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Magic Leap is neither magic nor leaping

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Magic Leap is neither magic nor leaping

#81

Post by new299 »

shostack wrote: post #59
new299 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're based in Dania Beach, Florida. I'd guess the job market is not quite as liquid as in the Bay Area. People get locked in, family commitments etc. etc.

And this is a great example for why people stomach the cost of living of the Bay when that argument arises... Lower employment risk due to more high paying jobs and increased job liquidity.

Yes, it's a trade off. Living somewhere expensive where there's little liquidity sucks.

Living somewhere cheap, where you can get occasional well paid work and save money can also work.

Re: Magic Leap is neither magic nor leaping

#82

Post by ggame »

mljoe wrote: post #54
jaypaulynice wrote: post #32

The problem is honesty isn't rewarded anymore. Someone working hard will be beaten by someone who tells all the fancy stuff...I know a lot of startups that raised millions, but their tech and growth is totally non-existent. I did some research and a lot of companies have little to no social media presence, yet are "growing" crazy. How do people find them? Add network effect and you get overly hyped stuff that don't d…

The big losers in a VC funded snake oil are the founders. In the end of the day they waste years of their lives making starvation wages for nothing.

Founders can pull money out in later rounds and pocket a lot of cash. E.g. The Secret founders.

Re: Magic Leap is neither magic nor leaping

#83

Post by DonHopkins »

bradleyjg wrote: post #76
DonHopkins wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good meta-discussion. I assumed the article's title was a reference to the SNL skit, but there weren't any more references or allusions to it in the article, so I though other people who didn't recognize the skit might appreciate a reference. I hope my other post linking to their TEDx talk balanced out my frivolity! ;)

My guess is it was a reference to the Voltaire quote -- "The Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."

I assumed it was Coffee Talk (which once discussed Voltaire's comment [1]), because Dania Beach is near Boca Ratan:

"OK now, this show used to be hosted by my friend Paul Baldwin, but he developed shpilkis in his genechtagazoink. So now he's in Boca Raton, Florida, recovering nicely, thank you very much." -Linda Richman [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_Talk#Discussion_topics

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_Talk#Mannerisms

Re: Magic Leap is neither magic nor leaping

#84

Post by oelmekki »

Sounds like Magic Leap is making the same prelaunch communication errors than Hello Games did with No Man's Sky : creating high expectations without showing much, which causes expectation to build up when people imagination feels the gaps, and cause backslash in the shape of frustrations.

But to be fair, author does the exact same thing than he is accusing Magic Leap of : making claims without displaying anything to back them up. He states that Magic Leap won't happen, just like flying cars. Based on what, except his frustration of not seeing the product? Same there : "The truth is that Magic Leap cannot get its huge prototype working in a much, much smaller version". Starting a sentence with "The truth is" doesn't make it true by itself, we need evidences.

As far as I know, maybe author is stating exactly what will happen, but I can't agree with him given so few evidences.

Re: Magic Leap is neither magic nor leaping

#85

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

chillaxtian wrote: post #80
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most cases the companies that fail after X years have been failing for at least X-1 years. This means these guys were under total stress for X-1 years. One has no idea what that feels like if they haven't gone through the process. Another thing is, you're pretty much locked into that company for X years. Even if you realize on year 1 that it's not what you started out to build, you still need to go with it, otherw…

> In most cases the companies that fail after X years have been failing for at least X-1 years. This means these guys were under total stress for X-1 years. > One has no idea what that feels like if they haven't gone through the process. > Imagine wasting X-1 years of your life working on something you no longer "truly" believe in. That part is failing. > If you still don't agree, try raising money and starting a com…

Enlightment is not that easy man, i already mentioned how to get "englightened" if you're so willing to learn: Go ahead and do it yourself and find out.

I have better things to do than trying to enlighten some random guy online.

Re: Magic Leap is neither magic nor leaping

#86

Post by rocky1138 »

ENGNR wrote: post #17
imode wrote: post #4

I keep getting Magic Leap confused with Leap Motion. though at least the latter has a proper, released product...

Leap Motion with a DK2 even is actually really good!

Especially after their Orion release last year. I'm really excited [1] about Leap Motion 2.

[1] https://johnrockefeller.net/leap-motion-2/

Re: Magic Leap is neither magic nor leaping

#87

Post by CydeWeys »

ggame wrote: post #62
Geee wrote: post #31

It doesn't matter if their tech doesn't yet work. Augmented reality is inevitable and someone will make it happen. Now, the logic is that whoever pours the most money into it will win the race and with patents be in a monopoly position. It's a gamble, but they have a likelihood of succeeding with money and hard work. That's what they've sold to their investors.

I'd hazard a bet that augmented reality already peaked with Pokémon Go.

Pokemon Go isn't real AR though, it's just a phone app that uses the device's camera. You need dedicated hardware to do real AR. I'm withholding judgment until I see that.

Re: Magic Leap is neither magic nor leaping

#88

Post by throwanem »

Pica_soO wrote: post #75
throwanem wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to operate as engineers we have to work for these companies Surely you don't mean software engineers. There's a whole big wide world outside the ongoing bubble, and in entire honesty I've never quite found "move to the Valley, work for a startup" to be the no-brainer it's so often been represented. In particular, the quality of life really doesn't seem to be there, at least not reliably; we hear horror stories all…

>Meanwhile, in the "enterprise" companies at which Valley >biens-pensants smirk and sneer, one finds often enough that >among the various fiefdoms, there's one or two with a savvy >director and a team full of smart, capable people who have >everything they need for the asking, and whose job is to >solve problems the organization would otherwise find >entirely intractable - sort of 18F or USDS, if you like, >except in…

I do what I do because I like solving problems. I do it where I do it because I like to have a strong supply of new problems to solve, and because I want to be well and reliably paid for the value I add in so doing.

Discovering and inventing new things hasn't really been a major part of that, because the problems I solve, the problems very large companies tend to have, rarely require it; the question is less one of coming up with novel tech and more one of applying tools and ideas that already exist in ways that are novel to the organization because the relevant knowledge and expertise is hard to come by without specializing in software as a career.

If you want to discover new algorithms or invent the next React or C#, then working for a large corporation outside the tech industry may not be the best option for you. But there are many more kinds of problems to solve than those.

Re: Magic Leap is neither magic nor leaping

#89

Post by Too »

DonHopkins wrote: post #30
grabcocque wrote: post #3

That these guys are a bunch of snake oil merchants has been obvious from day zero. Sometimes the overwhelming stench of bullshit is a little too difficult to ignore.

What makes you think that? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY

For those of you who don't want to waste 6 minutes of your life: Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz trying to play rockstar by starting his talk with 4 minute silly buildup music, then he comes in wearing a space suit trying to look cool and staying silent for another 1 minute trying to buildup to something even more, then just repeats the word "fudge" 15 times accompanied by shitty punk music. Essentially it's just a very long "fuck you everybody".

Re: Magic Leap is neither magic nor leaping

#90

Post by drelihan »

It's unlikely that 500m or 800m investment is 1.) all in cash or 2.) given out on day 1. If there are proper investor controls in place, cash is likely staged in and noncash vests over time as milestones are hit. At least, I hope that is the way it is setup...
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