"Is this a dagger which I see before me?"
"No, dude, someone is feeding shit into your AR headset! Told you not to open that suspicous 'Thane of Cawdor' e-mail!"
Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
91–100 of 183 posts
Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
#92I've been working on AR and related technologies for almost the last decade and I've been part of the first handful of people working on Google Glass. Bottom line I've seen a lot of promising AR technologies come and go. My personal take on this is that they may indeed have some very good, if not revolutionary, display technology. However : The big, big obstacle to delivering credible AR is latency. Contrary to VR, t…
Since you're an expert: what about these videos is hard? The things that jumped out at me are: 1 - the robot moving behind the table leg (ie you have to do depth recognition of objects in the scene) 2 - the user's hand interacting with the artificial elements in the scene. Some code had to recognize a hand and figure out which element it was touching. What strikes you as the hard parts of those videos besides the rea…
Well the second video is a mock-up. In the first video notice that a) the observed things are floating in space and b) the camera motion is very smooth. This is how they sidestep the "layering problem" in the video. The desk leg occluding the robot is probably done using a depth sensor.
Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
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:…
HoloLens has been seen and used outside of the company, however. They have been touring several cities and showing off Hololens units to developers. I am not an MS employee, but I did get to try it out and do some Q+A with Hololens developers. http://www.inferse.com/36577/microsoft-hololens-roadshow-201... I don't think any magic leap units have ever been used by those outside the company, but I'm excited to see what…
Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
#94I 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.
In the first video you will notice that all of the augmented reality images are presented as added light over the background. That is much more plausible than the the second video where there are objects that can be darker than the background or even opaque. Maybe they have some solution for that but I would not expect it based on my knowledge of the area. In the next few years, I would expect any solution to those problems to come with other problems not visible in the second video.
Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
#95It'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…
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…
That must be intimidating to be going up against a company with that level of investment, hype and technology that you state as being "decades ahead of what anybody else has." Are you able to share what company you work for and how you are planning to compete?
Also, what would you consider the best consumer AR and VR experiences available on the market today, or expected to be on the market next year? Super interested in this space, but so far have only been able to demo the GearVR in a BestBuy and have an Unofficial Cardboard 2+ for my crappy Nexus 4 at home.
Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
HoloLens has been seen and used outside of the company, however. They have been touring several cities and showing off Hololens units to developers. I am not an MS employee, but I did get to try it out and do some Q+A with Hololens developers. http://www.inferse.com/36577/microsoft-hololens-roadshow-201... I don't think any magic leap units have ever been used by those outside the company, but I'm excited to see what…
http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/534971/magic-l...
I stand corrected. Thank you!
Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
#97If this turns out to be the successor to smartphones, then these comments will look like people laughing at the Instagram acquisition.
Funny you mention that. Was just thinking about the book "Rainbow's End." In the near future, it had most people interacting with tactile "muscle-movement" based input, and contact lens displays.
Wearables/wetwear are almost certainly going to be the future at some point. Our grandchildren will laugh when we tell them about having to hold a device in your hand with a tiny screen where you hunt and peck at an even tinier keyboard with your thumb.
Of course we also won't be used to being bombarded with the inevitable massive, vision-filling AR ads that will come.
Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
#98I 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.
In the first video you will notice that all of the augmented reality images are presented as added light over the background. That is much more plausible than the the second video where there are objects that can be darker than the background or even opaque. Maybe they have some solution for that but I would not expect it based on my knowledge of the area. In the next few years, I would expect any solution to those p…
In the patents they have filed, the occlusion is done with moire patterns. Based on other acquisitions and job listings, the patterns seemed to be tuned into occlusion masks with layered MEMS optical shutters.
Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
#99Augmented reality has been the sci-fi dream forever, but I'm really, really skeptical about its applications in real life. Not that they don't exist - the shoot-em-up game demoed in that video looks fantastic. The Gmail app looks horrendous. Worth billions? Depends on the implementation, and a demo video is very far from the real thing. I wouldn't be investing.
It would work great for commercial, medical, and military training purposes. You can use it to train personnel how to perform tasks that would generally be considered too dangerous, expensive, or risky to jump into first hand training. Doing so could also help lower insurance costs.
Re: Magic Leap raises $827M in Series C
#100If this turns out to be the successor to smartphones, then these comments will look like people laughing at the Instagram acquisition.
"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."