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Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

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Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

#201

Post by raverbashing »

qppo wrote: post #102
mattw815 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the opportunity to demo their product on 3 different occasions. Each time it was a clunky interaction, stopped working in the middle of the demo, and I left thinking my kid's Playstation VR could run circles around their tech.

they allegedly had an insane demo for investors only, before around 2016 (at least that's when I heard of it) you needed to sign an NDA to even get in the room to see it. The consumer product is quite lacking compared to what people said was a demonstration of game changing technology.

So: NDA, exclusive demo, controlled environment.

It makes it sound to me more like a Séance (with its usual implications) than anything else. Or, for an easier to understand analogy, selling a Disney ride as if it was real.

Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

#202

Post by wongarsu »

DonHopkins wrote: post #16
gamegoblin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume they must have had a killer demo. 1. Put the goggles on some investor's head (in a normal looking room, but with known lighting and spatial properties...). 2. Show them some flashy demo that has some limitations, but promise that with their investment, they will be able to remove those limitations. 3. Investors, who probably lack the deep knowledge of optics to know that those limitations aren't so trivial,…

Now with COVID-19, they really DO have a killer demo: 1. Put the goggles on some investor's head. 2. Investor catches COVID-19 and dies. Nobody wants to share VR or AR gear any more. The whole idea of location based VR / AR entertainment centers is deadly now. If it's so great you can't believe it without trying it yourself, and nobody wants to stick their head in a device that anybody else has been drooling and coug…

Anytime I've seen public VR demos they had a disposable cover. A quick google search brings up [1] as one example, and I'm sure cheaper alternatives exist too.

1: https://www.amazon.com/Vive-Disposable-Hygiene-Cover-Starter...

Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

#203

Post by jjeaff »

the_duke wrote: post #101
bredren wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, a quick survey of posts in /r/virtualreality revealed this thread [1] asking about a "missing" media blitz on the Quest. The reaction was that the demand for the device so outpaces supply Facebook shouldn't advertise it. But the OP points out something I hadn't though of, which is that VR represents a potential opportunity in the times of social distancing. If Coronavirus becomes like the normal flu, where seaso…

> VR represents a potential opportunity in the times of social distancing. I always assumed that Facebook is playing the long game with VR, with the end goal being a re-imagined Second Life. They need to wait until the technology is cheap/mature enough though, which is probably 5-10 years out.

5-10 years? They are selling the standalone Oculus quest for $400 right now. At least, they would be if they could keep it in stock.

Seems cheap enough for mainstream. Considering the game console price point.

Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

#204

Post by gonehome »

nogabebop23 wrote: post #193
gonehome wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about their fake demo ads they put everywhere, I think they actually had an impressive in person demo using some different technology they couldn't miniaturize.

WHy wouldn't they push the narative "Look at this - now we'll make it smaller" vs. "it's awesome - trust us and wait"? Even snake oil salesmen have a demo if they're good; these guys suck at being phonies.

I'm not a marketing person, but constantly alluding to something amazing without revealing details is a hack that stirs up a lot of curiosity and people discussing what it could be.

If you reveal the thing then that dies down (or worse knowledgeable people know that what you're dong isn't possible), but if you keep it secret while giving content-free little hints about it you can keep it going longer (and maybe raise more money by letting people in on the secret?).

I have a strong dislike for this kind of thing, but that doesn't mean it's not effective.

Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

#205

Post by alasdair_ »

adamc wrote: post #129
three_seagrass wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the segway solution. Cool tech that solves a problem which doesn't really exist.

Kind of like VR for games? Which I have yet to meet anyone who uses...

Half Life Alyx is genuinely incredible. It’s worth getting a VR system just for that one game, assuming you already have a gaming PC.

Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

#206

Post by skilesare »

e-_pusher wrote: post #63
xiaolingxiao wrote: post #8

They're exploring a sale valued at $10B, but it's doubtful who would have the appetite to buy it at this valuation. Google declined a follow on round recently, Apple has been developing their own tech for years, and Facebook has quietly stepped away from AR/VR. Magic Leap is reminiscent of another company with "Magic" in its name: General Magic ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic ). They both made a product…

Not sure why you are claiming that Facebook has stepped away from AR/VR. I know that Facebook is still hiring quite heavily in the Seattle area for AR/VR HW roles.

I use my quest every day and my kids love it.

Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

#207

Post by Reedx »

adam_fallon_ wrote: post #75

I sort of always knew it was the job of VCs to hype up their portfolio, but i've never seen it as bare faced as when Benedict Evans was shilling Magic Leap saying things along the lines of "Magic Leap was the coolest thing I'd seen since the iPhone. It's now much cooler than that." and "I’ve had the Magic Leap demo. It was worth going to Florida for." Well that looks a bit silly now doesn't it.

I don't know, those could be genuine feelings. Like the first time using VR.

Now their TEDx talk on the other hand... speaking of silly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY

To me that was the moment both Magic Leap and TED (sadly) jumped the shark.

Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

#208

Post by cguess »

ahupp wrote: post #127
wpietri wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't trust Evans at all, but I'm going to partially defend that here. There's a long history of technology being absolutely amazing the first time you use it and then not mattering at all. E.g., the Segway was going to revolutionize transport. The 3D space is particularly prone to this. I count at least 5 waves of 3D innovation going back to the Great Exhibition in 1851. 3D movies were going to revolutionize thing…

To be fair to the Segway, there's a remarkable number of self-balancing one wheel scooters on the street in SF these days (well, a few months ago). And I think you can trace all of those back to Segway. Sometimes v1 doesn't quite do it.

Perhaps they're big in SF, but they exist basically nowhere else in numbers that matter in any way (aside from those super weird Segway tours in like D.C.). Sometimes the tech itself just isn't that good, and sometimes it's a bad idea.

Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

#209

Post by papa_bear »

nogabebop23 wrote: post #193
gonehome wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about their fake demo ads they put everywhere, I think they actually had an impressive in person demo using some different technology they couldn't miniaturize.

WHy wouldn't they push the narative "Look at this - now we'll make it smaller" vs. "it's awesome - trust us and wait"? Even snake oil salesmen have a demo if they're good; these guys suck at being phonies.

They had a few-hundred-pound cart-bound prototype called The Beast that was supposedly mind blowing to use, and that's what convinced a lot of engineers to drop everything and move to Florida to work on it. I agree pushing that technical narrative would have sounded much better.

Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

#210

Post by gonehome »

moron4hire wrote: post #183
leeoniya wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Supposedly the magic leap demo was actually cool and used different technology than the eventually crappy hardware they ended up sort of shipping. i think that technology was CGI: https://hothardware.com/news/magic-leap-admits-outrageous-au...

What's really crazy about that video--while it's technically possible to make something mostly like that with current hardware[0]-- is that, if you have any experience with AR at all, you know that most of those UIs would be terrible to use. [0] The FOV is accurate, given we're looking through a narrow camera lens, but gives the wrong impression that it fills what the user could see because it fills the video frame.…

Yeah - even the fake demo use case isn't that compelling to me.

This is the kind of thing that I think the real AR value will be from: https://twitter.com/st8rmi/status/1249950879807045633?s=21

Basically a meta-layer for the real world that you can interact with outside of a screen. This would let you do things like interact with a lightswitch from across the room by looking at it, get metadata about most object states by looking at it, anchor big displays to white walls, etc.

I think there's huge potential for this kind of interface, but I suspect the hardware isn't possible yet.

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