stupid question: isn't this bad if your eyes are constantly focusing on something so close to you?
Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
41–50 of 183 posts
Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
#42The money flowing into Augmented Reality in general isn't so much about 'augmented reality' as a thing today so much as it's a big audacious bet on it being the next wave of technology that replaces mobile phones.
Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
#43It certainly is a morbid round of funding. But seems like they have a lot of current and future value. Reminds me of the time when DST invested in Facebook and I thought these guys are out of their mind. But if I look back, they are of course much smarter bunch who knows how much they will get back. Similarly many are in it for its potential technology and many are in it for the returns and they all know what they will get.
Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
#44Magic Leap has a patent application for "contact lenses" technology [1] Imagine if instead of having to put somewhat ridiculous and obtrusive glasses in front of your face, you could just use contact lenses that had this augmented reality capability. It would be ... life changing. [1] http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...
Do you need to demonstrate any kind of working model in order to patent something? As far as I'm aware, you don't. I look at this as an aspirational patent - frankly, exactly the kind of thing you'd see from a company with so much money they can spend all day dreaming.
Yes the good old days where you actually had to show the patent office a physical working model which cutout alot of these pie-in-the-sky patents.
Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
#45Kinda amazing how these guys are past Series C now and still haven't released a product.
Along these lines - is there an example of a technology company that succeeded after raising so much money without proving their product in the market?
Screw the market. Personally, I don't care if this even sells (to make the general population buy it, they'll have to invent most silly possible applications imaginable). The question is - does it really work as advertised? Both Magic Leap and HoloLens look way beyond the state-of-the-art, I'm still not convinced that what they show us isn't just plain marketing fabrication.
Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
#46Can anyone explain what force is recoiling the shooter's hand in the second video? Or is that gun computer-generated?
Imagination.
Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Didn't people say the same about Google Glass before it came out? I know, I know - this is very far from Google Glass. But all we have is a really broad concept and some flashy demo videos. "It's going to change content consumption in a limitless way" doesn't really mean anything. Based on past predictions, the way we consume content is supposed to have been revolutionized about 100 times by now.
Google Glass was a shitty augmented reality device. Magic Leap looks like it could be the real deal, if they can make the hardware unobtrusive enough. > the way we consume content is supposed to have been revolutionized about 100 times by now. It has been at least once a decade for at least my lifetime (personal computers, internet, mobile) I predict in 10 years VR/AR will be as boring as smartphones are now.
VR in 10 years, and AR 10 years after that.
Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
#48I 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.
Let's hope so. We see a lot of promises with this and HoloLens, but somehow production versions are still not here. I'm still not really sure if the latter isn't just a prank, or at least mostly post-recording CG. > they're basically building Tony Stark's home computer interface in Iron Man. Since you're bringing up Marvel - I fear the reality, at least with first released products, will turn out somewhat like this:…
> I'm still not really sure if the latter isn't just a prank, or at least mostly post-recording CG.
The first video had a text disclaimer at the bottom of the entire video insisting that there was no post processing or CGI.
The second video did not.
I rest my case ;)
Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
#49If this turns out to be the successor to smartphones, then these comments will look like people laughing at the Instagram acquisition.
Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
#50It's easy to think of reasons why this isn't a sound investment. However, here are some thoughts why this may be sensible: * This is largely Google's investment to cover possible future success of Facebook's Occulus or Microsoft's Hololens. * They could have valuable non-tangible patents or employees. This is way past the "acquihire" funding levels, but perhaps the technology itself is valuable. Perhaps they get arou…
I guess this makes me a pedant, but it bothers me to see big O notation used as a shortcut for "within an order of magnitude." It would probably be fine if everyone on HN had taken an algorithms class and knew the formal definition. In reality, a lot of people here are still learning what that capital O thing means, and if they see it used as "within an order of magnitude" we're doing them a disservice. (As someone who wormed their way into the field without a CS degree, I had to learn it on the job, so maybe it matters more to me than it should.)
The point you were making, however, is well taken. There's just no way for us to know what patent-related assets are involved in a deal like this.