Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

theinformation.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 312 posts

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

#161

Post by jdminhbg »

dylan604 wrote: post #77
gonehome wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a twitter video that comically showed their marketing demo of the whale and then the real life example of the product (with related music). It appears to have been scrubbed from the internet though because I was trying to find it a while back to show someone and I searched for a while, but couldn't find anything. Magic Leap seems like a case study of how not to release a product, but maybe they were more fo…

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.

> Magic Leap reminds me of Theranos.

Even if Magic Leap dies on the vine, I don't think they're anything like Theranos except for both being unsuccessful VC-funded companies. Theranos tried to sell fraudulent health care services. Magic Leap is trying (and failing) to build a real product. You can buy one and see what it does, and nobody's health is impacted if their experience just sucks.

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

#162

Post by csallen »

gonehome wrote: post #42
daenz wrote: post #12

The thing that got me about the Magic Leap is I couldn't find a reliable video of what it looked like through the lenses. Everything was clearly a CGI overlay or recreation. Reviewers claimed they were prohibited from showing video through the lenses.[0] I can understand not wanting their product misrepresented, but all the secrecy and censorship about it makes me believe it is bad, and I'm not going to spend money o…

There was a twitter video that comically showed their marketing demo of the whale and then the real life example of the product (with related music). It appears to have been scrubbed from the internet though because I was trying to find it a while back to show someone and I searched for a while, but couldn't find anything. Magic Leap seems like a case study of how not to release a product, but maybe they were more fo…

Google did the same thing with Glass. They had super slick concept video that went viral, and the real product couldn't be anything but a disappointment after that.

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

#163

Post by joejerryronnie »

saalweachter wrote: post #139
DuskStar wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right?!! What could possibly go wrong?

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

#164

Post by awestroke »

Andrex wrote: post #131
IshKebab wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sounds like VR would be better for that

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

#165

Post by tigershark »

daeken wrote: post #10
ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who was a bit underwhelmed by the original Hololens, this assessment is utterly disappointing. Don't get me wrong, a lot about the Hololens was quite interesting, but clearly far from being ready for primetime.

The original Hololens was underwhelming in some regards, but they got a few things very right: text was crisp in most circumstances, the contrast was great, and the software mostly Just Worked (TM). All of these things are absent on the Magic Leap. The only advantages it really has are the controller (which is ... okay, I guess) and comfort.

And the double FOV area no? If I remember correctly it’s even slightly bigger than hololens 2 that went out something like 6 months after magic leap one.

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

#166

Post by Holomakerbot »

LegitShady wrote: post #65
Holomakerbot wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notice that zero VR companies show you through the lens footage. This is not restricted to Magic Leap. You can find amateur attempts by owners to shoot through Magic Leap, Hololens, and various VR headsets if you go on Youtube and Twitter. But no company does this at all. Just another misunderstanding by people here who think they've found another reason to nitpick at Magic leap, but it's a widespread industry issue.…

The thing is that for HoloLens and VR sets we did have people showing it as best they could in a camera and for vr projecting into a monitor. Magic leap held it all secret and we'd be told how magical it was.

Not really. Remember that before their device launched they were ridiculed for being too honest and showing the rock throwing guy demo. This was months before you could buy it: https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/273280-magic-leaps-first-...

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

#167

Post by Holomakerbot »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #152
donpdonp wrote: post #39

Magic Leap One has been for sale for 6 months. At $2.6B in total funding, thats $433,333 per unit for 6,000 units. The sticker price is $2300 per unit. By comparison the Nintendo VirtualBoy was for sale for one year at $180(in 1995/$300 in 2018) and sold 770,000 units[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Boy

> 6,000 units This number gets more mind-blowing the more you think about it. It's small enough that one needs to start considering the units bought by management, employees, investors, suppliers, competitors, et cetera to say nothing of their friends and families.

Honestly, with high priced dev kits they just need to be given out for free like Valve did with the Vive. Magic leap has given out thousands just to get devs on board.

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

#168

Post by heyitsguay »

MarkMc wrote: post #160
gonehome wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think this write up by Michael Abrash (from 2012) is still the best argument about why AR is hard: http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-hard-... Though there has been some progress since then.

Interesting article. Here's Abrash's wry summary of the problems facing AR: Leave aside the issues associated with tracking objects in the real world in order to know how to virtually modify and interact with them. Leave aside, too, the issues associated with tracking, processing, and rendering fast enough so that virtual objects stay glued in place relative to the real world. Forget about the fact that you can’t lig…

Oof yeah. Crazy as it might sound, it seems like the easier path to a complete solution is some sort of neural lace interfacing with the optic nerve. We're obviously not there today, but maybe by the end of the century?

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

#169

Post by rl3 »

saalweachter wrote: post #139
DuskStar wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I suspect in about 20-30 years that method will be considered antiquated, and brain implants with direct access to the user's visual cortex will be far more sensible for that kind of thing.

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

#170

Post by tigershark »

gbear605 wrote: post #126
ericd wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is it bad? From the various video reviews I’ve seen, it seems to work a lot better than the Hololens circa a couple years ago.

Other reviews in this post say that it’s not even as good as the original Hololens

I would call bullshit on that. Just the double FOV would make it barely usable compared to completely useless like the first hololens.
Post reply on HN