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Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

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Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

#21

Post by Stratoscope »

bwang29 wrote: post #6

Lytro has really cool technology but never really found a good use case for consumers. I owned both the 1st generation and 2nd generation camera, as much as I hated the UI of the software and usability of the hardware, I can clearly see the team has tried really hard to make it usable. They tried building an editing app, a community, a community 2.0, multiple hardware batch revisions. I wonder why they didn’t stop so…

I discovered Lytro at the Maker Faire when they had their "borrow a Lytro" demo. It was a great bit of marketing: take a Lytro around the Faire for an hour (where are there are always plenty of interesting subjects) and afterward they put all your shots in an online gallery for you. I got a fun shot or two that day and promptly bought one of their first cameras.

But it wasn't a very good camera, and they completely missed the boat on making it a storytelling tool.

I took my Lytro with me when I walked with Team Torani (the Italian syrup people) in the Columbus Day parade that year, and did not get even one good shot. I wished I'd brought my little point-and-shoot instead, or just about any other camera, because I would have gotten dozens of good shots.

The pitch at the time was "you can put your photos on lytro.com, and people who view your gallery can click anywhere to refocus!" But who wants to do that? If you're looking at a gallery of photos, do you want to go clicking around to bring different things in and out of focus? I don't.

But for a photographer, this had some potential as a storytelling tool. Imagine having a photo that would do its own "pull focus" [1] when you view it, like in the movies. The photographer could first focus on one subject and then have it slowly change focus to something else to reveal something new to the person viewing the photo. Kind of a Ken Burns effect [2] but in the focus plane instead of - or perhaps in addition to - panning and zooming.

I remember one photo I got at the Menlo Park street fair that would have lent itself to this. I had the camera down around knee height, and a dog came up with his nose inches from the lens. In the background was his owner, an attractive young lady. It was a nice shot, and I imagined having it start with the dog's nose in focus and then gradually pulling the focus back to the owner.

Granted, this wasn't much of a story, but it was something. I couldn't even do that. All I could do on lytro.com was set the initial focus, and then leave it to any viewers to go clicking around to fiddle with the focus themselves. But nobody wants to do that.

It seemed like an opportunity lost, because they were so focused (pun intended) on the amazing technology and not on how to use it to tell stories.

[1] https://vimeo.com/233143268

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Burns_effect

Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

#22

Post by easymovet »

coldtea wrote: post #20
dpandya wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's sad, really. It's one of the really innovative companies, but it's not easy to sell tech ahead of its time. This glorifies failure quite a bit. One major objective of tech companies is to produce products that customers value and like. Lytro failed to do this. Just because the underlying science is complicated doesn't make the tech "ahead of its time" due to the fact that maybe the tech, as implemented, just i…

> Lytro failed to do this. Just because the underlying science is complicated doesn't make the tech "ahead of its time" due to the fact that maybe the tech, as implemented, just isn't what people want, now or in the future! As we speaking abstractly? What theoretically could be if we didn't know anything about the tech? Because otherwise this specific tech is very much an "ahead of its time" technology, whether consu…

The high price was primary due to them trying to offset the high RD cost vs the actual hardware cost. Google might be able to sell it cheaper if they can get ROI with other applications.

Update: hardware cost about $400 interesting analysis of their strategy here http://hc25.web.rice.edu/files/projects/LytroMarketingPlan.p...

Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

#23

Post by nostrademons »

vadimberman wrote: post #12
nigelcleland wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article, the sale price is estimated at $40 million, whilst the company had raised $200 million, most recently at a $360 million valuation. Most likely not a good pay day, definitely a significant haircut for some of the investors to say the least.

Agree, and given the standard "liquidity preference", the founders are likely to net $0, except for the Google bonuses for the engineering (Jack Barker-like Rosenthal is not likely to stick there). It's sad, really. It's one of the really innovative companies, but it's not easy to sell tech ahead of its time. Yet another incident that will encourage to pick copycats over real innovation. I guess Google is no longer a…

Google never really was generous with its acquisitions: many of its most successful ones like Blogger, KeyHole (Earth), Where2 (Maps), Writely (Docs), Zenter (Presentations), Urchin (Analytics) and Android were for tiny dollar amounts, sub-$100M. And the really big ones - YouTube and DoubleClick, and to a lesser extent Metaweb - turned out to be worth way more than Google paid for them. The only big duds I can think of where Google paid a "generous" amount for something that didn't really make them a whole lot were Motorola, Andy Rubin's robot collection (Boston Dynamics etc.), and Skybox, and in all cases they managed to sell them off for decent amounts.

Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

#24

Post by ipsum2 »

Stratoscope wrote: post #21
bwang29 wrote: post #6

Lytro has really cool technology but never really found a good use case for consumers. I owned both the 1st generation and 2nd generation camera, as much as I hated the UI of the software and usability of the hardware, I can clearly see the team has tried really hard to make it usable. They tried building an editing app, a community, a community 2.0, multiple hardware batch revisions. I wonder why they didn’t stop so…

I discovered Lytro at the Maker Faire when they had their "borrow a Lytro" demo. It was a great bit of marketing: take a Lytro around the Faire for an hour (where are there are always plenty of interesting subjects) and afterward they put all your shots in an online gallery for you. I got a fun shot or two that day and promptly bought one of their first cameras. But it wasn't a very good camera, and they completely m…

I was of the opinion that Lytro was just a gimmick (we have light fields, what can we do with them?), but your post is really insightful. What you describe sounds like a useful product.

Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

#25

Post by jacobush »

akhatri_aus wrote: post #14
samstave wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are buying them to make dash cams for self driving cars is my guess... That tech in dash-cam video is priceless

It's likely for VR, the 'reverse' of the Lytro allows projection to the eye at multiple focal points.

I don't know about "likely", but that is an awesome idea.

Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

#26

Post by ipsum2 »

watersb wrote: post #4

When I saw Google's spherical-photo capture bot -- basically an array of Lytro cameras -- I figured this would happen soon.

Can you link me to this? I only know that Google is using GoPros to do light field capture: https://petapixel.com/2018/03/15/google-built-arc-16-gopros-...

Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

#27

Post by nigelcleland »

vadimberman wrote: post #12
nigelcleland wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article, the sale price is estimated at $40 million, whilst the company had raised $200 million, most recently at a $360 million valuation. Most likely not a good pay day, definitely a significant haircut for some of the investors to say the least.

Agree, and given the standard "liquidity preference", the founders are likely to net $0, except for the Google bonuses for the engineering (Jack Barker-like Rosenthal is not likely to stick there). It's sad, really. It's one of the really innovative companies, but it's not easy to sell tech ahead of its time. Yet another incident that will encourage to pick copycats over real innovation. I guess Google is no longer a…

Yes, it's a shame for the founders in this situation, particularly if the wished to continue whilst their investors wished to exit and recoup any losses they may have had.

I'm reminded every day that the adoption curve can be brutal for those at the sharp end of the stick.

Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

#28

Post by ipsum2 »

jacobush wrote: post #25
akhatri_aus wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's likely for VR, the 'reverse' of the Lytro allows projection to the eye at multiple focal points.

I don't know about "likely", but that is an awesome idea.

This already exists: http://lightfield-forum.com/light-field-camera-prototypes/nv... (among others)

Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

#29

Post by Angostura »

JimmyAustin wrote: post #18
coldtea wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be priceless? With dash-cam video you can just chose a fixed hyperfocal distance and have everything in good focus. You certainly don't need creative DoP and bokeh...

Just spit-balling, but could it be used for cheap depth perception, like a LIDAR alternative?

Sounds plausible to me.

Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

#30

Post by taneq »

ipsum2 wrote: post #28
jacobush wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about "likely", but that is an awesome idea.

This already exists: http://lightfield-forum.com/light-field-camera-prototypes/nv... (among others)

Wow, that looks awesome! For something at the demonstration-prototype stage in 2013 I'd have hoped they would have something at least in development by now.
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