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Analysis of Magic Leap 2 at SPIE AR/VR/Mr 2022

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Re: Analysis of Magic Leap 2 at SPIE AR/VR/Mr 2022

#21

Post by germinalphrase »

p1necone wrote: post #13
kguttag wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the market is "hot" in terms of awareness, it is still a very small market facing major technical challenges. I think AR while useful in enterprise markets (measured in the 100's of thousands a year) is a long way from being ready for the mass consumer market. I am seeing a lot of progress in some areas and will be publishing an article later this week on them. In particular both Dispelix and Digilens have made…

It seems to me like a regular VR headset + dual cameras on the front might be able to get much better results than actual AR?

Even if it did, people won’t wear them in public. Google Glass looked half normal and people were still getting accosted in restaurants.

Re: Analysis of Magic Leap 2 at SPIE AR/VR/Mr 2022

#22

Post by snowgrove »

sroussey wrote: post #6
tootie wrote: post #5

This is both really impressive and really disappointing. The technology has been refined to an incredible degree but it sounds it's still nowhere near the fidelity that would make it useful. It may the biggest VC money pit in SV.

In Florida, not SV

Magic Leap has offices all over. They had one in Mountain View just a few blocks from where Rengstorff crosses Highway 101, over by Google. That was a few years ago, dunno if it’s still there.

Re: Analysis of Magic Leap 2 at SPIE AR/VR/Mr 2022

#23

Post by wpietri »

Back in October, when Facebook made a lot of "metaverse" noise, I wrote a thread looking at the history of stereoscopic 3D from the 1850s to the present as a way of explaining why I think facehugger VR is going nowhere. Somebody turned up to complain that going back to the Civil War era wasn't sufficiently big picture for him:

"You need a long view. All the serious players are still in the Mercury phase. The Gemini and Apollo phases of XR are coming this decade and into the 2030s. An $800b company will likely spend $100b+ getting there. You need a wide aperture to understand what is going on."

https://twitter.com/williampietri/status/1454135053697519619

What I didn't realize until later was that the rando reply came from no less a presence than Rony Abovitz, Magic Leap's exiled founder, who apparently now spends his time vanity searching for "Magic Leap" so he can reenact XKCD 386. There are many things I find jaw-dropping about his views, but my biggest question is: Why did he raise and burn $3.5 billion dollars if that's only 3.5% of the cost of "getting there"?

Which is a roundabout way of saying I think kguttag is right when he says, "ML2 looks like a product designed for the consumer market, but it was seen that it would be far too expensive for that market, it was recast as an 'enterprise' device." To me it's a not-great solution desperately looking for a problem.

Re: Analysis of Magic Leap 2 at SPIE AR/VR/Mr 2022

#24

Post by samplatt »

wpietri wrote: post #23

Back in October, when Facebook made a lot of "metaverse" noise, I wrote a thread looking at the history of stereoscopic 3D from the 1850s to the present as a way of explaining why I think facehugger VR is going nowhere. Somebody turned up to complain that going back to the Civil War era wasn't sufficiently big picture for him: "You need a long view. All the serious players are still in the Mercury phase. The Gemini a…

Quick link to XKCD 386, for others - https://xkcd.com/386/

Re: Analysis of Magic Leap 2 at SPIE AR/VR/Mr 2022

#25

Post by kguttag »

moralestapia wrote: post #17

Very nice in-depth analysis, thanks kguttag. My personal bet on this space is that kura.tech's product is going to be the real deal; but it is exciting to see that the AR field in general is starting to enter its own plateau of productivity and we may start seeing great products soon.

I think we need to see Kura actually demonstrate that their technology works.

You might want to see this video (queued to his discussion of Kura at CES 2022: https://youtu.be/S0heZVN5NCs?t=1328

Re: Analysis of Magic Leap 2 at SPIE AR/VR/Mr 2022

#26

Post by kguttag »

dataviz1000 wrote: post #7

Do you think if they focused on creating a monochrome AR display first for applications in engineering and medicine it would have been adopted creating a path for the company to later research and develop a multicolor device? Seems like they lost. Wouldn't it have been better to start simple? They never released a MVP.

I don't think the issue is color. Their original product was trying to differentiate on Vergence Accommodation Conflict (VAC) and did a poor job of it. They were also going after the consumer with a product that was always going to be way too expensive for consumers with an image quality that was going to be too poor. They also made what I think is a bad set of trade-offs in terms of ergonomics and human factors.

The problem with medicine is that is it a tiny market. You can't justify the type of money they were trying to raise for that market. Under Abovitz, they were always a swing for the fences company.

All the above said, nobody I know of is making money selling AR headsets today. They are either subsidized by VC or other investment money or by big companies funding R&D efforts. The market is not other product areas where you can make money with an MVP and grow the product.

Re: Analysis of Magic Leap 2 at SPIE AR/VR/Mr 2022

#27

Post by kguttag »

p1necone wrote: post #13
kguttag wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the market is "hot" in terms of awareness, it is still a very small market facing major technical challenges. I think AR while useful in enterprise markets (measured in the 100's of thousands a year) is a long way from being ready for the mass consumer market. I am seeing a lot of progress in some areas and will be publishing an article later this week on them. In particular both Dispelix and Digilens have made…

It seems to me like a regular VR headset + dual cameras on the front might be able to get much better results than actual AR?

I think this is a "grass is greener" type argument. There are also massive problems with pass-through AR (VR with cameras).

Re: Analysis of Magic Leap 2 at SPIE AR/VR/Mr 2022

#28

Post by kguttag »

hirundo wrote: post #14

Karl, do you have any thoughts on the Simula One project? I see that you specialize in AR, but it looks like there is massive crossover in tech. The Simula team pitches this as the next popular form factor in business computing. Anything to that?

As you wrote, I don't follow VR.

That said, I'm very skeptical that a VR headset will work in place of a computer monitor for long term use with business computing.

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