Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by IshKebab » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 7:40 PM UTC

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.

Hololens lets you do that. You can put windows on any walls. It's... cool. But not useful. Real screens are just much better. Nobody is going to pay much money to do something with AR that isn't particularly useful, and is better with existing technology.

They might pay money to do something that they literally can't do using any other technology, i.e. AR games.

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

#282

Post by IshKebab » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 7:42 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #102

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…

Isn’t it the exact opposite? Only with AR can you turn everyday spaces, like a home or an office, into games... with VR you’d be bumping into walls and tripping over things

No, VR lets you map a room so you can avoid walking into things. There are plenty of games that don't need a lot of space at all (the first Rift was a sit-down experience!)

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

#283

Post by Dylan16807 » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 8:08 PM UTC

fastball wrote: post #239

Dylan16807 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So there was an "original product" that was "not scaleable", "obscenely expensive" and "can't be sold as a consumer device", right?

If we distinguish the magic leap one as a different product, then from what I can see the original qualifies as vaporware.

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

#284

Post by dannyw » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 1:17 AM UTC

capableweb wrote: post #259

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Odd, I can definitely see the full thing. You're definitely clicking through from here on HN, right?

Yup, I did! I can even see the utm_source and utm_medium query params in the URL that I guess is supposed to unlock the article. But this is what I see https://i.imgur.com/pN83qpg.png

You probably configured your browser to omit referrers. The Information looks at that to decide unlocking.

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

#285

Post by mojomark » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 1:37 AM UTC

Well, the crazy thing is, the underlying technology that ML was originally based on (i.e. U. Of Wahington's HIT lab VRD), is absolutely a leading approach in the path to AR. I personally think it's what will ultimately make AR the medium for applications people actually want (dare I say, need) to use every day. Ronny got that part right. Where he failed was in not investing that $2B+ fully into the glasses development and solving hard AR software problems like real time occlusion. Instead, this guy hired "story tellers" to design content for a technology that he didn't have yet.

For the second mistake, let me say only that people in AR marketing demos should not be smiling. If they are, you're introducing the wrong product.

The core idea was on the right track, but the conductor let the train derail very early on.

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

#286

Post by rasz » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 1:50 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #233

simonh wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lets not forget Rubins own mini me Magic Leap by taking over control of CastAR https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/27/andy-rubin-backed-ar-hardw...

and burning it to the ground with brilliant 'lets drop $100K for cardboard box design' and buy a gaming studio management https://theamphour.com/394-jeri-ellsworth-and-the-demise-of-...

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

#287

Post by comex » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 2:00 AM UTC

lonelappde wrote: post #272

mch82 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that Pokemon Go (AR) has generated over $700M in revenue for iOS App Store & Google Play. [1] That’s 7x the $100M in revenue Facebook generated from the entire Oculus Store (VR). [2] [1]: https://www.businessofapps.com/data/pokemon-go-statistics/ , Pokémon Go Statistics [2]: https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/25/oculus-eclipses-100-millio... , Oculus eclipses $100 million in VR content sales.

The difference is that PGo is an AR toy putting stickers on screen, not a 3D experience. And it's riding hard on Pokemon IP and Pokemon collector gimmick, not easy to replicate with other games in same or different genres. The failing AR projects are presenting it as a virtual reality experience, as general as everything we do on monitors first.

Yeah, I'd say Pokémon Go only barely counts as AR, although it's improved since launch. Basically I agree with everything in [1].

But honestly, I wasn't even thinking about phone AR when I made my comment. Phone AR feels like almost a completely separate category from headset AR. On one hand, it doesn't face nearly as many technical barriers. No complicated optics leading to low resolution and low FOV. No problem drawing black. No need to convince people to buy an expensive bulky object and wear it on their face all the time. On the other hand... the use cases are obviously far less futuristic.

Still, there's significant promise. I'm looking forward to the first phone AR experience to solidly implement a shared virtual environment, where users can place 3D objects anywhere in the real world and have them appear at the same location for all other users. I think phone hardware isn't quite good enough yet to make this work well, but it can already approximate it (see Minecraft Earth), and the barriers aren't nearly as fundamental.

[1] https://arinsider.co/2019/04/10/the-age-old-question-is-poke...

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

#288

Post by rasz » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 2:12 AM UTC

teknot wrote: post #248

I shot a video with Tom Furness from the UW a few years ago. He was totally burned by the UW on the patents sold to magic leap and didn't get a dime. Then in the interview Tom called the product total BS because they will never never ship the true waveguide system. The demo in lab was shown to the investors. They were sold a bill of goods because the technology simply does not scale down to a headset size with proper…

> integrated cloud scale systems

a computer?

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

#289

Post by andybak » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 1:17 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #278

andybak wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although VR is technically "strapping screens to your face" that description doesn't do justice to the actual experience. I sense from your jocular put-downs the scepticism of someone that hasn't tried modern VR. Would I be correct?

I have not tried the very latest generation, but I have tried previous generations. For me, it's really amazing/engaging/compelling for a while. And once the novelty wears off, it's not. I've also tried creating my own VR content and it's the same deal when I test it on people: really neat the first time, but interest quickly declines.

> I have not tried the very latest generation, but I have tried previous generations.

Just to clarify - you mean VR with 6DOF tracking of head and controllers? Vive, Rift, Quest, Windows MR etc.

Or something else? For me this is the minimum bar to being "truly interesting VR". Everything before that was just a novelty in my view.

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

#290

Post by andybak » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 1:20 PM UTC

tripzilch wrote: post #274

andybak wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your hands are in the same physical location as the object you're interacting with. It removes one of the planks of artificiality and improves the chance your brain will stop signalling that experience isn't real. I don't entirely agree with OP. I enjoy VR even when it uses the gamepad. If the iteractions have a good "in-game" explanation - no matter how far-fetched - then your brain will stop raising the alarm. So i…

> Your hands are in the same physical location as the object you're interacting with. But, they literally aren't. The object is in virtual space, and your hands are interacting with two controllers (wands) that you cannot see and this interaction is then translated to control the virtual space. I suppose, with practice they would become more of an extension of yourself? But that's not what I assume what was meant wit…

When you're in VR the space that matters to you is mostly the virtual space. If you move a controler and some representation of that controller matches it's position exactly then you feel that is where your hand is. The fact that your hands are invisible is quickly forgotten. (Fake avatar hands can often actually reduce immersion - uncanny valley time...)

It's similar to tool use. Tools become an extension of your body and you tend to perceive them as such. Musicians, sportsmen etc are familiar with this feeling.