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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

#181

Post by cma »

ericd wrote: post #113
pvarangot wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that it doesn't work, it's bad. You can make a bad product with a company with a "valuation" in the billions, we need to start to understand that. And there's good alternatives to the product that actually do work better at a similar price point. This is not a "product market fit" problem, this is bad tech being pushed down the pipes until it makes it out of a fucked up company.

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.

It seems to be significantly worse than the Lenovo AR toy lightsaber thing that clips onto your phone (similar to Meta’s design).

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

#182

Post by gumby »

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.)

Thanks dang! I specifically used the TechCrunch article for that reason and am glad you were able to get a hole cut in the paywall.

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

#183

Post by [deleted] »

jayd16 wrote: post #24
vassilyk wrote: post #17

How are we even surprised. They are the Theranos of AR. They pushed the 'fake it until you make it' mantra a bit far, and now reality is biting hard. Hopefully they will still trigger a revolution of some sort... but this was predictable.

This is way overblown. They have at least a Hololens equivalent, and if you value occlusion, they're ahead. And that's without Microsoft's reach. Equating them to vaporware isn't fair at all.

[deleted]

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

#184

Post by DonHopkins »

gumby wrote: post #176
DonHopkins wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

My understanding is that sergey wanted to do it and he can effectively write checks right off the balance sheet. Google Ventures passed, as folks were always eager to tell me.

Sounds like that's the same way Google Glass got funded, too. I wonder what Sergey Brin thought of the nepotism at Magic Leap that he funded, documented in the sexual discrimination lawsuit?

http://valleywag.gawker.com/meet-the-google-founders-mistres...

>Since Google Glass launched to our awe and horror, the company's co-founder, Sergey Brin, hasn't been spotted without a pair. He's placed himself atop the privacy-eroding project, publicly, and inside Google's secret labs. Maybe it's because he's fucking the Glass marketing manager, Amanda Rosenberg.

>According to a startling report by AllThingsD's Liz Gannes and Kara Swisher, Brin and his wife of six years, Anne Wojcicki, are no more, now that he's found himself a PR girlfriend at Google. AllThingsD also reported this girlfriend was recently attached to another (totally coincidentally departing) top Googler, Hugo Barra, to make Brin's relationship with the recent San Francisco transplant behind the backs of his wife and children all that much worse.

https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/02/14/magic-leap-sex-discriminat...

>"Eric Akerman, vice president of IT, is a high school buddy of Abovitz. He is a loud and outspoken and several misogynistic comments have emanated from his department and from him."

>"Vice president of IT Akerman, on Nov. 8, 2016, told a large group of people who asked why he voted for Trump that it was 'because Melania is hot.'"

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

#185

Post by comex »

ianai wrote: post #53
defterGoose wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, a Virtual Boy comparison is just the deftest diss one could possibly offer here.

The VB also makes me wonder if AR isn’t practically impossible for the foreseeable future since lots has changed since then, but not the vaporware of this stuff.

The Virtual Boy was VR, not AR. VR is suffering a “hype hangover” of its own these days, sure, but I’d say not to the same degree as AR. The tech works much better (it’s just a screen with a fancy lens in front), it has at least one solid use case (games; mostly played at home, so less worry about the social awkwardness of wearing something on your head), and millions of VR headsets have been sold.

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

#186

Post by Baeocystin »

joejerryronnie wrote: post #163
saalweachter wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'm sure they have software interlocks to make sure nothing bad happens with the energy levels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25

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

#187

Post by Baeocystin »

wpietri wrote: post #143
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…

Another dimension to consider: if it's good, how long is it good for? I just got done writing a long thread on the history of 3D as a novelty: https://twitter.com/williampietri/status/1203074623232851970 But the basic summary is that since the 1850s, people keep coming up with exciting 3D innovations that sell lots of units for a while, but that never make much of a difference. Stereoscopic 3D is interesting and fun;…

>I've talked with quite a number of people who have bought VR systems, and I have yet to find one who uses it with the sort of frequency that people use their gaming consoles, PCs, laptops, or phones to play games. Maybe this wave of innovation will eventually take face-mounted VR from "novelty" to "daily driver", but it doesn't sound like it's here yet.

I pretty much fully agree with your assessment, with the caveat that I've seen a lot of folks really getting in to their Oculus Quests in a way that never happened for the tethered unit. I'm certain many would spend even more time using it if there was a larger software library.

(And yes, the success of the Quest genuinely surprised me, too. Having now gotten to play with one, I have to say tetherless with good controllers is the biggest single improvement in VR since the first modern headset.)

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

#188

Post by Rapzid »

csallen wrote: post #162
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…

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.

I was disappointed that the one I tried, I couldn't even get the UI to respond properly. Maybe it was just that unit but I could swear I recall reading of others have similar issues with the interface.

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

#189

Post by filoleg »

aaron695 wrote: post #127
filoleg wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling this comment will be linked on HN eventually (in about a decade) the same way people link that one infamous comment about Dropbox being an unnecessary thing that no one needs or wants. Or the same way people in 2019 mock those from a couple of decades ago who were saying that internet was "just a fad" that will go away sooner rather than later.

AR has been around since 1990. VR decades before so times ticking on what a fad is and you have to make a case why this decade AR will start? Plus I did premise it on full AI to understand the world to augment. Technically we already augment with the 100 year old phone allowing us to talk to someone far away anywhere-ish. Your case why in a decade we want AR which is a overlayed response and a camera that can analyse…

>AR has been around since 1990. VR decades before so times ticking on what a fad is and you have to make a case why this decade AR will start?

By that metric, we had smartphones at least since the early 90s. They didn't make any significant impact on the world at all until at least late 00s. And now, look at the world we live in these days.

>Your case why in a decade we want AR which is a overlayed response and a camera that can analyse the world using real technology. What will it do?

Everything a smartphone can do, but in a much more seamless, unobtrusive, and superior way, as well as many many other things that we cannot even think of now. If you think a tech that can completely supplant smartphones (as well as offer many more things that smartphones cannot do) isn't gonna be desired by people in the future, then I think there isn't much one can say to convince you otherwise.

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

#190

Post by dmix »

rl3 wrote: post #172
fastball wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man I'd forgotten about that edit. Cracks me up every time.

Likewise. The same meme was also used for trashing the sorry state of No Man's Sky release in 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5jWtz3rzco To their credit, the developers diligently kept working on the game and I've heard it's quite polished now. I kind of doubt we'll see the same turnaround story with Magic Leap, but who knows.

Nice video explaining No Man Sky’s evolution: https://youtu.be/uzvxn6l50co

Anyone who has worked in software knows the difference between expectations/projections and real life. Everything takes 10x longer once you dig into the details. So it’s great to see a gaming company able to adapt and continually release through those down moments and eventually produce something great.

It makes you wonder how much better other games could be if they took an incremental approach and continually expanded the world available to users.

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