Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand the more modest AR in Pokemon Go has been a huge hit.
Is pretending to be something that you're not really "modest"?
I'm not sure how they are pretending? The AR bit seems to work pretty well to me.
Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses
261–270 of 312 posts
Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
I feel like you probably haven't tried VR? The thing about VR is put someone who doesn't understand video games or any of the metaphors people who grow up with them understand, and in something like the HTC Vive they'll still just "get it". People almost immediately start walking around and trying to touch things, pick things up etc. The biggest problem with VR is headset bulk, and space. Lighter headsets will make a…
I did try VR a few times. And no I didn't like it. I had a lot of trouble with the controls, these wand things and the buttons on it. I'm also not comfortable with regular console controllers, so maybe that's it. But my main problem is that any time I tried it I got overstimulated super quickly and it just made me very annoyed and in a bad mood. It's healthier for me to avoid situations like that.
On the other hand, if the controls were actually like "reach out and touch the thing" (which they just aren't because you're holding things that only signify interaction), I might have felt better about it. Not sure, because so far all VR has made me feel completely helpless wrt the controls.
Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses
#263Earlier 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…
I've had a similar demo a few years ago from some under-the-radar Israeli company, projecting image straight to the retina. It took only a single table, and they talked about how their tech was actually better than Magic Leap – but as most of Israeli high tech, they were looking to get silently acquired by some tech giant instead of developing a product themselves. Never heard of what happened to them later.
Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
You actually can't do that: People have tried, but the plane of focus makes the LCD too blurry. It's an unsolved technology problem.
So the whole light field techbuzz was just vaporware hype? Or no, but even that can't do black?
Actually, my understanding is that light field is actually the ONLY way you could have ar with opaque black. However, you'd need orders of magnitude better light field tech than what's available.
Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In a few years there will be multiple digital universes overlaid onto our world. I think applications like HUD displays on car windshields is an obvious place where it will be big for regular consumers. There are a bunch of interesting applications for commercial use too. Other than that, I have a hard time seeing much interest in regular people until they can eliminate the need for glasses or goggles.
> eliminate the need for glasses or goggles What is the other option? Implanting projectors in our eyeballs? Having some drone flying in front of your face that projects stuff right onto your eyeballs?
If you or I could answer that, we could probably raise Magic Leap levels of money to develop it.
Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In a few years there will be multiple digital universes overlaid onto our world. I think applications like HUD displays on car windshields is an obvious place where it will be big for regular consumers. There are a bunch of interesting applications for commercial use too. Other than that, I have a hard time seeing much interest in regular people until they can eliminate the need for glasses or goggles.
There are many applications that, together, may make it worthwhile to wear AR glasses: - Laptop monitor replacement or augmentation - Indoor and outdoor navigation - Identifying an available self-driving cab and dropping a waypoint for it to navigate to - Immediate POV recording + sharing of ephemeral events (many people will like this, even if the HN crowd won't) - Shared viewing of footage, large 3D graphics, or ne…
Education and games seem sensible and I already said there may be some commercial uses (although I can't imagine them ever being good enough to want to use for 8 hours a day). Nothing else you listed there offers enough of an improvement over current phone and watch based alternatives.
Outside of education, games, and commercial uses, I don't think they will be able to overcome the glasshole factor.
It's going to be a big market, but I don't think it will ever be as big as cell phones are today.
Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses
#267The 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…
The problem is that a video through the lenses isn't going to tell you anything about the experience of actually wearing one of these things.
One of the funniest eras of advertising was the ads for HD TV broadcast on 480p TV. They’d always include all these video clips & that always made me laugh :-)
Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Apples and oranges I think. Take video signal reproduction as an example. You can have the same signal routed to different display devices, and they image produced will look better/worse than the original. Compare it on a 1980s 3 lens RGB projection screen compared to a CRT compared to a modern OLED screen. Compare Google Cardboard VR headsets with a cheap plastic lens compared to the higher quality headsets.
Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that a video through the lenses isn't going to tell you anything about the experience of actually wearing one of these things.
One of the funniest eras of advertising was the ads for HD TV broadcast on 480p TV. They’d always include all these video clips & that always made me laugh :-)
A pedantic side note: analog TV broadcasts in America were 480i, not even 480p.
Re: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I'm glad to hear there are a few people happy with the current stuff. But I'll note that in the 1990s wave of VR there were people who would talk exactly like this. It was amazing; they loved it; the tech and content wasn't there yet, but surely in 10 or 20 years, we'd all be spending all our time immersed. And I'll note that James Cameron, director of Avatar, has essentially the same belief about 3D movies: https://…
Cameron made a great 3D movie that spawned a generation of shitty counterfeit imitations.
That article is about how Cameron feels 3D cinema was poisoned by a glut of cheap fake 3D, and he wants real 3D tech to develop so people stop faking it, and he wants a no glasses solution. Is he wrong?
People always had TV. Obviously home viewing is winning because it's getting better and it's much cheaper and more convenient.