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Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

techcrunch.com

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

#51

Post by Stratoscope »

angrygoat wrote: post #49
Stratoscope wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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've got a Lytro, and haven't used it for years, for many of the reasons you articulate. To my mind their mistake was not having an open source library that could work with their capture format, including basic support for focusing and producing an output image for display. Pretty much every new photography tech has had a community of amateurs and professionals spring up around it and (hopefully) innovate. They misse…

> To my mind their mistake was not having an open source library that could work with their capture format, including basic support for focusing and producing an output image for display.

Oh, now you are making me wistful for what might have been.

If they'd had any kind of library or API, I could have played around with my Ken Burns idea by writing a few lines of code!

I've seen this same mistake over and over again going back to the earliest days of GUI apps: designing the user experience with hardcoded interactions instead of building the UI on top of a public API that enables others to create and experiment with their own interactions.

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

#52

Post by isolli »

nostrademons wrote: post #23
vadimberman wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And I think they dodged a bullet by failing to acquire Groupon (for $6bn).

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

#53

Post by ipsum2 »

Qworg wrote: post #38
taneq wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They have a fully working version of it: https://vr.lytro.com/within/hallelujah

We're talking about two different things. Hallelujah is interesting because it does light field videography, but what I linked was a light field display.

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

#54

Post by Gibbon1 »

nradov wrote: post #2

Well that was the logical outcome. Their technology was interesting but it clearly wasn't viable as a stand-alone compact camera. Everyone expected it would eventually be integrated into smartphones.

I thought they had switched from consumer camera's to large 3D light field camera's for shooting movies.

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

#55

Post by bb88 »

I thought the future of light field cameras would be to replace the bulky DSLR's and their lenses.

If you can do that, then autofocus systems go away completely. What you're left with is the shutter and zoom, and the computer's ability to make beautiful bokeh from any image.

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

#58

Post by matte_black »

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?

Do you really want “cheap” depth perception for a self driving car?

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

#59

Post by rjth »

Deimorz wrote: post #50

If you have a VR headset, I highly suggest trying out the "Welcome to Light Fields" demo that Google released on Steam last week (it's free): http://store.steampowered.com/app/771310/Welcome_to_Light_Fi... It's absolutely incredible and seems like really promising technology. Even with the relatively low resolution of current headsets, the image quality is amazing and you can see some slight lighting changes as you m…

As someone who has been working with stereo 180 videos in VR for the past few months, this technology makes such a huge difference. While stereo photography looks broken from most angles, Google's lightfields demo just felt natural. Honestly, one of the best VR experiences I've tried in a while.

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

#60

Post by philg_jr »

nostrademons wrote: post #23
vadimberman wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Google got to keep Motorola Mobility's patent portfolio and license them back to Lenovo I believe.
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