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Google May Lead $500M Round in Magic Leap Virtual Reality Tech

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Re: Google May Lead $500M Round in Magic Leap Virtual Reality Tech

#41

Post by spyder »

They got awarded $150k from DOD for:

Ultra-High Resolution Scanning Fiber Display for HMDs

http://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/415788

...Magic Leap is working to commercialize low cost, compact, high field of view, high resolution consumer wearable display systems.

A quick search for "Fiber Scanned Display" explains the technology:

http://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/mfabfiber/

If they are building a new kind of 3d display then this may explain why they need a lot of money. They cannot just buy an already massmanufactured display like Oculus is buying it from Samsung.

Re: Google May Lead $500M Round in Magic Leap Virtual Reality Tech

#42

Post by baddox »

arxpoetica wrote: post #27
nl wrote: post #22

At $500M it isn't an investment expecting a return, it's money to block other companies buying it.

If the technology is as significant as it appears to be, doesn't it reach into enough billion (and trillion?) dollar industries? The investment in this kind of technology isn't just about gaming or Hollywood.

Depends how strong of patents they can get for the tech, I reckon. I highly doubt it's so revolutionary that it could be easily reverse engineered.

Re: Google May Lead $500M Round in Magic Leap Virtual Reality Tech

#43

Post by taurath »

arxpoetica wrote: post #27
nl wrote: post #22

At $500M it isn't an investment expecting a return, it's money to block other companies buying it.

If the technology is as significant as it appears to be, doesn't it reach into enough billion (and trillion?) dollar industries? The investment in this kind of technology isn't just about gaming or Hollywood.

Communication is absolutely the killer app for these technologies. You lose SO much from staring at people through a screen, if you could trick your Amygdala into believing a far away person is real and in front of you it would be an astounding leap with massive benefits and implications across everything humans do.

Re: Google May Lead $500M Round in Magic Leap Virtual Reality Tech

#44

Post by aidenn0 »

Schwolop wrote: post #2

Anyone have anything concrete on what this is, how it works, whether it's more than vapourware? On the basis of publicly available information it sounds a lot like ... nothing. Expensive nothing, for that matter.

Yeah some of the quotes really raised my bogometer.

Re: Google May Lead $500M Round in Magic Leap Virtual Reality Tech

#45

Post by fooderf »

jonah wrote: post #16

Here's the video associated with the Nvidia paper on Near-Eye Light Field Displays linked elsewhere in the comments. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwCwtBxZM7g It gives a very clear overview of the concept and prototypes.

This tech certainly has a long way to go. I managed to use a prototype of the light field tech at gtc back to back with the oculus dk2. It's certainly cool research, but don't get the impression the light field protypes are offering a vr experience anywhere near what oculus has offered with any of their hardware.

Re: Google May Lead $500M Round in Magic Leap Virtual Reality Tech

#46

Post by Animats »

habosa wrote: post #31

This story has the best and worst of the current SV environment in one. On one hand, it's amazing to see that the boundaries of technology are moving so fast that someone could come along a year after Oculus makes big news with something that might blow them out of the water (according to marketing hype). On the other hand, $500M for an unlaunched startup with no users is crazy. That money could be stretched so far i…

This story has the best and worst of the current SV environment in one.

This isn't a Silicon Valley project. This project is in South Florida, the scam capital of North America.

Re: Google May Lead $500M Round in Magic Leap Virtual Reality Tech

#47

Post by sitkack »

Animats wrote: post #46
habosa wrote: post #31

This story has the best and worst of the current SV environment in one. On one hand, it's amazing to see that the boundaries of technology are moving so fast that someone could come along a year after Oculus makes big news with something that might blow them out of the water (according to marketing hype). On the other hand, $500M for an unlaunched startup with no users is crazy. That money could be stretched so far i…

This story has the best and worst of the current SV environment in one. This isn't a Silicon Valley project. This project is in South Florida, the scam capital of North America.

Sarbanes-Oxley should have a separate rulebook for South Florida, statistically speaking.

Re: Google May Lead $500M Round in Magic Leap Virtual Reality Tech

#48

Post by iandanforth »

spyder wrote: post #41

They got awarded $150k from DOD for: Ultra-High Resolution Scanning Fiber Display for HMDs http://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/415788 ...Magic Leap is working to commercialize low cost, compact, high field of view, high resolution consumer wearable display systems. A quick search for "Fiber Scanned Display" explains the technology: http://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/mfabfiber/ If they are building a new kind o…

I wonder if, instead of the micro lens array mentioned in other links, they have a fiber with a tip acting as a lens, such that the larger scene is transmitted to each "pixel" in the raster. Each raster point would get a slightly different scene rendered to it, be displayed by the fiber tip, and thus produce the array of images necessary for multi focal viewing. I don't know enough about optics to know if this is possible, but it sure would be cool!

Re: Google May Lead $500M Round in Magic Leap Virtual Reality Tech

#49

Post by Stratoscope »

nyolfen wrote: post #33
Stratoscope wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a way, stereoscopic 3D is seeing something "flat and floating in space at a set distance". The focus distance is the same for both your eyes, and the same for anything you look at. In the real world, your eyes refocus for objects at different distances. It's not just a "stereoscopic effect". The actual focus distance - what's blurry and what's not blurry - changes. This doesn't happen with devices like the Rift or…

"Your eyes may have to swivel in and out to align the images, but they don't have to refocus." how is this different from refocusing?

One way to think of it: When you take a picture with a camera, different objects in the photo may be in or out of focus, depending on how far away from the camera they are.

Closer objects may be sharp and distant objects blurry, or vice versa. Or somewhere in between.

Of course you can aim the camera one direction or another to choose its field of view - which objects appear in the frame and where - but that's completely separate from which of those objects in focus.

Focusing is one thing, aiming the camera is another.

And that doesn't change at all when you have two cameras. You can aim them both at the same thing, you can aim them off into the distance, but you still have to focus them both.

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