Golden State Warriors sixth man Andre Iguodala caught a glimpse of the secretive Magic Leap, a Florida-based company reported to be focused on augmented, mixed reality and computer vision technologies in addition to artificial intelligence. The tech-centric small forward was in awe of what he saw, although he wasn’t quite sure if he could initially comment.
“Magic Leap was amazing. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say it. It’s like going to play Augusta at the Masters. It’s like you’re not allowed to say you’ve been there,” he said.
In an interview with CNET Senior Editor Brian Tong, Iguodala said that in one example with Magic Leap, he could stick out his hand and a little character appeared on it, equating the figure to Apple’s digital assistant Siri. Additionally, he described how he could control items’ movements in his environment with his eyes.
“Even if you move your eyes, things will move with it. You can shoot something and turn off the lights, turn off the heat, turn on the oven, pre-heat it,” Iguodala said.
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The technology enthusiast described the size of the Magic Leap devices as “almost like you have a pair of sunglasses on.” Iguodala also said how Magic Leap could benefit parents as they home-school their children, calling it “this disruption of life,” where at-home students could see other kids in the classroom along with the teacher and vice versa.
“You know, you say tech has to be disruptive and how can you make something more efficient, but this is incredible,” he said. “You can change and impact lives all over the world and bring people closer to together. What we’re learning from our mobile phones is that it’s taking away the social aspect of everything because you’re just on your phone, and you’re not really interacting with people. But this could bring that back together.”
Iguodala told Tong that artificial intelligence as a whole is an area of technology that has his interest and attention, too.
“AI is really just starting to get some watering as if it’s a plant and then it’s trying to get water. It’s trying to grow and trying to figure it out.”