Meta's optics are some of the most basic optics imaginable. They're not trade secrets. Anyone that has a Meta device and a basic understanding of optics knows how they work.
And I prefer the reverse - the future is far, because everyone focuses on distribution.
Those "revolutionary" companies we hear about are mostly mundane tech with overexcited marketing department. It's probably fine if you measure success of society by how much money those founders make, but I prefer to measure it by the actual advancements in technology.
All i have seen from them over the years is a bunch of unity demos and their headset which is a good implementation of the peppers ghost effect with some tracking. So yeah, nothing revolutionary and many people could probably DIY something that gets most of the way there, but great products can still be built by combining a bunch of existing technologies in the right way. I agree that their trade secrets are probably not really secrets though compared to stuff Oculus/Valve or MS are working on.
As someone who's been following this area for awhile, I concur. Meta has been around since 2012, but has no substantial technology that a clever consumer could buy and diy for themselves.
AR companies that are working on bleeding edge tech have started later and gotten a lot further than Meta:
- Microsoft Hololens - released in 2017. Incredible inside out tracking and mapping of stationary objects, decent resolution, limited FOV.
- Google Tango - released in 2014. First mobile device with a depth sensor and AR games.
- Avegant - founded in 2012. Developing commercial light field technology.
Meta's lawsuit seems like a desperate attempt to stay relevant without having a moat.
I suppose this is somewhat particularly prevalent in optics. Optics has been an unsexy field for a long time, now that suddenly AR has brought it into the forefront again, there's all sorts of people looking to bandwagon and make some money by calling a basic setup "revolutionary".
By all means tell me if/how I'm wrong but this video and it's gonzo-like interview style is something of journalistic beauty. The CEO chooses (or not chooses) to leave Meta's PR to the devices of his own megalomaniacal/egomaniacal style.
Somehow, the commenters actually complain about the interviewer interrupting, as if his questions were being answered in seriousness to begin with.
The energy in this interview is not of science and innovation. It is a hormonal rollercoaster of bare minimum information exchange, through the lines of unmitigated cultural queues, one-ups and buzzsyntax.
