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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

#131

Post by wpietri »

catalogia wrote: post #112
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…

The segway at least found a niche with cops and tourists.

Oh, sure! But those who didn't live through the hype may not know that it was expected to revolutionize transportation. "Venture capitalist John Doerr predicted it would reach $1 billion in sales faster than any company in history, and that it could be bigger than the Internet." [1]

[1] https://www.wired.com/2015/01/well-didnt-work-segway-technol...

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

#132

Post by _jal »

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.

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

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

#133

Post by runawaybottle »

kkotak wrote: post #111
trollied wrote: post #24

Wow, they burned billions. Karl Guttag has blogged about them for years, debunking their technology. Hi blog is a good read for all things in the AR/VR space https://www.kguttag.com/

Sounds like Theranos of Tech.

Waiting for Star Citizen to use Coronavirus to finally admit they’ll never finish the game.

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

#134

Post by joefourier »

kkotak wrote: post #111
trollied wrote: post #24

Wow, they burned billions. Karl Guttag has blogged about them for years, debunking their technology. Hi blog is a good read for all things in the AR/VR space https://www.kguttag.com/

Sounds like Theranos of Tech.

Theranos was already the Theranos of tech. Magic Leap is just an overhyped product that promised more than it could deliver, not an outright fraud that jeopardised the health of its users.

Or if by tech you mean "purely software (preferably Internet-based) company", Magic Leap does not fit into that category any more than Theranos does, both being primarily hardware companies.

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

#135

Post by coder543 »

adamc wrote: post #122

For the ignorant amongst us (by which I mean me), what are the enterprise applications of Magic Leap?

Applications of Magic Leap would likely be similar to the industrial applications of HoloLens 2.

Some examples:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8c3pDKdHEc

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTuKcm8s4QQ

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loGxO3L7rFE

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pyiiO72ZwM

If you search on youtube for "hololens industrial", you can find other demos. When HoloLens 2 was announced, I think Microsoft showed a number of demos of why companies would buy it for their employees to use on the job.

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

#136

Post by BillinghamJ »

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...

Apparently HL Alyx is exceptionally good, maybe will Mark a bit of a turning point

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

#137

Post by wpietri »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #123
catalogia wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The segway at least found a niche with cops and tourists.

And in a slightly different form factor / price point presaged the mass usage of Lime, etc.

Presaged in the sense that there was also a lot of VC-driven hype that didn't work out, sure. I'll admit there's a slightly higher chance that scooter rental still might turn into a real business. But it's definitely not a given.

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

#138

Post by chrisseaton »

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.

> Well that looks a bit silly now doesn't it.

It's not silly to try some promising technology that ultimately doesn't work out for business. It's easy to be nasty in hindsight, from the comfort of your home, isn't it? Not so easy to try making it work in the first place.

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

#139

Post by three_seagrass »

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...

Maybe. VR is more chicken-egg, like the Windows phone with apps. The more people with VR headsets, the more VR games get developed, but more people won't get VR headsets until there are more games developed.

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

#140

Post by wpietri »

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.

Is the number remarkable? I would be very surprised if those were more than 1% of traffic.
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