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My first year at Magic Leap and the opportunity ahead

magicleap.com

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Re: My first year at Magic Leap and the opportunity ahead

#31
post #25

I must admit I'd forgotten about Magic Leap, amazed to see they're still going and raising even more money. In my head, I always put them in a bucket with Theranos and uBeam, Startups who made product claims which experts in their fields said were not possible. I guess slick marketing wins over those doubts in some VC circles but you wonder if anyone at the early stage Magic Leap investors is getting asked tough ques…

I have tried the leap in practice and the experience was significantly above what I expected. The tracking worked most of the time (how???), with occasional wonkyness. The accuracy was very good (outside of the wonks). Where it is very limited is number of applications.

What can one say? I also tried it (have always been fan of new interaction methods) and was severely disappointed. Even the "put reflective stickers on your fingers and use an off-the-shelf wiimote" had better tracking, though it is obviously less convenient.

That said, I am waiting for v2 from these guys and/or anyone else.

Re: My first year at Magic Leap and the opportunity ahead

#32

Here we go again . . . But in all seriousness, even if they could ship something meaningful, one wonders if the brand is tarnished such that it makes sense to re-launch with fresh branding. “Magic Leap” does not conjure up positive images in my mind. Why swim against the current unnecessarily?

Or are you referring to the ridiculous 12/12/2012 TEDX "talk" that Rony Abovitz performed at the Ringling College of Art, and all the FAKE and DECEPTIVE videos they posted and lied about on youtube, that tarnished Magic Leap's reputation?

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

In my mind, they're not as reputable after having given Rony Abovitz a platform to perform that "fudge". Just watch the video, if you can stomach it, all the way through. And read the comments, like this one:

>Nick Steele 2 years ago (edited)

>This is a joke. Take it for what it is. They didn't want to say anything so they basically said "are you ready? READY? ... fuck you".

>After a completely ridiculous intro which includes nano machines humping blood cells and two crack monkeys worshiping a massive block of "demented space fudge" which takes up 75% of the talk until 4:30, right after 30 seconds of literal silence, a spaceman says "greetings" and introduces today's "keyword" which is "fudge", then a guy plays terrible music out of tune and sings half-way into the mic. Then the lights suddenly go out and the crack moneys and space man simply walk away.

>Keep in mind the audience thinks they are about to hear a billionaire explain his new "world changing" virtual/augmented reality technology, then they get this shit.

>The best part is the audiences reaction at the end. :)

Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/dented-reality-magic...

>Magic Leap had high hopes for sales of its augmented reality headset. Instead, the richly valued startup has seen slow sales of the device, recent layoffs and executive turnover. In the coming years, competition in AR will likely intensify as bigger tech companies enter the market.

>[...] Magic Leap was founded in 2010 by Rony Abovitz, an eccentric, 47-year-old Florida native who once gave a TED talk in a spacesuit surrounded by people dancing to music in furry monster costumes. [...]

And if that's not enough proof that Magic Leap is a fraud, then watch their completely fake demo, that they originally did not truthfully bill as a "concept video" but instead they falsely and deceptively titled it "Just another day in the office at Magic Leap" and described it with the blatantly false claim that "This is a game we’re playing around the office right now". But since then, the title and description have been retroactively amended, AFTER they got busted.

Magic Leap | Original Concept Video (originally titled: "Just another day in the office at Magic Leap" and described: "This is a game we’re playing around the office right now"):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPMHcanq0xM

Magic Leap is actually way behind, like we always suspected it was:

https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/8/13894000/magic-leap-ar-mi...

Remember that amazing video of the whale leaping out the gym floor and splashing down? Yeah, it was BS. Magic Leap is neither magic nor leaping:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/09/magic_leap_neither_...

Magic Leap video may have involved more magic than tech:

https://www.slashgear.com/magic-leap-video-may-have-involved...

The reality of Magic Leap: fake demo videos and delayed technology:

http://www.techspot.com/news/67342-reality-magic-leap-fake-d...

Watch This New Virtual Reality Game Turn an Office Into a Robot-Infested Fight for Survival:

http://time.com/3752343/magic-leap-video/

That last Time article above was written BEFORE they got busted, and it cites a Magic Leap company spokesman (and I'm pretty sure it was a man) mendaciously lying to the rightfully skeptical (and eventually vindicated) Time reporter:

>It's unclear whether the video shows an actual game overlaid onto a real-world office space or just an artistic rendering of what the game might look like in the future. The way the gun rests so realistically in the gamer's hand certainly raises suspicions. Still, a company spokesperson confirmed to Gizmodo that the video was authentic.

>"This is a game we’re playing around the office right now," Magic Leap wrote on its official YouTube account.

The game that Magic Leap was playing (and still is) is called FRAUD.

Re: My first year at Magic Leap and the opportunity ahead

#33

Here we go again . . . But in all seriousness, even if they could ship something meaningful, one wonders if the brand is tarnished such that it makes sense to re-launch with fresh branding. “Magic Leap” does not conjure up positive images in my mind. Why swim against the current unnecessarily?

For enterprise I am not sure this kind of name branding makes sense anyway. Surely the user experience is going to depend massively on the deployed app and whoever develops that. Better for another company to slap their brand on it and sell it as part of a wider solution. My guess is that consultancy and services is where the money is rather than hardware. $10k per user per year to solve a business problem can be easier to sell than $2000 for a device.

Re: My first year at Magic Leap and the opportunity ahead

#34

Is it just me, or is that announcement full of weirdly specific statements. Like "Magic Leap 2 will be the industry’s smallest and lightest device built for enterprise adoption", implying that smaller/lighter devices exist, just not ones specifically built for enterprise adoption.

It's not just you. They're called weasel words

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word

Re: My first year at Magic Leap and the opportunity ahead

#35
I didn't know Magic Leap was still a thing, I'm somewhat impressed. I definitely understand the negativity in the comments but at the same time with their experience with the v1 maybe they'll manage to deliver something useful this time?

Some skepticism is definitely warranted, but I'm looking forward to actual demonstrations of this hardware. Assuming of course that this time they'll actually share proper demo footage instead of obviously bullshit marketing videos.

Re: My first year at Magic Leap and the opportunity ahead

#36
If you have not experienced the magic leap videos do not do it justice.

Heres my video flying inside my house:

https://youtu.be/Grlk03MdScQ

The jaw dropping aspects:

- it correctly knows when to mask for the column

- it does lighting effects from the planes headlights

- it does particle collisions with my furniture when it crashes

- it crashes by detecting i hit the wall

It really is amazing tech but it is very unpolished. But I am very hopeful they keep pushing and it gets cheaper and more people can experience it and develop for it.

This is like the amiga. We are at the infancy of AR.

Re: My first year at Magic Leap and the opportunity ahead

#39

Here we go again . . . But in all seriousness, even if they could ship something meaningful, one wonders if the brand is tarnished such that it makes sense to re-launch with fresh branding. “Magic Leap” does not conjure up positive images in my mind. Why swim against the current unnecessarily?

Or are you referring to the ridiculous 12/12/2012 TEDX "talk" that Rony Abovitz performed at the Ringling College of Art, and all the FAKE and DECEPTIVE videos they posted and lied about on youtube, that tarnished Magic Leap's reputation? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY In my mind, they're not as reputable after having given Rony Abovitz a platform to perform that "fudge". Just watch the video, if you can…

> The game they were playing (and still are) is called FRAUD.

I felt so from day one. People over invested into marketing usually don't have to show much for the product.

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