Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C • Hacker News Board

Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C

#141

Post by josephpmay » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 6:51 AM UTC

jbhatab wrote: post #71

josephpmay wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I compete with Magic Leap, I'm probably in a pretty good position to answer this question. The main reason why ML is able to attract this level of investment is that their technology is literally decades ahead of what anybody else has. I haven't had the opportunity to try their headset out, but I know some people who have, and I haven't heard a single bad thing about it. The closest metaphor I can think of is seei…

What do you mean by revolutionizing computing? I assume you mean the way we interact with computers, not something like computer processing speed. I definitely agree that AR has huge potential in changing how we interact with the world. Although I'm much more interested in technology that leverages things like projects to augment my reality without having to wear a headset. Very related things though. How do you feel…

I personally think headset-less AR is a pipe dream. You're either using projection mapping without any real sense of object/depth or you need real motion holography which doesn't even exist in research labs. I've tried CastAR and it's a huge disappointment.

Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C

#142

Post by prawn » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 6:56 AM UTC

late2part wrote: post #118

zardo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neal Stevenson said he thought it was comparable to the change from printers to monitors as a UI.

Neal Stephenson is also paid by them. And he writes fiction. Thoughtful, interesting fiction. I remember when lots of credible people said that the Segway would change life, and whole cities would be built around it. Where is Segway now? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segway_Inc . [2] http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,186660-... [3] http://www.wired.com/2015/01/well-didnt-work-segway-technolo...

I think we have to consider the new wave of two-wheeled balancing scooters as an extension of the Segway, and they're increasing in popularly.

Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C

#143

Post by josephpmay » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 6:58 AM UTC

SandB0x wrote: post #76

josephpmay wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I compete with Magic Leap, I'm probably in a pretty good position to answer this question. The main reason why ML is able to attract this level of investment is that their technology is literally decades ahead of what anybody else has. I haven't had the opportunity to try their headset out, but I know some people who have, and I haven't heard a single bad thing about it. The closest metaphor I can think of is seei…

In what specific ways is their technology better, from what you've heard? Hololens supposedly has a narrov FOV and you need a relatively dark room due to the additive display. Have they really solved these problems?

They're using laser-scanning rental projection, which could hypothetically produce objects indistinguishable from the real world. The biggest two benefits of this are real depth (you can focus on individual objects and it avoids the vergence accommodation conflict) and ultra-high resolution.

I have a source that's told me they've solved FOV, but I can't figure out how their technology could do that from a technical prospective. Hypothetically you don't need a dark room for ML's technology, but their demo video was darkened which makes me wonder if there is some limitation of this.

Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C

#144

Post by josephpmay » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 6:59 AM UTC

zump wrote: post #109

josephpmay wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I compete with Magic Leap, I'm probably in a pretty good position to answer this question. The main reason why ML is able to attract this level of investment is that their technology is literally decades ahead of what anybody else has. I haven't had the opportunity to try their headset out, but I know some people who have, and I haven't heard a single bad thing about it. The closest metaphor I can think of is seei…

Compete? Your website makes you out to be a high school student.

I haven't updated that website in almost three years, and most of the content on it is much older. I should probably take it off my HN profile. I'm currently a college student with a AR/MR startup

Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C

#145

Post by prawn » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 7:03 AM UTC

cbau wrote: post #89

mosquito242 wrote: post #5

I don't know where I stand on this. To be raising such ridiculous amounts, they must have some incredible technology to demo. If they're anything close to what the second demo video shows, then they're basically building Tony Stark's home computer interface in Iron Man.

Doubtful the second video is real. Weta Workshop ( http://wetaworkshop.com/ ) which appears in the top right, "[HAS PROVIDED] DESIGN AND MANUFACTURING FOR FILM, TELEVISION AND CREATIVE INDUSTRIES FOR OVER 20 YEARS."

I think the second video is meant to be a concept showing how AR could operate for work and play.

Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C

#146

Post by jodrellblank » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 7:10 AM UTC

jlarocco wrote: post #85

tlrobinson wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When your product has been featured in nearly every science fiction movie of the last few decades does "the market" really need to be proven?

There's a big difference between being really cool and being something people will pay for. The tech demos are undeniably, but after "Wow!" my second thought was, "If I'm not a gamer, why would I buy this?"

Because they will be able to put ads in front of your face all the time.

And that means that first, they'll make it do enough desirable things that you will accept ads.

And those will make you want it.

Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C

#147

Post by jb55 » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 7:10 AM UTC

josephpmay wrote: post #136

ohitsdom wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> haven't had the opportunity to try their headset out, but I know some people who have It's easy to say technology is decades ahead when you haven't even tried it. Rumor/second-hand retellings can be very powerful. I'm really excited to see this tech, but I'm also really skeptical.

Definitely true (the Segway is a great example of this), but I've also talked to people who were involved in developing the technology academically and have studied their patents in-depth, and I'm pretty certain they're the real deal.

Recently on the voices of vr podcast, Dr. Thomas Furness mentioned that he also tried it, and it was based off his (Human Interface Technology Lab)'s virtual retinal display technology/patent. I'm guessing this is what you're referring to?

Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C

#148

Post by prawn » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 7:21 AM UTC

colinshark wrote: post #78

I can't get past the fact that the software, in order to interact with the 3D world, will be expensive and cumbersome to make. Also, people (your income) born before AR tech generally don't want hardware on their face. This, and Hololens, and similar, will fail for a while, and I'm thinking it will be decades. I'm placing my bet now.

If they see it through, the software will eventually be used by almost everyone. And the thing about software is that it's essentially free to duplicate, meaning that it need not be expensive and cumbersome at scale.

If they get it working well with glasses or contact lenses, it will win through. The ability to spin up displays as needed (massive TV in your living room, a screen in the kitchen, shower, ceiling of the bedroom, outside, etc) will mean that fewer and fewer rely on physical displays.

Not to mention the availability of more contextual information (tourism, sports, researching, gardening, socialising, etc).

Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C

#149

Post by dharma1 » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 7:28 AM UTC

last I read was they were getting into silicon photonics manufacturing. Sounds expensive, and very patentable.

Would be great if someone with better knowledge would expand on the engineering challenges they face.

Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C

#150

Post by ansgri » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 7:46 AM UTC

woodman wrote: post #132

fchollet wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These two things are non-trivial, but not particularly hard in themselves. However, doing them at ultra-low latency becomes quite a challenge. Doing anything at ultra-low latency is already a challenge, but especially so when what you're trying to do is running a deep neural net for entity recognition or gesture recognition.

Training an ANN is computationally intensive, using a trained ANN is not. No context switching for system calls, no memory management, just matrix math.

well, first you need to know what image regions feed to ANN, and that can involve some segmentation and pre-recognition, otherwise you're going to evaluate the net at all feasible subwindows — and that's a LOT of matrix math for you. Very big GPU can help, but they have latency in themselves, and FPGA at such performance levels are inordinately expensive. Done at scale though ASICs seem to be the sure-to-work way.