Magic Leap, the mysterious startup from Florida, has secured $600 million dollars in funding from Google and others — for a product that hasn’t been released.

Despite leaks, articles, patents, and high-profile hires, Magic Leap’s ultimate vision is shrouded in mystery. From the outside, it looks like they’re building the tech that will replace smartphones, PCs, and the Web as we know it. And this has tech giants like Facebook, Microsoft, Samsung, and Apple gearing up for a massive arms race.

So what is Magic Leap planning for the future?

To find out, I dug into their infamously cryptic “surreal neo-dadaist” 2012 TEDx talk — and if you’ve already seen it, you may be surprised by what you missed…

1. A Secret Message

Magic Leap’s CEO Rony Abovitz takes the stage dressed as a spaceman, while an encoded binary message appears behind him. What could it mean?

Rony recently hinted that there is a coherent message embedded in this talk. Aside from the abstract impressions implied by the rest of the talk, this binary code could be part of that message.

2. Fudge

“Fudge” appears over and over in Magic Leap’s “alternate reality”—in the TEDx talk, on Facebook, Twitter, a comic book, in other TEDx talks (more about this later), and who knows where else.

On the one hand, “fudge” could just be a red herring. At first glance the whole talk feels like an absurdist corporate-surrealist work of art like The Institute or Bonk Business. The repetition of “fudge” acts to increase the sense of disorientation and misinformation. In this respect it’s exactly like the typical corporate presentation :-)

On the other hand, the giant bar of “space fudge” represents the all-important Monolith from the film “2001”—the Monolith which was left by an ancient alien species, and spurs along man’s evolution at faster rates.

And on the yet another hand there’s the “magical keyword” revealed in the talk…

3. Phydre, ΦΥΔΓΕ, Phudge, Fudge

Rony the spaceman delivers only two lines in his speech. And one of the lines is about the “ancient and magical keyword: phydre”. So what the heck is “phydre”?

It turns out it’s just more fudge in disguise — ”phydre” it’s a phoneticization for “fudge” by way of Greek characters. So maybe there is something to “fudge” after all…

Perhaps “fudge” is the key to decode the binary message revealed earlier?

4. Moore’s law, the Singularity, relativity, Strange Loops, quantum physics, the Uncanny Valley, and the Florida Skunk Ape

The “answer to everything” part of the talk features some far-out imagery that alludes to the deepest questions in quantum physics, consciousness, the nature of reality, and the future of technology and humanity.

These small, blurry images were only shown for split seconds at the back of the stage, so they’re easy to miss as we’re distracted by the spectacle of the Shaggles going crazy to punk rock on center stage.

The images include the Uncanny Valley, a graph of Moore’s Law leading into the Singularity, the cover of Douglas Hofstadter’s I Am a Strange Loop, and more. Some of this was probably thrown in for fun — like the Florida Skunk Ape — but the rest could refer to the strange time-and-space-bending illusions that Magic Leap’s technology will usher in over the next few decades.

One gets the sense that the silliness of the talk serves to get across the message without the usual pomposity; to retain a sense of humility while introducing something they really believe in, and weed out people that just don’t “get it”.

This summer, Magic Leap is preparing a public demonstration directed by the physicist Brian Cox that will address the “deepest possible questions” about the origins of the universe. So it’s possible that the images in their TEDx talk reflect a similar line of thinking. Or these images could just add to the “techno surrealism” vibe of the talk.

Magic Leap’s CEO Rony Abovitz said they’re developing the interface that we’ll use “for the next 30 or 40 years”, so they’re clearly thinking about far-ranging ideas decades into the future. As amazing as Magic Leap’s product will be, it will still just be version 1.0 — there’s much more to come in the next decades, so it pays to have a long roadmap.

5. Ark in a National Park

punk Wellington

The band in the TEDx talk is the New Zealand punk group Ghidoragh. The lyrics of their song Threat Level Ultra cheerfully invite us all to check out their “ark in a national park”…at least that’s what it sounds like they’re singing…

If you squint your eyes you can see the ark

The “ark in a national park” could relate to an image from an earlier incarnation of Magic Leap’s website: a couple holding hands in what looks the Salt Flat national park. The implication is that they’re wearing Magic Leap glasses and looking at something only they can see—like a giant virtual ark.

If we can have a city on a rainbow (as you’ll see later), then a giant virtual Ark in the Salt Flats seems entirely reasonable. Burning Man 2020 is going to be very interesting ^_^

Not coincidentally, two members of Ghidoragh, Greg Broadmore & Christian Pearce, are also artists at Weta Workshop, a Magic Leap partner. Greg created the fictional steampunk world of Dr. Grordbort, which is the setting of one of Magic Leap’s games.

6. Surreal Imagery