The new device will be launched later this year, however, the developers already revealed some information on their new Magic Leap 2 including dynamic dimming and port to Android.
Magic Leap 2 – the upgraded version of the "wearable computer" developed by an American startup company Magic Leap – is expected to be launched this year. Although the company hasn't revealed the release date yet, it unveiled some details on the new device.
At the SPIE Photonics West 2022 conference, Magic Leap’s VP of Optical Engineering, Kevin Curtis, shared that Magic Leap 2 will weigh 248 grams (0.5 pounds) which is nearly 22% less than the original headset that weighed 316 grams (0.7 pounds). The headset will include eye-tracking, with two cameras per eye, which suggests more accuracy. The new device will be provided with a 12MP RGB camera for taking pictures and videos, scanning barcodes, and streaming video. The company also confirmed onboard audio included.
According to Curtis, Magic Leap 2 will come in one size which is different from Magic Leap 1 that had a "large" and "small" variant. The reason why Magic Leap 2's predecessor had two sizes presumably derives from the need to try to cover a suitable range of the IPD spectrum due to its small eyebox and the lack of IPD adjustment. For Magic Leap 2, the eyebox was doubled in size, which seemingly made the company choose to create only one size of the device.
Curtis shared that the new device is able to adjust the light transmission of its lenses from 22% to 0.3% which makes the headset being able to be used even in really bright outdoor environments. The brightness range of 20–2,000 nits combined with the dynamic dimming should make the device considerably more flexible to varied lighting conditions, compared both with the previous version of the device and similar headsets.
As for performance, the company specified that the Magic Leap 2 ‘Compute Pack’ will have 2–3 times the GPU and CPU performance of its predecessor. Magic Leap also noted that a co-processor for handling computer-vision operations referred to as the CVPU (computer-vision processing unit) will be added. Curtis didn’t reveal what Magic Leap 2’s processor would be, however, the company has implied that it comes from AMD.
One of the major changes for Magic Leap 2 will be its move from the company’s own Lumin OS to Android. However, it isn’t clear yet if the new device will be able to support native Android applications.
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