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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

#231

Post by LegitShady »

criddell wrote: post #75
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.

I'd love to know how close the shipping product is to what Kevin Kelly and other journalists were shown under NDA before release.

me too because people were raving about it. I wonder how much influence was peddled, given the billions invested.

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

#232

Post by NotSammyHagar »

jjeaff wrote: post #214
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…

That makes sense. Because I heard on a podcast, this week in tech, I think, from a VC on the panel that was an investor and the rest of the panel was comparing it to Microsoft's ar product and he was adamant that he had seen things that he couldn't talk specifics about but that it was a total game changer.

What podcast & episode was that?

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

#233

Post by vkou »

simonh wrote: post #116
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…

I don’t know if any are at Magic Leap, but other General Magic alumni include Andy Rubin (Android) and Tony Fadell (iPod) so at least some of them did ok eventually.

Yeah, especially with the 87 million in 'quit quietly' money that Andy got for harassing his coworkers.

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

#234

Post by dlp211 »

mumblemumble wrote: post #225
sytelus wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprisingly enough all of the above is fairly well solved (or at least has the illusion to have been solved) in HoloLens and it turns out that not being able to draw black isn't a huge issue because AR is designed to interface with existing world and all virtual objects are ok to have grey instead of full black. If you were going to watch movie or play classic games, this would be an issue but that is not interfacin…

It's worth reading the article. "How do you draw black?" is a teaser for a much more insightful and nuanced (and convincing) treatment. Here's a bit more: Given additive blending, there’s no way to darken real pixels even the slightest bit. That means that there’s no way to put virtual shadows on real surfaces. Moreover, if a virtual blue pixel happens to be in front of a real green “pixel,” the resulting pixel will…

I'm not sure that this isn't solvable, having used a hololens, I don't remember this being an issue, and if it was, it wasn't one that impacted my experience.

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

#235

Post by aspaceman »

Causality1 wrote: post #217
dmix wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 othe…

For me it's a very conflicted project. All they've done since release has been admirable, and NMS is now a good game well-worth the fee. Thing is, most of that work should've been done before release, and is it right to commend a company for marketing creme-filled donuts and then sending us the creme in the mail eighteen months later? Even so, I would've said yes it is, except for one issue: they still refuse to apol…

But when it’s Sony co-marketing can you really blame them?

It was their first time ever getting that kind of attention from a publisher and they screwed it up. That’s how I’ve interpreted it at least.

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

#236

Post by bobsil1 »

sheepdestroyer wrote: post #43
zaroth wrote: post #4

I didn’t even know they had gotten beyond vaporware! Why would someone spend $2,300 on this equipment other than as a developer kit? I assume there is virtually no compelling content or services available to make a consumer interested in shelling out that amount of money, or even 1/10th that amount of money.

The tech they were hyping (FSD) never materialized and is very much vaporware. Every one following got disappointed when they pivoted to hololens-like stuff...

Fiber scan display in hi res would’ve required moving at 14× speed of sound: https://www.kguttag.com/2018/01/06/magic-leap-fiber-scanning...

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

#237

Post by bobsil1 »

khazhou wrote: post #142

There's a lot of discussion here of how this was predictable given the absence of a visible prototype for so long, and the over-the-top secrecy of the project. However, for me this was a predetermined failure when I first read an interview with the founder. Classic Super-Visionary snake-oil salesman. He could say nothing about the product, except for how it would change the world more than the world had ever been cha…

The hype, overfunding, bust is very Segway.

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

#238

Post by tripzilch »

greggman2 wrote: post #206
wpietri wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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;…

Well then you can come meet me and about 150 other friends. I pretty much play VR only at this point. Any time I try a typical flat screen 3D game something is missing. The frustration of having a camera stick. The boringness of having to "press the action button" instead of just reaching out and touch the thing I'm supposed to interact it. And of course most of all the feeling of "presence". The Citadel on the horiz…

> The boringness of having to "press the action button" instead of just reaching out and touch the thing I'm supposed to interact it.

but "reaching out" in VR equates to waving around a VR wand in space and pressing buttons on it, I'm not sure what's the difference?

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

#239

Post by fastball »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #146
fastball wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure they had an original product that was definitely not vaporware, the issue is it turned out to be not scaleable at all. A product that is obscenely expensive and therefore can't be sold as a consumer device is not vaporware.

A prototype is not enough to stop something from being vaporware. Edit, to people that disagree: Did they have an even half-finished form? Did they offer it for sale? Was it "announced to the general public but never actually manufactured nor officially cancelled"? Vaporware doesn't always mean it's a scam. Sometimes it means there were intractable tech problems. Coming out with a fundamentally different product does…

Except you can buy the Magic Leap One.

They promised light-field AR goggles, and you can buy light-field AR goggles.

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

#240

Post by andybak »

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 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.

Part of the problem the industry has with VR is unrealistic measures of success.

Does VR really have to be used with the same frequency we use consoles and have sales as high as smart phones to be considered not a novelty?

There's a huge gap between "another duffer like 3D TV" and "the new iPhone"

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