castAR (formerly Technical Illusions) was a

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

-based technology

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founded in March 2013 by

Jeri Ellsworth Jeri Janet Ellsworth (born August 14, 1974) is an American entrepreneur, computer chip designer and inventor. She gained fame in 2004 for creating a complete Commodore 64 emulator system on a chip housed within a joystick, called Commodore 30 ...

and Rick Johnson. Its first product was to be the castAR, a pair of augmented reality and virtual reality glasses. castAR was a founding member of the nonprofit Immersive Technology Alliance.

History

castAR was founded by two former

Valve A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fitting ...

employees; the castAR glasses were born out of work that started inside Valve. While still at Valve, their team had spent over a year working on the project. They obtained legal

ownership Ownership is the state or fact of legal possession and control over property, which may be any asset, tangible or intangible. Ownership can involve multiple rights, collectively referred to as title, which may be separated and held by different ...

of their work after their departure. In August 2015,

Playground Global Playground Global is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in deep tech and assists startups with software, hardware, machine learning, marketing, talent and design. The company was founded in 2015 by Andy Rubin, Peter Barrett, Matt ...

funded $15M into castAR to build its product and create augmented-reality experiences. In August 2016, Darrell Rodriguez, former President of LucasArts, joined as the new CEO. In addition, Steve Parkis became President and COO, after leading teams at The Walt Disney Company and Zynga. In September 2016, they opened castAR Salt Lake City, a new development studio formed from a team hired out of the former

Avalanche Software Avalanche Software is an American video game developer based in Salt Lake City, Utah and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It was founded in October 1995 by four programmers formerly of Sculptured Software, including Joh ...

, which worked on the Disney Infinity series. In October 2016, they announced the acquisition of

Eat Sleep Play Eat Sleep Play, Inc. was an American video game developer, formed in 2007 by Scott Campbell and David Jaffe, director of the ''Twisted Metal'' series and ''God of War''. Eat Sleep Play entered into an exclusive platform deal with Sony requiring the ...

, the developer best known for Twisted Metal, also in Salt Lake City UT. In December 2016, Parkis, who had been President and COO, was named CEO to replace Rodriguez. In June 2017 it was reported by

Polygon In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure that is described by a finite number of straight line segments connected to form a closed '' polygonal chain'' (or ''polygonal circuit''). The bounded plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two t ...

that CastAR was shutting down, laying off 70 employees. A core group of administrators was expected to remain, to sell off the company's technology. In September 2019 Jeri Ellsworth initiated a Kickstarter for a new device based on the same principles called Tilt Five. The company uses CastAR technology acquired from the former startup and is founded by CastAR alumni Jeri Ellsworth, Amy Herndon, Jamie Gennis, and Anthony Aquilio

castAR

The castAR glasses combine elements of augmented reality and virtual reality. After winning Educator's and Editor's Choice ribbons at the 2013

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, the castAR project was successfully

crowdfunded Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by crow ...

via

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, K ...

. castAR surpassed its funding goal two days after the project went live and raised over $1 million on a $400,000 goal. castAR creates

hologram Holography is a technique that enables a wavefront to be recorded and later re-constructed. Holography is best known as a method of generating real three-dimensional images, but it also has a wide range of other Holography#Applications, applic ...

-like images unique to each user by sending an image from tiny projectors on the glasses into the user's surroundings using a technology that Technical Illusions called "Projected Reality". The image bounces off a retro-reflective surface back to the wearer's eyes. castAR can also be used for virtual reality purposes, using its VR clip-on. Before the time of the 2017 company shutdown all Kickstarter funds had been paid back to the original backers. Along with the repayment, a coupon for a free set of the production AR glasses was given to each backer. This happened at the time of the 2015 Playground Global investment.

References

External links

* *
Jeri Ellsworth on the demise of CastAR
{{AR and VR Display technology Kickstarter-funded products Virtual reality companies Augmented reality Companies based in Palo Alto, California Eyewear companies of the United States

History

castAR

See also

References

External links