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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

#211

Post by willis936 »

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.

My rift CV1 just got a firmware update this week.

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

#212

Post by BossingAround »

Reedx wrote: post #207
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.

What the hell did I just watch...

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

#213

Post by jagannathtech »

creato wrote: post #43
geerlingguy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of Silicon Valley's fictional Keenan Feldspar and his VR demo (likely based on Magic Leap): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8MAV9jhf04

Surely that was their take on Palmer Luckey and Oculus?

Didn't seem Palmer had any reality distortion field.

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

#214

Post by cushychicken »

alephnan wrote: post #67

> Citing COVID-19, CEO Rony Abovitz wrote in a blog post that the company needed to shift focus Right... because of Covid-19. As a counter example, Animal Crossing on the Nintendo Switch is doing phenomenal right now, in part due to Covid-19.

Never waste a good crisis!

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

#215

Post by ForHackernews »

leeoniya wrote: post #110
gonehome wrote: post #88

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 they couldn’t get it to a place where it could be small enough to be useful? Hopefully when Apple ships AR hardware for real it’ll be what it should be. Magic leap will be kind of like General Magic or the creative nomad jukebox - right idea but too early with hard…

> 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...

Reminds me of this Magic Leap - Expectations vs Reality https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ7-F_vWUVE

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

#216

Post by pnw_hazor »

catalogia wrote: post #85
VRay wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can disinfect your electronics with rubbing alcohol and/or removable covers, but don't put Lysol or other harsh cleaning agents on them

> Don't put lysol [on electronics] Why shouldn't I? The exterior surfaces of "electronics" are just glass, plastic or aluminum and lysol seems to work fine on all three. It's sold in plastic bottles so it's not like it'd create nerve gas or something. Not that I generally take marketing claims seriously, but lysol advertises itself as appropriate for use on electronics: https://www.lysol.com/cold-flu/home/how-to-clea…

We have been using lysol wipes on the iPhones at my house for 5+ weeks without any issues. (one old 6s and two newish XRs)

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

#217

Post by vel0city »

catalogia wrote: post #85
VRay wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can disinfect your electronics with rubbing alcohol and/or removable covers, but don't put Lysol or other harsh cleaning agents on them

> Don't put lysol [on electronics] Why shouldn't I? The exterior surfaces of "electronics" are just glass, plastic or aluminum and lysol seems to work fine on all three. It's sold in plastic bottles so it's not like it'd create nerve gas or something. Not that I generally take marketing claims seriously, but lysol advertises itself as appropriate for use on electronics: https://www.lysol.com/cold-flu/home/how-to-clea…

Exterior surfaces for electronics are usually fine for stuff like Lysol. The fear is largely that if it gets inside on the electronic components it may leave behind conductive residues. Straight alcohol will entirely evaporate soon after application so a bit of ingress with the device powered off shouldn't cause any lasting effects, but who knows what makes up the fragrances and other ingredients in many cleaners.

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

#218

Post by adamcharnock »

russh wrote: post #179
jnsie wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> creative nomad jukebox Holy crap, the memories. I had the creative nomad jukebox and for years convinced myself if fit in the pockets of my jeans...it did...but it didn't. The folly of youth!?

In it's defense, mine still works.

Wow! I think mine broke about 4 times. Kept taking it back and getting a replacement, teenage me must have cost them a fortune.

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

#219

Post by edmundsauto »

dtnewman wrote: post #192
gonehome wrote: post #88

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 they couldn’t get it to a place where it could be small enough to be useful? Hopefully when Apple ships AR hardware for real it’ll be what it should be. Magic leap will be kind of like General Magic or the creative nomad jukebox - right idea but too early with hard…

I got to demo their consumer product and it really is pretty cool. Perfect? Far from it. But it's good enough that you put it on and say "wow" for the next 15 minutes. In the demo I saw, you get immersed into a coral reef and walk around. It's very cool, but I'm not gonna buy a unit just for that. So you need lots of content before it makes sense to buy one of these things, and then you have a chicken and egg problem…

Have you tried one of the other VR systems? If so, could you comment on how the experience compared?

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

#220

Post by mikestew »

vikramkr wrote: post #151
_jal wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are toys. Back in the day, Kamen was going on about redesigning cities around them.

They're toys that a lot of people use as their primary methods of transport, along with other micro mobility solutions like electric scooters amd good old fashioned bikes. In a way, the future took the path of least resistance and redesigned micromobility around cities instead. And we might still end up redesigning cities around some of those options The segways itself doesnt make much sense to me though. I dont reme…

I'm still unclear about what it was supposed to be able to do that an electrified scooter or bike couldn't.

When the Segway was released? It could do this one cool trick: actually exist. Electric bikes and scooters (at least at any sort of scale) were at least ten years off.

There were other factors. Ungodly expensive for what it was, and poor enough range that I questioned whether it could get the six-ish miles from the house to Microsoft's main campus with that WA-520 hill to contend with. Now my Boosted Rev scooter can almost do the 7.5 mile round trip to work, with that same WA-520 hill, and for 1/3rd the price the original Segway was going for.

EDIT: oh, wait a minute, the max speed on the original Segway was like 20kph/12mph, right? Yeah, the Rev would easily make the 15 mile round trip if I were riding it that slowly.

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