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Magic Leap Enlists Star Wars to Show Off Its Mixed Reality Prowess

Magic Leap wants to put a Millenium Falcon in your living room.

For a while now,

one of the most secretive projects in tech

has been the work of Magic Leap, the Florida-based augmented reality startup. They haven't shipped anything: there's no dev kit, no nothing… but it's raised $1.4 billion. There was clearly something special being worked on, but it hadn't been seen publicly until today.

Revealing a partnership with ILMxLAB, the "immersive entertainment" division of Lucasfilm's Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), Magic Leap released the first video demo of their technology, and it's amazing: C-3PO and R2-D2 in some random living room, with R2-D2 projection a holographic map onto a real table. While it's apparent to a point that it's CGI, it looks amazing, and you immediately "get" why Magic Leap has so much interest.

"The collaboration with Magic Leap is exactly the kind of relationship we want to foster—inspirational, cutting-edge, and innovative," Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy told Wired. "With the world-class storytelling and tech talent in our joint lab, the promise of compelling mixed reality entertainment is one step closer."

When will any of this tech actually hit consumers? Magic Leap still isn't saying, but we'll keep our eyes peeled.