Engineer Jeri Ellsworth and former Raven dev Rick Johnson used to work at Valve, on the company's ambitious hardware plans. That was until February, when the pair were laid off. Never mind.
One of the projects that had been in development at Valve were a pair of augmented reality glasses, which according to a report on PCGamesN the duo were allowed to take with them when they left to continue working on them.
The specs are called castAR. Here's the pitch:
castAR is a projected augmented reality system that displays holographic-like 3D projections right in front of you. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope sparked our imaginations of what might be possible in the future by showing R2-D2 and Chewbacca playing a holographic 3D chess-style game. It has taken nearly 35 years since the film was released for this technological dream to come to reality, but with castAR, that reality can be yours.
While there are obviously multiple applications for augmented reality tech, given their background the pair are aiming these mostly at gamers.
They're asking for $400,000. Which sounds like a lot, but first, this is hardware, and second, after less than a day they're over halfway there.
castAR: the most versatile AR & VR system [Kickstarter]