Magic leap could be gearing for a 2017 launch

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>Mysterious startup Magic Leap, valued at $4.5 billion, is starting to manufacture its still unannounced product, potentially for a launch next year.

>Magic Leap is one of the most mysterious and hyped startups in technology. It has raised $1.39 billion from investors including Google, Alibaba, KPCB, and Andreeseen Horowitz. Google CEO Sundar Pichai sits on its board.

>The company may attend the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January 2017, according to KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a reputation for being tapped into the Asian consumer electronics supply chain.

>Magic Leap’s product is a pair of glasses that uses cutting-edge optics to superimpose computer graphics into the real word. Essentially, a tiny projector or laser beams light into the users’ eyes in a way that computer graphics are indistinguishable from real light.

>The prototypes currently circulating around Dania Beach, Florida, where the company is headquartered, have a smartphone-sized battery pack with computer components attached to the glasses by a wire, according to sources familiar with Magic Leap’s prototypes.

>If Magic Leap attends CES, it would make sense as an occasion to reveal its product publicly for the first time. If Magic Leap does not have a “highly finished prototype to showcase at the next CES,” Kuo thinks it is unlikely to go into mass production next year, according to a note sent to investors seen by Business Insider.

>“We attend CES every year,” a Magic Leap spokesperson told Business Insider. “So that won’t be anything new. But as you know, presenting vs. attending are two very different things.”


>Magic Leap has deals with suppliers in the United States and Asia, says Kuo, which are key steps to making the device a reality. He picks up on a Chinese language report in TechNews that says that Magic Leap has placed “million-unit orders” to a supplier.