Magic Jump 2 Targets to Lift AR to Corporations, With No B.S. This Time

The Magic Jump 2 AR glasses.

Scott Stein/CNET

Not see you later ago, Magic Jump modified into as soon as one in every of the tech alternate’s most notorious, secretive and overhyped unicorns, a startup with excessive-profile backers whose mission to redefine “a individual plus computer” earned it a valuation over $1 billion earlier than it had shipped a single product. 

After eight years crafting its origin story, and with about a glitzy canned demos teasing its tech, the firm unveiled the Magic Jump One in August 2018. The slick, augmented-actuality system promised to immerse you in “experiences” that might perhaps per chance perhaps doubtless meld computer-generated imagery with the physical world, in a reach designed to convince you that these 3D objects and characters had been there within the accurate same room. 

Quiet, even these of us who performed with the $2,295 system wondered whether Magic Jump’s pitch modified into as soon as shiny or BS. CNET’s VR and AR educated Scott Stein called it the most easy AR tool he’d considered on the time, but he wasn’t blown away because, as he smartly-known, it looked extra tackle a constructing kit than a mainstream tool. That chapter in Magic Jump’s history did not relish a pleased ending, as evidenced by the incontrovertible reality that you and I and our guests are not visiting Mars by blueprint of AR with a Magic Jump headset today. 

Magic Jump CEO Peggy Johnson

Magic Jump
Like a flash ahead to 2022. Magic Jump has a brand unique leadership employees helmed by historic Microsoft and Qualcomm govt Peggy Johnson, an even lighter-weight headset due later this 12 months and — more than likely most essential — a brand unique mission that specializes in a success over industry customers in addition to individual patrons. Why the swap? Cash and opportunity, says Johnson. When it comes to the projected $140 billion marketplace for digital actuality and augmented actuality headsets by 2025, Johnson smartly-known that AR industry methods are anticipated to relish the fastest improve.

“Here’s an endeavor-hardened tool,” Johnson talked about about the arrival near Magic Jump 2 in an interview closing week. She let Stein and me are trying out the unique headset sooner than its public debut on March 10. “Magic Jump One modified into as soon as also an unheard of fragment of technology. Sadly, that bought lost within the headlines after they did not hit the market they had been pointed at.”

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The Magic Jump 2, with its rounded goggles and patented optics, retains a steampunk vibe, though or not it’s 20% lighter than the Magic Jump One. (It sits closer to your eyes, and now weighs about as principal as two medium-size bananas, the firm says.) And or not it’s smooth tethered to a excessive-powered, moon-pie-formed computer that you would be able to wear on a strap at some level of your body or clip to your belt, with a brand unique handheld pointer aged to navigate the AR menus.  

As Stein notes in his hands-on with the Magic Jump 2, this iteration of the scheme does seem to hold a huge step ahead. 

“The Magic Jump 2’s field of peep is especially better, showing extra holographic objects in front of me in a taller, wider condo that won’t as lower off on the perimeters,” Stein says. “However the most indispensable thing is a feature I’ve by no reach considered earlier than on any AR headset or glasses: The lenses can dim the outdoors world, becoming a pair of blackout sun shades that AR can conceal on top of.”  

Johnson says the firm has realized from its previous and might perhaps per chance perhaps smooth level of curiosity on a success over its endeavor customers with the Magic Jump 2, which might perhaps per chance breeze up in opposition to Microsoft’s $3,000 HoloLens 2 when or not it’s launched earlier than 12 months’s end. Pricing hasn’t been announced, but Johnson says this might perhaps per chance be “very competitive” with the HoloLens (though extra costly than the Magic Jump One). And as one more of offering two sizes of the headset, Magic Jump 2 will come in a single size, with an adjustable crown and a diversity of nostril bridges to support users procure a contented fit.

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The level of interest of the unique AR headset is on three segments of the endeavor market: health care; public sector and defense; and manufacturing and industrial settings. Inner these sectors, three utilize conditions will likely be centered from the inaugurate up: coaching, 3D visualization and remote motivate. Remote motivate reach that you would be able to call an educated from any place on this planet who can peep what you are seeing and what you wish repaired, and then saunter you by blueprint of a fix.

“We’re staying very disciplined, very centered,” says Johnson, who joined as CEO in August 2020 after serving as head of industry constructing for Microsoft. “The staff has actually embraced it. They had been a consumer firm, and they actually embraced the opportunity to bring this roughly designate to these endeavor segments.”

As for all of the hype that accompanied the Magic Jump One, Johnson says they’ve also realized from that ride. “We’re very careful not to hype one thing,” she says. “We make what we’re pronouncing we’re going to make, and we ship what we’re pronouncing we’re going to ship.”

Johnson and I talked about the utilize conditions, the evolution of the headset and how long earlier than we might perhaps per chance perhaps proper rep to easy AR glasses. Past that, we talked about offer chain challenges and the advantage Johnson sees in manufacturing the optics on the firm’s headquarters in Plantation, Florida, with the closing assembly achieved in Mexico. 

Here’s an edited transcript of our conversation. 

Q: The demand a host of other folks, together with me, relish is set self belief on your potential to make, provided that Magic Jump, as all of us know, modified into as soon as a huge hype story.

Johnson: Our self belief is excessive because we’re highly centered. We’re centered on three areas: health care, defense and public sector, and manufacturing and industrial settings. 

And we’re actually proper centered on three utilize conditions. We predict about that the technology might perhaps per chance perhaps make principal extra, but these utilize conditions are showing exact tangible ROI within the nearest duration of time. These utilize conditions are coaching — any roughly coaching is made better and in general less costly in a digital atmosphere — and any invent of 3D visualization, whether or not it’s anatomical hearts and brains or or not it’s a fragment of machinery. 

The closing one is the condo we call remote motivate, where that you would be able to call in an educated who’s not co-located but who can peep what you peep. … They relish not want a Magic Jump tool. However the frontline employee standing in front of a machine in a factory that is gone offline — doubtless they had been professional on it years ago and they relish not be aware — they’d perhaps presently call it an educated from any place who can saunter them by blueprint of a fix.

So or not it’s these three utilize conditions, these three markets, and we’re staying very disciplined, very centered. The staff has actually embraced it. They had been a consumer firm, and they actually embraced the opportunity to bring this roughly designate to these endeavor segments.

Correctly being care, public sector and defense, and manufacturing and industrial settings. So manufacturing is any individual doing an assembly of one thing that might perhaps per chance perhaps also be augmented.

Yes, and your hands are free.

Scott Stein/CNET
What’s the utilize case in health care?

Many of the most indispensable med tech companies are speaking to us or exploring their avenue arrangement using augmented actuality. And what they make is education [and] presurgical planning. Imagine, as one more of seeing one thing in 2D for your PC, they can peep a coronary heart right here within the course of the room. You might perhaps per chance perhaps doubtless saunter round it. You might perhaps per chance perhaps doubtless be taught from it. Or not it’s cognitively simpler to be taught from one thing that appears to be like tackle or not it’s bodily right here. Surgeons are planning the surgical pathways sooner than operations using that. 

We’ve a video on our web site about a separation surgery of twins who are conjoined on the brain. Our companion BrainLab makes 3D photos of brains. They integrated the Magic Jump and they professional the whole 30-individual operating employees on Magic Jump for months, actually, sooner than the operations. The operation modified into as soon as within the midst of COVID.

And they aged the principle generation of Magic Jump for that?

Yes, they had been using gen one. Now we relish actually had exact indicators from gen one because so many enterprises had been constructing capabilities on it, even though it wasn’t constructed for [business use cases]. It did not relish all of the lawful cell tool administration — the things you wish on a tool that allows you to bring it into a corporate infrastructure. We constructed all of that into Magic Jump 2. So right here is an endeavor-hardened tool.

You relish gotten to be ready to preserve a watch on the solutions, privacy, safety — or not it’s beautiful facts. And we constructed all of that into the tool [and] now we relish a platform, hardware and tool. 

Normally, we resolve to be ready to slide into the endeavor cloud that they relish got got. So you settle on to relish to operate it section of their processes, not a separate course of. There modified into as soon as a host of studying round that. The firm had to shift from being consumer-centered to endeavor-centered. And we relish now done that at some level of the last 12 months and a half of. Now we relish added unique administration who has skills in launching endeavor merchandise, and that is the rationale actually helped.

2022 is: enter the market and ship to endeavor customers. What’s 2023?

We’re already fascinated with our next-generation product, and the teams are centered on the scheme of that. We’re within the early stages of it. But we resolve to make, shall we embrace, the sphere of peep you seen, which modified into as soon as double what it modified into as soon as in Magic Jump One. We’ve line of perceive to doubling it again. So literally virtually all the things in front of your eyes, it’s miles doubtless for you to to elevate digitally.

The fields of peep for the Magic Jump 2 as in contrast with the Magic Jump One.

Magic Jump
Of us are going to compare your tool and what you are doing to Microsoft’s HoloLens.

That’s actually the most easy other tool in our category — totally immersive AR for endeavor. In train that is basically it. 

You relish not announced pricing but?

No, now we relish not. 

I’d purchase you are going to be competitive when it comes to pricing?

We’re going to be very competitive. 

Microsoft, with HoloLens, is a smartly-identified impress that has a huge endeavor tool group and a proven song file. You relish gotten, smartly, not that.

We’ve companions, though. And that’s the rationale how we’re going to market, by blueprint of our companions. On the tool aspect, Cohesion is a companion of ours. They’ve integrated their physics engine to Magic Jump, so as that brings all of the big 3D remark material in. 

We’re also cloud agnostic. So the cloud other folks are also companions of ours — now we relish an AWS partnership, and now we relish a Google partnership. These are both customers within the cloud condo. So we, unlike Microsoft, which has their hold cloud, we companion with others so our customers can hold which cloud they settle on to breeze with.

And VMware, which does cell tool administration — that is a indispensable element of bringing it into the IT infrastructure. So these are the categories of folks who we relish now been working with. 

But I’d divulge, shall we embrace, within the med tech condo, our companion BrainLab, who creates that brain imaging tool, they relish got a sales channel, so we can breeze together with them and leverage their sales channel into scientific practices around the sector.

Let’s discuss about the unique headset, which that you would be able to need told me is now 20% lighter than the Magic Jump One.

We’ve done a host of human factors exploration on all of this and done level of curiosity teams because there’s so many exchange kinds and sizes of heads. You might perhaps per chance perhaps doubtless peep this can fit all varied sizes of heads. We’ve made it so it sits for your nostril a little bit extra conveniently. …. And we aged to relish two sizes, but now we had been ready to snatch it all in a single size.

We’re also dealing with a world where offer chains are vastly disrupted. What’s your self belief in being ready to invent these? I realize you are smooth making the optics at your headquarters in Florida.

We’re, which is a big advantage for us. We usher in glass substrate on one end of our factory, and these eyepieces come out the opposite end. It modified into as soon as an advantage for us previously because our engineers sit upstairs and our factory floor is downstairs, so we had been ready to presently unravel any factors on the factory floor. 

But now with the provision chain factors, we relish now clearly done all of the things to prep for it with some pre-purchases of componentry and things tackle that. But we’re pleased to relish that factory there. Because we relish not relish one of the most most same factors that others within the alternate relish with the provision chain. 

The optics are the most indispensable to this tool.

Yes. We’ve a extraordinarily, very excessive yield rate on our hold optical assembly. Or not it’s 92%. And we’re very cushy with that. Or not it’s a story that would not always rep told about Magic Jump — that our manufacturing is de facto top quality, world class. And the engineers being co-located with the manufacturing facility allowed for us to to hit a host tackle that.

However the opposite thing is that they’d to operate the calibration tools. They’d to operate the test tools because there weren’t any devices within the manufacturing world to calibrate and test these items. And the tolerances are the width of a human hair. We’re speaking very, very highly complex machinery, and the engineers, our manufacturing engineers, digital, are lawful there in South Florida.

I wrote a story motivate in 2018 pronouncing that Magic Jump is both shiny or BS. At the time, other folks had been ready to peep. And then they roughly belief it modified into as soon as BS. So where are you on the BS. spectrum?

We’re very careful not to hype one thing. We make what we’re pronouncing we’re going to make, and we ship what we’re pronouncing we’re going to ship. And that precept has been embraced by the firm. 

We’re also principal extra transparent about our technology, because, I actually relish to divulge, Magic Jump One modified into as soon as also an unheard of fragment of technology. Sadly, that bought lost within the headlines after they did not hit the market they had been pointed at. 

But we proper presented on the SPIE Photonics West Conference convention, and our lead optical engineer talked about the optics very openly in Magic Jump 2. We cherished the headlines from there because it wasn’t us speaking, it modified into as soon as them pronouncing Magic Jump has an unheard of tool right here in Magic Jump 2. 

Why did you be half of Magic Jump?

Because I had considered the technology. I had a background in augmented actuality, and I believed it modified into as soon as the most easy technology I might perhaps per chance perhaps doubtless ever considered within the condo. After I checked out the challenges that the firm modified into as soon as having — they’d all of the lawful pieces. The technology wasn’t damaged. They proper wished level of curiosity, and I might perhaps per chance perhaps bring them level of curiosity.

Satirically, an optics firm wished level of curiosity.

[Laughs.] Yes.