company plans to open part of its structure, with the purpose of maintaining information security, avoiding abuse, and letting users master the basic control and information right of "lifestream" (digital world).

Abovitz also said that the construction and operation of Magicverse will need trust (considering that Magic Leap did not publicly respond to the bid of the US military, the credibility of this sentence needs to be examined), and the equal distribution of power and control will be the key to the continuation of Magicverse.

Why explain Magicverse?

Why did Abovitz write such an article explaining Magicverse more than half a year after the release of Magic Leap One?

Abovitz said: Magic Leap has been promoting the concept of Magicverse since L.E.A.P Con, which is regarded as the next generation Internet. In order to better build this architecture, it has established a long-term cooperation with the University of Miami in the United States and built the first Magicverse campus.

Bowitz compared the existing Internet and electronic equipment to the existing humanistic level, just like a cultural deposit, on which a new civilization will be built. Cooperation with 5G operators will lay a technical foundation for this new civilization, except at & amp； T. In addition to South Korea's SK Telecom, Magic Leap will announce other communication partners one after another this year, and a major cooperation will be announced next week.

Abovitz chose to send an article on the eve of MWC to explain the concept of Magicverse, not only to pave the way for cooperation with telecom operators, but also to let potential partners see the potential of space computing and Magicverse.

At the beginning of the construction of Magicverse, Abovitz hoped to improve people's moral awareness and bottom line requirements, but this cannot be guaranteed by technology alone. In other words, the magic leap must follow the correct social norms. Abovitz said that at present, some Internet companies have suffered losses due to their failure to be open and transparent, and Magic Leap should learn from them.

Talking about the difference between Magic Leap technology and other competitive products, Abovitz said: the focus of spatial computing lies not only in powerful functions, but also in a utopian experience, in which the concepts of positivity, openness, transparency and decentralization are very important. In contrast, Abovitz thinks that other competitors pay more attention to the functionality of MR, and their ideas are more dystopian.

He went on to say: in the future, digital information will become a natural resource, and its role is to establish links between communities. Many people may be afraid of too public information, but with this information, we can build an advanced future city.

Bowitz compared the present to the Nixon era, that is, an era of lack of trust. They hoped to find people's optimistic vision for the future and unite people's hearts. At this point, Abovitz once again stressed that after the partner is made public, everyone will understand the intention of Magic Leap.

Not long ago, kevin kelly, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, expounded some views on "AR cloud and parallel world". Abovitz believes that there will be multiple versions of the parallel world mentioned by Kelly in the future, similar to different regimes such as democracy and monarchy. These parallel worlds are not only related to hardware devices, they integrate social and technology, and are composed of multiple complex spatial computing levels, including Internet of Things, management and city-scale infrastructure.

In order to ensure that the development of Magicverse does not take a detour, Abovitz hopes to know the public's views on some fundamental issues as soon as possible, such as: What kind of social life and political power are they willing to participate in? Do you value openness and decentralization? Do you want to control your data? Wait a minute.

Specific details about Magicverse

When asked what such a more active parallel world/matrix world is, Abovitz said that the ending of matrix is not happy, and Magic Leap pays more attention to practicality rather than pursuing advanced technology. They hope to use technology to promote and develop an environment that breaks the boundaries between time and space and physical structure and integrates services, products and interactions.

For the above environment, what matters is not only the perfect moral standards, but also the experience that can change daily life.

For example, seeing a doctor will become more and more popular in the future, and it is no longer difficult to find the best doctor at Harvard. In the space universe of Magicverse, you will enjoy a lot of resources, the use cost will be reduced, and the travel cost will also be reduced. In Magicverse, you can travel to any corner of the world through an avatar and interact with the real world through the Internet of Things and automation. This concept is called "coexistence".

Jobs and talents will not be restricted by location, so the global economic distribution will be changed. In order to ensure the rational use of "* * *", government regulations and telecommunications infrastructure also need to work together to define future development goals.

Digital city &; inequality

VentureBeat talked about his early conversation with Shane Wall, the chief technology officer of HP. Wall mentioned that there will be many big trends in the coming decades, such as the bigger the city, the more serious the inequality, which seems to be unstoppable even by technology.

In this regard, Bowitz believes that with the joint efforts of all, these economic problems will eventually be solved. The goal of Magic Leap is to use Magicverse to standardize economic distribution, enlarge human capacity, popularize medical care, provide average economic opportunities and make people's lives more convenient. He believes that Magicverse is a technology that serves human beings.

Talking about Magic Leap's partners, Abovitz said: Magic Leap has a huge supply chain and partnership. They obtained large-scale financing, not only for the development of MR head display, but also for building the ecological environment of spatial computing and accelerating the integration of this technology with society.

For this purpose, Magic Leap is optimistic about the combination of MR and 5G. Abovitz said that the world will spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build infrastructure combined with 5G, but only in this way can Magicverse be realized. Fortunately, major telecom operators and governments around the world have begun to invest hundreds of billions of dollars to build 5G. If China is included, the scale will reach trillions.

With the infrastructure, you can build another parallel world around the world, which is easier to realize than colonizing Mars in terms of current technology, and in this parallel world, you may experience more creative space than the whole universe, which is what Bowitz called "inner space".

With the formation of parallel worlds, a space Internet based on 5G has begun to take shape. Abovitz believes that in the next 10 to 20 years, the entire Magicverse will become a powerful driving force for economic and computing development, and in 20 19-202 1 year, Magic Leap will also launch a major update based on 5G.

5G as a springboard

In any case, the 5G era will come sooner or later. Abovitz believes that 5G will become a springboard for Magic Leap and promote the development of Magicverse. He said: Without a 5G network, a mobile phone or tablet can work well. In fact, telecom operators are preparing for new technologies in the next 10 or 20 years, such as autonomous driving and spatial computing.

Abovitz added: Unlike the relatively closed VR, Magicverse is an integrated large-scale economy, which will integrate the functions of AI and sensors and distribute the content in the infrastructure from the inside out.

Building the basic platform of Magicverse needs a lot of work, such as: supporting multi-person storage and multi-mode interface combining voice, gesture and gaze point technology. The more natural the platform UI, the less user resistance. Therefore, Magic Leap has invested a lot of money in this area, hoping to cooperate with creators, developers and communication providers to improve its platform.

Talking about cooperation, Abovitz said that Magic Leap also hopes to establish in-depth cooperation with local governments to promote the localization of Magicverse and spatial computing. Therefore, Magic Leap not only pays attention to engineering and technology, but also pays attention to marketing and product awareness.

Magic Show & Social Contact

When asked about more details of social interaction in Magicverse, Abovitz said that multi-person two-way communication will be realized in the future. In festivals, all family members can get together and interact by sharing emotions, eyes and body language, breaking geographical restrictions. At that time, volume photography technology will capture users' virtual images and realize * * * storage anytime and anywhere.

MR social interaction will involve a lot of volume photographic data, so privacy is a problem to be considered. Magic Leap has just released its products and has not accumulated enough reputation, so they hope to enjoy the trust that these companies have gained through cooperation with other companies.

Even with word-of-mouth blessing, information security is still a delicate issue that cannot be ignored, and different people have different views. Magic Leap believes that Magicverse is a new society with positive, decentralized, people-friendly and community-friendly characteristics.

However, the user's opinion remains to be discussed. First, they need to know what Magicverse is, its principle and its benefits. Therefore, Abovitz once again stressed that such a platform needs to be frank and transparent, based on specifications, and avoid the possibility of corruption and abuse from the fundamental design and architecture. Abovitz added that it is not easy, but they will solve the problem openly.

In the future, there will be a parallel world different from Magicverse, and Magic Leap hopes to create uniqueness with perfect specifications and architecture design.

Vision PK feasibility

Magic Leap has been mysterious for 8 years and raised $2.3 billion. After the launch of Magic Leap One MR, it was considered excessive by many parties. When asked how to balance ambitious goals and feasibility, Abovitz said: In short, in fact, our products will go on the market tomorrow, but we still focus on developing content. Magic Leap will continue to introduce new tools to provide more functions for its applications.

At present, the progress of application development is that developers only use the functions of Magic Leap development tool 10 or 20% on average, and the progress of each developer/team is different. For example, Weta and Lucasfilm have started to test the interaction between MR and the Internet of Things, while some developers are just familiar with Magic Leap.

Magic Leap hopes to gather a large number of developers through the creator contest and brainstorm to develop content for Magicverse. The concept of this platform is like: when a satellite goes around the earth and illuminates every city and country bit by bit, the world will light up slowly.

Abovitz said: There are all kinds of ML 1 developers in the world. They may be teenagers who are engaged in research somewhere in California or teams from different cities of 10. They collaborate remotely through virtual images.

If compared with the colonial Mars, these developers are equivalent to the first immigrants. Their role is to lay the foundation for the creation of future generations and make tools. After a year, their team will grow.

About the next step plan

Abovitz said that the partnership they will announce next week will provide a platform for Magicverse to develop rapidly, and more cooperation will be announced later.

Magic Leap is establishing cooperative relations with communication companies in various countries step by step. When asked about Magic Leap's next plan, Abovitz said: Magic Leap will start with the size of the city. With the establishment of connections between cities, in the next two to five years, several States in the United States, some Europe and Asia will also establish Magicverse.

Apowitz believes that to some extent, everyone will experience the transition from Kansas to the kingdom of the Wizard of Oz in The Wizard of Oz. At the same time, Magicverse combined with 5G will accelerate the movement of population to the city center, and Magic Leap will also find ways to expand the coverage of this technology.