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Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

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Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#131

Post by Andrex »

IshKebab wrote: post #56
mo1ok wrote: post #23

Let this be a lesson: Working prototypes trump all theory. I heard all silicon valley gurus stating they were "bearish on VR, bullish on "AR". This proliferated as a mantra throughout the industry. I thought they were wrong then, and believed the opposite - because I had a working VR headset that was awesome, but had only heard somewhat meh things about existing AR prototypes. Until great AR hardware comes out, I'm s…

I've tried Hololens and it is honestly pretty amazing. The field of view really sucks but I'm sure they'll improve that, and it doesn't actually matter quite so much for AR. But it is still a less compelling proposition than VR. The main market is games where seeing the real world is kind of pointless. Good VR is much more immersive, and being taken to another world is much cooler than seeing some floating planets or…

Gaming is like the lowest on my list of applications for AR... At the top is some kind of AR desktop environment that makes spinning up and managing arbitrary virtual monitors/windows a snap.

Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#132

Post by ballmers_peak »

soneca wrote: post #130
dang wrote: post #60

The Information has been unlocking the occasional article for HN users for a while now. I asked if they'd do that for this one and they agreed. Thanks! (The submitted URL was https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/06/report-magic-leaps-early-d... , which made sense while the original source was behind a hard paywall. Changed now.)

That's nice! I noticed a modal but I closed before reading it. I could parse (not in time to avoid closing) that it was welcoming HN users. I am curious now what it was saying. EDIT: Got it again, it says: "Welcome Hacker News Readers Before you quickly exit out of this popup, consider subscribing for $10/month for your first 3 months" I was quicker than they expected lol

Welp, at least my copy was on point.

Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#133

Post by redisman »

pvarangot wrote: post #29
criddell wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not follow the model used by consoles and cell phones? Sell the hardware at a loss and take a 30% cut of software sales.

That won't work here, nobody would buy software for this thing because it's really underwhelming.

That's like launching a game console with no games on launch day then. Even worse of a blunder from Magic Leap.

Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#134

Post by 1auralynn »

>Employees started receiving free headsets earlier this year, with some managers telling staffers it was because the company couldn’t sell enough and had extra inventory, said multiple people.

I applied for their developer grant program, and got offered a consolation prize of a free headset - that they wanted to send me a 1099 for the full price! Would have had to pay $600-1000 in taxes on it, so had to reject. Nice tax write-off opportunity with a bonus of good PR!

Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#135

Post by LegitShady »

zer00eyz wrote: post #5

For as cool as this is, cost is the problem. $2300 is an expensive experiment, one that might not be for me. You want to get developers to bet on new tech, to innovate, then get the cost way down. Make me as an individual developer willing to take the risk that I might not have the time or the mindset to follow through. I can't imagine that the cost of production is more than $500... start selling them at that price…

Even worse they had a $2300 headset that they're selling to developers and they weren't showing real footage anywhere. I'm a be enthusiast and I watched all the videos and "news" on it and was thinking "show me the money". Turns out he had money it's the product they said they had that they didn't.

Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#136

Post by LegitShady »

dylan604 wrote: post #81
LegitShady wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the same thing. Even with VR people held cameras up to the displays, or projected what they saw onto a monitor. With magic leap it was sooo secret. I assumed garbage. I'm still not sure what I would be supposed to do with them.

VR allowed the signal going to the headset to also be displayed onto a regular monitor since the signal was the full image. With AR, it's just overlaying something onto a lens you see through to be able to see the real world. That signal displayed onto a regular monitor would probably just show the object with a matte or essentially the object over a black background. Think of a transparent PNG but in motion. That's…

It would at least show fidelity and detail. Instead they showed nothing so I assumed it was vaporware.

Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#137

Post by nostrademons »

TrentLarr wrote: post #28
mo1ok wrote: post #23

Let this be a lesson: Working prototypes trump all theory. I heard all silicon valley gurus stating they were "bearish on VR, bullish on "AR". This proliferated as a mantra throughout the industry. I thought they were wrong then, and believed the opposite - because I had a working VR headset that was awesome, but had only heard somewhat meh things about existing AR prototypes. Until great AR hardware comes out, I'm s…

This partially comes from the SV all-or-nothing attitude: you can have AR on all the time (and thus revenue stream all the time), but you can't do that with VR.

Also the potential markets affected. VR really only affects the games & entertainment market, which is big, but best case you're revolutionizing Hollywood. AR is applicable to a wide variety of B2B markets - surgery, piloting, hazardous waste removal, firefighting, the military, mining, tourism, deep sea exploration, science, space colonization, etc. - which collectively have much more money spent on them. Your total addressable market is basically the amount of money you can capture if everything goes perfectly, which is dictated by the amount spent on substitutes. AR has many more substitutes than VR.

Same reason cryptocurrency is hot - it threatens the financial/insurance/ownership industry, which as a $13T behemoth is currently the biggest economic prize on earth.

Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#138

Post by kbenson »

DonHopkins wrote: post #105
Aeolun wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think this was ever the case for Magic Leap. All threads were always full of ‘I think this is waaaay too much funding for something we haven’t even seem yet’. I’m just confused how the press and investors were misled in such a miraculous way.

The most convincing "argument" for them was "well, they fooled Google into giving them a half a billion dollars, so they must have something there."

Well, trust by proxy is what makes civilization work. But having some percentage of the populace that's always skeptical of the trust imparted like that is also essential.

Usually, Google being willing to give a company hundreds of millions of dollars is enough, because you assume whoever's job it is to give out all that money takes it seriously. Unfortunately, sometimes the more money is involved the harder it is for skeptics to get their own message out, since nobody wants to believe that all the money they've invested has been a poor choice. Just look at Uber. Any company that didn't have so many billions invested in it would have failed because of the internal problems they have long ago.

Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#139

Post by saalweachter »

DuskStar wrote: post #128
tmh79 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have some VC friends tangentially related to the deal. Apparently the original demo was wild, like real magic bonkers. Everyone who tried became a believer. The projected light streams onto the user's eyes so instead of seeing an image overlayed in an intermediate layer as in most AR, the image was projected onto your retinas through this very advanced technology and optics. The issue is that the advanced technolog…

If I could get something like that as a desktop monitor replacement, I would be ecstatic . (Assuming appropriately high resolution and refresh rates - but if it's doing eye tracking that'd have to be the case)

I know that "light going into your eyeball" is how your eyes work, and that conventional monitors are not suspected to be great for your eyes, but "shoot light directly at your retinas" always makes me nervous.

Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

#140

Post by keenmaster »

tmh79 wrote: post #91
dylan604 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Magic Leap reminds me of Theranos. The companies with vaporware seem to have very similar playbooks that are pretty obvious with how in your face they are while never actually showing the product.

I have some VC friends tangentially related to the deal. Apparently the original demo was wild, like real magic bonkers. Everyone who tried became a believer. The projected light streams onto the user's eyes so instead of seeing an image overlayed in an intermediate layer as in most AR, the image was projected onto your retinas through this very advanced technology and optics. The issue is that the advanced technolog…

Miniaturization of multifocal projection-based technology seems inevitable. What's the best way to keep track of progress in that field, and do you know when it might hit the mass market?
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