I had a chance to use one of the Meta headsets (Magic’s primary competitor) a few months before they went under. Don’t get me wrong, it was pretty cool to walk around a 3D model wearing a headset, but the UX was nowhere close to practically useable and the picture quality was too faint to do anything serious. There’s undoubtedly some kind of value in the tech and IP, but I can’t see these things being used for much anytime soon. VR is light years ahead in terms of practical potential, and it’s not really getting off the ground either. I can’t see them getting anything remotely close to $10B.
Having tested both the Magic Leap and HoloLens, the biggest problem by a mile is field of view. Everything in this magical holographic world cuts off within a very narrow band of focus. The image is also not very sharp, bright or opaque. Trying to achieve both opaque images and a transparent screen is extremely difficult. As is the processing power to push enough pixels in battery-operated piece of eyeware. It's possible that microLED can bridge that gap, but it's just starting to creep into commercial production. Even with the current limited technology, I have yet to see any remotely plausible mainstream use cases for this kind of device.
I think retinal projectors are going to be the answer we're just not there yet.
I'm big fan of the magic leap for gaming. It looks and feels really good.
I'm a big fan of the HoloLens for work because it's easier to navigate and works more like expected for business applications. I have not gotten to try the HL2 yet but I am excited for the broader FOV.
I recently tried on a headset which had eye projection. It was extremely disorienting to wear. The Hololens was a lot easier to work with -- pretty magical!
The Oculus Quest has pretty much gone mainstream at this point, they even had supply shortages during Xmas that has yet to be recovered from (but mostly thanks to Corona).
And it seems VR sales (EDIT: shipments) are hovering at around 6,000,000 a year (this tends to include the crappy VR headsets that are sometimes given away for free with high end phones).
This sounds like a lot...but it might not be. To put things in perspective, the Kinect sold around 20,000,000 units and was considered a failure by Microsoft which is why they abandoned it. I think the parallels between the Kinect and VR is worth noting, since most are really accessories to something else (or used for very niche purposes).
VR definitely isn't mainstream yet, but it might get there in a few years. I think Half Life Alyx will be an interesting juncture and maybe even a make-or-break point for VR.
People expecting a half life gaming experience have been disappointed while the rest of us are too busy playing Beat Saber. It is going down just like mobile gaming did, in a different direction from hardcore gaming. AngryBirds wasn’t half-life either.
I don’t really game on my Quest, but I do use it for a one hour workout everyday. My system is pretty beat up too, if it stopped working tomorrow I would get a replacement immediately.
One of the hardest problems in VR has been locomotion -- how do you move from place to place in a way that's seamless and fluid? Even Half-Life Alyx struggles hard with this. You'll notice that whenever anything cool is going on, they have you put your hand on some pillar or controller to keep you from wandering off.
Beat Saber is probably the best app for VR, because it solves that problem by not having any locomotion. The world locomotes to you.
But that works well for an abstract rhythm game. I don't know how well that works for anything else.
I basically use it for kickboxing, and the lack of locomotion in my apartment is a feature, not a bug. One reason I haven’t really gotten into thrill of the fight is because it involves actual moving, and I’ve found that isn’t really safe unless you have the space for it. Instead, I have to duck, lean, and weave enough with boxvr, and that is good enough for a lower body workout.
I’ve never used the knobs and triggers on my VR controller for anything beyond game selection. In fact, I think Oculus would do better just to put out additional simplified controllers meant for fitness gaming.
Nothing wrong with rhythm games if they can help you drop 40 pounds.
The space problem is easy to solve with....space. A VR gym setup could easily solve it by putting you in a racket court with an appropriate guardian, and then let the VR system do the rest. Otherwise we will have to wait for Omni directional treadmill tech to get better.
I remember trying a VR game in a shopping centre in Malta of all places in the 90s. They strapped you in a harness and you walked on an omnidirectional treadmill within a "ring".
The game was basic, early "3d" (in the gaming sense), low polygon, low resolution, no depth or actual streoscopic, but this was the 90s.
I tried to check it out again on a subsequent visit to Malta but it had of course gone. Real shame, I saw nothing of its kind for decades later.
Yes it was like that, but standalone, the computer, I presume was in the base, which was like a platform; about a foot-high puck shape you stood on within the ring which had the treadmill built in.
Edit: I seem to recall it costing 2 lira for a turn.
Oh this is cool, it wasn't this one from what I recall (which isn't a lot).
The main things I remember are; it was an FPS, it was indoors/enclosed, the lighting was bad so it was really hard to tell where walls/corners were and it was very, very red.
The controller was sort of ring/oval shaped, I remember basically nothing about the headset other than that it was tethered.
It's not which is why their comments are confusing to me too and also highly anecdotal. I know just as many half life fans who are super excited for it.
Half Life Alyx was amazing when I play tested it. The only thi g lacking was that they hadn't turned hard mode yet so I have to play through on normal, which was still challenging and exciting.
>I think Half Life Alyx will be an interesting juncture and maybe even a make-or-break point for VR
PC VR is a dead end for anything outside of creative tools, very few adults want tower PCs in their homes anymore. When I demoed my Rift to friends they were completely blown away and the first question was "Can I use it with my MacBook?" and that was that.
When I demoed my Quest, one person sat down and ordered one straight after taking it off, he demoed it to someone at work and they ordered one, took it to a family barbecue and two of his relatives bought Quests.
CSGO just broke their record # of players at one time, at around 900,000[1].
Steam alone regularly has over 10,000,000 people logged in at a time [2].
I think saying "Adults dont want a tower PC" is a pretty wide sweeping statement. I agree about Alyx. If they release a full length game that has the same level of quality that Half-life 2 had, with the same level of mod and customization support, that is going to be the tipping point. If VR is still a sub-niche in gaming/PCs, we won't see it takeoff for another 20+ years. But we may see it become the new standard.
Ditto for the Quest. I have a Vive Pro and a traditional gaming rig, and I'm very happy with it, but I can't deny that my friend's Quest is by far the more convenient setup. Even discounting the lack of power, the ability to just pick it up, put it on, confirm the play space and go makes the thing infinitely more attractive. Even the low battery life isn't a major concern, since I rarely want to spend that long in VR anyway.
I don't think tethered PC-based VR is going away, simply because that setup is most flexible for development and experimental purposes, but for the mass market, I think a device like the Quest is the only thing with potential to truly take off. Especially if the weight of the headset can be reduced, as comfort remains one of the most nagging negatives of the whole experience.
Independent headsets are getting good enough that all the computational power can fit on your head. Getting rid of the PC is just the natural progression of hardware like this.
> PC VR is a dead end for anything outside of creative tools, very few adults want tower PCs in their homes anymore. When I demoed my Rift to friends they were completely blown away and the first question was "Can I use it with my MacBook?" and that was that.
Get out of your bubble. Among non-casual gamers, tower PCs are very common.
There was a lot of frustration with the quality of games for the Kinect. Some nice, playable titles for adults, more for kids (who are more tolerant of "pointless fun" like balloon-popping and chasing things around). But there were many terrible titles, and I wonder how many companies were unable to recoup their investment in development.
The Kinect experience could have been dramatically improved with a hand-held device (at least some buttons you could use to do grabs and stuff, and some kind of tracking looked possible). Several efforts along these lines were either canned by politics ("YOU ARE THE CONTROLLER" dogma that you thwarted at your peril) or by people dog-piling so many features into an initially simple product that the costs went out of control.
It looks harder to convince customers to use terrible VR gear. (I could be wrong).
The Kinect was actually relaunched recently. It was a failure as a consumer product, but has a loyal following in some niches like experiential installations.
Same with Google Glass. Failed as a consumer product, but companies used it and Google has now relaunched it as a product aimed at business users: https://www.google.com/glass/start/
Actually it's off the ground and becoming commoditized in those fields where it makes sense - AEC, digital design, training.
The reason they might not be familiar to you is that they are niches. There is no reason for everybody to use VR, but there are very good uses for some professionals.
If phone is a hammer (everybody has use for it) then VR kit is an arc welding tool - extremely practical for some uses, but not for all.
Or, pencil vs. oil paints. Oil paints are an essential product category, yet since the professionals who use them know them already and the market segment isn't that huge the non-artistically inclined consumer is likely not familiar with them due to lack of marketing dollars and hence media exposure.
Training is a serious thing for VR, as is development. I had chat last year with a guy running a VR event space / escpe room. Seemed to run rather well. What kind of stunned me was, when I asked whether or not he had thought about branching out into training, he said they re not interessted in that.
I came from a stint at a company doing consulting and training for the defense sector mong other things. Considering the prices they asled, and got, from the government that is a big market. Adding some VR based training scenarios for the military, or emergency services, police, whatever, looks at frst glance interessting enough to at least dig deeper into. But no interesst. No idea why.
> Adding some VR based training scenarios for the military, or emergency services, police, whatever, looks at frst glance interessting enough to at least dig deeper into. But no interesst. No idea why
Military acquisition cycles can last for years, which slows down tech intro.
Interaction with the wider training tech ecosystem is also a factor. For example, course authors need good VR environment editors to create usable scenarios, scoring tools, etc. They would have to be able to import their large libraries of existing vehicle and weapon models. Anecdotally, it can take an hour of scenario editing to get a minute of usable scenario
One route in would be if an existing vendor of military sims (e.g. [0]) added a VR plug-in to an existing COTS sim already used widely by the military, and the military users then got a funding opportunity (e.g. a new platform with a fresh training budget) to enhance their existing kit.
Oh, the former employer of mine had these contracts already. So partnering with them, or someone similar, could have cut down the acquisition cycle a lot.
But I do understand why people don't want to work with the military.
The disconnect comes when VR companies want to get valuations and investment like they are making the next phone. Not sure they would be happy with that arc welding tool money, which is more reasonable.
Generally the VR offerings that are in a wider use are sane. Just because some companies peddle fake products it does not mean it's a market of lemons.
> VR is light years ahead in terms of practical potential
i agree VR is light years away (it's been just around the corner for years), but i don't even understand its potential. what are the big applications? i just can't get around its usefulness for anything but maybe video games.
Gaming will be big in VR once the price / quality ratio reaches a reasonable level. I kind already did.
In 11 days Valve will release Half Life: Alyx which is the most awaited VR game ever. I suggest you to tune in, it might shed some light on why it's so cool.
Then you aren't looking hard enough. Our company has more projects than we can take on, all for professional VR applications. Procedure training, safety training, risk assessment, ergonomics, medical applications ...
There are ton of applications both in use and being developed. That you don't see it hyped on TV doesn't mean it is not there. Industrial applications are not advertised and marketed the same way as video games.
> That you don't see it hyped on TV doesn't mean it is not there.
no need to be condescending. and who watches t.v. or ads?
your response doesn't elaborate on anything. i don't know what your company is. and just because you say you have lots of projects doesn't give me any information.
can you elaborate? i humbly asked what the actual applications are, and you just listed a bunch of potential fields of use. because i have heard of various applications in those fields, but i don't get the overall usefulness that matches the hype. for example, in medical, how is VR useful? don't you need to be able to see what's actually going on and not be in VR land? if one is getting a live camera feed with overlays, is that really considered VR? i have seen applications of 3D viewing, but i don't see how that's better than using a monitor with improved input devices.
in the case of practical immersive activities, i suppose i could have listed that as useful.
And we are only a small fish, there are hundreds of companies like ours.
And re applications - have you tried to google? No, I really mean it. You complain about me being condescending but you have posted an obviously unfounded comment, post another showing that you don't know much about the subject - and it is somehow my fault that I didn't spoon feed you with the information.
And those are just three top links straight out of Google. Google Scholar would give you also a ton of research papers describing applications in medicine, biology, chemistry, physics and many other fields.
>for example, in medical, how is VR useful?
Typical applications (out of top of my head the few I have been involved with in some capacity):
- surgery planning and training (e.g. orthopedic surgery, dentistry)
- pain distraction (e.g. for heavily burned patients)
- post traumatic disorder treatment (think Iraq veterans, car crash survivors, rape survivors, ...)
- anxiety treatments (phobias of public speaking, phobias of flying, heights, spiders, you name it)
- rehabilitation (e.g. post-stroke, various muscular disorders, post-surgery ...)
>don't you need to be able to see what's actually going on and not be in VR land?
The entire idea of VR is replacing the real world with a computer-generated reality. So no, you don't need to see it, modulo stuff like the chaperone/guardian systems that show you when you are about to hit a real wall, for example (most people don't have a hangar to work in). Also, if working with physical objects/props, those are going to be tracked and inserted into the virtual environment, so when you touch the virtual steering wheel of the new car you are designing, your hand will touch the physical model in the real world. But this isn't done universally - it depends on the application and task that the user is supposed to do (e.g. ergonomics evaluation of a car cabin doesn't require the same user immersion/feedback as e.g. a racing simulator using that same car)
>if one is getting a live camera feed with overlays, is that really considered VR?
No. That would be augmented reality using camera-based pass-through (the other way is an optical pass-through where you see the real world through a piece of glass where the computer overlays are projected on somehow - e.g. Hololens or Magic Leap).
At one end is reality, at the other pure virtuality (virtual world). Augmented reality adds something to reality (e.g. overlays), augmented virtuality adds stuff to the virtual world (e.g. a video-based avatar of the user). Virtual reality and augmented reality are pretty much at the opposite ends of that line, everything in-between is mixed reality. Now, to make it nice and messy, Microsoft has decided in their infinite wisdom to "hijack" for their marketing purposes this terminology that exists and is used for decades and uses it like this:
- "Holographic" for stuff around the Hololens (even though it has nothing at all with holography - 3D image is not automatically a hologram)
- "Mixer reality" for describing something that can do both virtual and augmented reality. Which isn't at all the same same thing as the definition from the above.
>i have seen applications of 3D viewing, but i don't see how that's better than using a monitor with improved input devices.
"3D viewing" is not virtual reality. Virtual reality is defined by two things:
- immersion - you replace the real world with a virtual one completely, i.e. no overlays on top of a real world!
- agency and feedback (action-reaction) loop - you can act on the world and the world reacts to your actions, then you react to what happens, etc.
The first point doesn't necessarily require neither 3D nor goggles - you could do virtual reality using e.g. a large (think few meters large) screens too.
The second point is hugely important and that is what distinguishes virtual reality from "3D viewing", 360 videos or 3D cinema. If you watch a 360 video and try to pick up an object, nothing happens. The same if you try to come closer to something. You can't. Sadly, that doesn't prevent unscrupulous snake oil salesmen that want to push their 360 cameras and crappy video viewing/streaming/pay-per-view platforms from muddying the waters by selling their stuff as "virtual reality", even though it is not. It only serves to confuse people.
In virtual reality you can come closer and not only to pick that object up (e.g. using a glove, controller or even bare hands these days) but the object will react to your actions - first of all it will move with your hand, giving you the sensation that you have picked it up and then you can also interact with it - throw it, drop it, rotate it, open it or whatever is the object designed to do. This is what you need the hand/head/body/object tracking systems for.
I strongly suggest you try some actual virtual reality application (i.e. NOT a 360 video on a phone or some such!) and you will see (and feel!) the difference immediately.
> And re applications - have you tried to google? No, I really mean it. You complain about me being condescending but you have posted an obviously unfounded comment, post another showing that you don't know much about the subject - and it is somehow my fault that I didn't spoon feed you with the information.
I stopped reading your comment after this, because you are being a condescending ass. If you want people to listen to what you have to say (and it's clearly a lot) you should try being more friendly.
Meta was in no way ever a "primary competitor". Meta was a straight-up scam. If that's all the experience with headset-based AR that you've had, that's like trying to make comments about VR if you've only experienced Google Cardboard.
Having tried to use the original Meta, and never quite managing to get my hands on the second version. It was unapproachable for developers as well.
One of the really annoying habits of all of these companies in both VR and AR is they want developers to pay $$$ as early adopters and then also have an expectation around those same developers building all the experiences.
The one exception I've seen to that rule was Valve. Valve sent me multiple HTC Vive headsets, even shipped them to Australia, so we could build against and demo their early VR, from nothing more than a meeting at their office.
And we showed those headsets to thousands of people at our office and tradeshows (Real Estate). I can only hope that it repaid that generosity.
The music has stopped. The $10bn price is nothing to do with the product, it is just a negotiating tactic meant to the hold up the price. If they are lucky, they will sell for $2bn, and whoever buys them will end up writing down to $100m or so. It is over.
Don't write off VR just yet. Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR2 chipset might raise the performance bar enough to matter and headsets start hitting the ground this summer (without a supply chain disruption).
Part of the issue with VR/AR is that smartphones are already ubiquitous. Yes, I could wear your dorky looking headset and look like a complete fucken nerd, or I could just pull my phone out of my pocket like everyone else and get a lot of the same functionality.
I don't necessarily disagree with you but I'm old enough to remember a time when mobile phones were the dorkiest possible thing to pull out one's pocket (or bag in the case of the bag phones).
Not to disregard your own experience, but I too am old enough to remember the start of mobile phones, and no one I ever knew thought they were dorky. Douchy maybe, but that was mostly bc the early adopters were wealthy businessmen and finance jerks (no offense to anyone if you are one). But not dorky.
I thought where you were going with this is that since smartphones are so ubiquitous any sort of AR system should utilize the phone for its primary processing. A headset is needed though for AR, it just has to be much smaller and lighter before they become mainstream.
Google and Microsoft are the kings of multi-billion dollar acquisitions (which generally end up a waste of money). Apple rarely drops more than a hundred million on an acquisition and when they do, it's for a foundational technology. Even PA Semi which is the foundation of their chip architecture was a sub-billion dollar acquisition.
Notably, their two big $1B+ acquisitions were Beats and Next.
Alternatively, Apple could not buy them and save the money. Less flippantly, while Apple seems to be heavily invested in AR, they're... well, already heavily invested in AR. There would need to be a compelling argument that buying Magic Leap would jump them farther ahead than they could get on their own.
Meta was a joke. Magic Leap's technology has always been far better, and their primary competition is Microsoft and Facebook (and maybe Apple if rumors are true).
Unfortunately for Magic Leap, it's just too early for AR headsets to be viable. The technology needs another decade or so to mature before it can be truly mainstream, probably. It can only survive in research labs with funding from some other source, not as a standalone business.
Using the Magic Leap One was an underwhelming experience. It was like using the first version of Microsoft's Hololens except with higher expectations. Truly disappointing.
Their problem hasn't been timing. Microsoft's Hololens has been on the market even earlier, with worse specs - and was flying off the shelves in the industry, because they have targeted it well and provided reasonable support for it.
ML problems was hype, hype and more HYPE. And then under-delivering, the device was in many ways actually worse than the first gen Hololens, despite costing more and coming to the market later.
Oh and also the confused messages straight from the top - is ML a hardware company? A software platform? Services platform? Marketing to professionals? (then why those game demos and not some more pro oriented?) Marketing to retail? (then that price is a non-starter). Etc etc etc ...
Hololens is not "flying off the shelves". It would not be viable as a standalone business either.
None of Magic Leap's many problems would have mattered if there was actually a market for the product to sell into. But the market needs a product that's better than any available technology allows today.
There is plenty of market hungry for devices like this. Companies were buying Hololenses in fairly large quantities (tens up to hundreds!) for their internal use, despite it being essentially a lab product and not very suitable for day-to-day industrial use. Oh and US Army signed a contract for up to 100 000 (!!!) of these (see: https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/28/18116939/microsoft-army-... )
The same Hololens 2 - except there Microsoft isn't able to deliver these due to manufacturing issues.
That something isn't selling millions of pieces like an iPhone doesn't mean that there isn't a market for it.
Magic Leap's problems were mostly of their own making - their gizmo wasn't significantly better than Hololens, in many aspects it was actually worse. For ex. the "goggles" form factor limiting spatial awareness - big deal e.g. in factories where a maintenance tech wearing it could get hurt or killed by a moving piece of machinery that they couldn't see.
They have also focused mostly on hype rather then things that actually matter to businesses (given the price and form factor trying to market it to public was a non-starter - Microsoft didn't even attempt that). And, finally - you can't actually buy the gizmo, even if you wanted to - they aren't selling it anywhere except in the US! Unlike Microsoft, which has no such issues.
Chase, google, and a ton of others (I think even pichai personally) put big bets a few years back. ML portrayed the aurora of Snapchat, but ultimately their secrecy killed them as well.
Really reminds me of what happened with general magic (In secrecy w/ failed product and huge investor hype)
I also interviewed with this a while back: they were clearly frantic from what I could tell
No, it wasn't secrecy that killed them. It was incompetence. Gross incompetence all throughout the company. Source: I worked there for a little over a year as a techlead/unofficial director -- even relocating to Florida.
Similar experience and position to yours, but for three years. There were some good people and the product had a very novel appeal when you first encountered it.
Eventually what caused this meltdown are two things:
1. Rony’s reality distortion field extending way too far for the companies own good
2. A complete lack of managerial cohesion and competence. Turf wars, selfishness, lack of vision.
Very rarely anyone got fired. Resources were wasted on multiple parallel efforts which were politically driven. The company spread geographically very early with very little cooperation or shared culture.
There were some talented individuals but shadowed by what was going on with the senior management.
I still have a warm place for the company, the product and the people, but the real magic is that they survived for so long going like that.
The incompetence, and the rampant sexism, and of course the blatant dishonesty and deception in their faked demos. Not to mention the way they ripped off other people's ideas in their patents and didn't give them credit.
There was some overlap, and both had lots of "Magic" hype, but there were some really great people working at General Magic, and not nearly as high a level of narcissistic bullshit and self aggrandization and utterly dishonest marketing as from Magic Leap.
I mean, come on:
The whole point of the lawsuit was all about how Magic Leap's company culture and product plans and demos and self image all revolved around adolescent male egos and sexist fantasies, and excluded women.
Tannen Cambell, who filed the lawsuit, was actually hired for the express purpose of solving Magic Leap's recognized "pink/blue problem", but was rebuffed and ignored. They knew they had a problem, and even gave it a name, but they refused to solve it.
>Campbell, one of whose responsibilities was to help Magic Leap with the “pink/blue problem,” had to endure hostile environment sex discrimination while proposing ways, not only to make Magic Leap’s product more woman friendly, but also to make the workplace more diverse and inclusive. Campbell was terminated after (and because) she, like the child in “The Emperor’s New Clothes” who blurted out that the Emperor was naked, challenged Magic Leap’s CEO, Rony Abovitz, to acknowledge the depths of misogyny in Magic Leap’s culture and take steps to correct an gender imbalance that negatively affects the company’s core culture and renders it so dysfunctional it continues to delay the launch of a product that attracted billions of investment dollars. Campbell also raised concerns that what Magic Leap showed the public in marketing material was not what the product actually could do—admonitions ignored in favor of her male colleagues’ assertions that the images and videos presented on Magic Leap’s website and on YouTube were “aspirational,” and not Magic Leap’s version of “alternate facts.”
Did all of that suddenly change after the lawsuit was settled?
Because if it did suddenly tangibly change, then that might be evidence that settling a sex discrimination lawsuit by changing their behavior was a positive signal.
But if they only forked over a big pile of hush money, signed non-disparagement agreements and gag orders, and went their separate ways, and Magic Leap didn't actually change their culture, then I don't think you could consider it positive sign or a constructive settlement for anyone other than the woman who was paid to keep her mouth shut.
>Campbell met September 28, 2016 with Magic Leap CFO Henry and Head of Operations Tina Tuli for a conference call with the CFO and leadership team at R/GA, an award-winning international advertising agency that was Magic Leap’s advertising agency of record. During the call, Henry said of the product under development, “I’m sitting here between two beautiful ladies. They’re not going to want to put a big ugly device over their pretty faces. And I have an office with glass doors, I don’t want people to see me with these beautiful girls with ugly things on their faces.” Later, one of the male R/GA executives on the call asked Campbell if Henry frequently made sexist comments like he had made. A female executive at R/GA also was offended by Henry’s remarks.
>As an example of more egregious comments, Campbell told Abovitz of the “Three Os” incident and Vlietstra’s lack of any meaningful discipline in response. As an example of unconscious bias, she told him of an IT employee who was helping Campbell a new logo into the email system. Cognizant that she was taking up a lot of the employee’s time with minor changes to get the logo “perfect,” Campbell apologized for taking up so much of the employee’s time, to which he responded, “Oh, don’t worry, I get it. You’re a woman and you care that things look pretty. I’m a man. I just get the work done.”
>Euen Thompson, an IT Support Lead, on November 16, 2016, gave a tutorial to a group of seven new hires, including two women, how to use Magic Leap’s IT equipment and resources. One woman asked Thompson a question in front of the group and Thompson responded, “Yeah, women always have trouble with computers.” The women in the group, in apparent disbelief, asked Thompson to repeat what he said and Thompson replied, “In IT we have a saying; stay away from the Three Os: Orientals, Old People and Ovaries.”
>Sadly, because Magic Leap seldom hires and does not actively recruit female candidates, the company loses competitive advantage to products like Microsoft’s Hololens. Microsoft, which employs far more females on its team, developed its similar product on a faster time line with more content that appeals to both genders.
>Magic Leap's futuristic patent art was copied from other artists' designs
>When Google-backed augmented reality company Magic Leap quietly applied for a patent, it did so with dozens of pages of futuristic (and slightly creepy) scenarios: a social media charm bracelet, a gargoyle bursting out of a box in a store, gamified cucumber chopping...
>Wait a second. That last one sounds familiar. Maybe that's because it's a line drawing of a shot from "Sight," a Black Mirror-esque short film about an augmented, sinister future. As it turns out, Magic Leap's patent art isn't so much its vision of the future as one created by various students and designers. Former Verge-r and current Gizmodo writer Sean Hollister was tipped off to a set of side-by-side comparisons that leave no doubt we're looking at copies.
>If patents are about originality, does this mean Magic Leap is hurting its claims? Not really. A great deal of patent art just shows potential designs or uses for something, in order to make the actual, more abstract claims clearer. In this case, Magic Leap is patenting an optical system that has nothing to do with the interfaces displayed here. Even bringing a copyright claim would be hard and arguably pointless. "Images such as these are setting consumer expectations of VR and AR today," the company told Gizmodo. "We wanted to use the same images to demonstrate what our technology will enable."
>The designers themselves seem ambivalent of their images' rebirth as patent art. Magic Leap appears to have neither contacted them nor credited them, but at the same time, it's showing the world how this futuristic design fiction could work. It's one thing to have someone rip off your art. It's another to have them actually make it real — if Magic Leap can actually deliver on its ambitious promises.
>Magic Leap is secretly building a headset that could blend computer graphics with the real world. Recently, we lucked into a treasure trove of illustrations from Magic Leap about what that future might hold. There's just one problem: Magic Leap didn't actually create all those awesome UI concepts. It copied them.
>The images speak for themselves. On the left of each of these comparision shots, you'll see an illustration plucked directly from this Magic Leap patent application. On the right, you'll find a screengrab from an awesome UI concept invented by someone else.
>Remember Sight, the incredible student film where a man with bionic eyes plays Fruit Ninja with a real cucumber that becomes part of his meal? Same cucumber. Same everything:
>Or how about the Ringo Holographic Interface dreamt up by then-UI-design-student Ivan Tihienko in 2008?
>Here's a augmented reality concept from interaction designer Joesph Juhnke called "The Future of Firefighting":
>And below, one from designer Michaël Harboun and his team called The Aeon Project. "What if you could travel to exotic, far-away destinations while being stuck in traffic?"
>Lastly, two images from "Meditating Mediums - The Digital 3D," which was the graduating thesis for Greg Tran at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He now designs for Samsung.
The most infamous misleading video that currently claims to be a "concept video" was originally deceptively titled "Just another day in the office at Magic Leap" and described as "This is a game we’re playing around the office right now". Only AFTER they got busted, did Magic Leap retroactively change the title and description so they were not so blatantly false and misleading.
Before they got busted and white-washed the lies, a skeptical Time magazine reporter didn't think it looked real, and asked Magic Leap about it directly. The official Magic Leap company spokesman mendaciously lied to him that "the video was authentic":
It's unclear whether the video shows an actual game overlaid onto a real-world office space or just an artistic rendering of what the game might look like in the future. The way the gun rests so realistically in the gamer's hand certainly raises suspicions. Still, a company spokesperson confirmed to Gizmodo that the video was authentic.
"This is a game we’re playing around the office right now," Magic Leap wrote on its official YouTube account.
That statement is terrible for sure in its entireity but since when are “orientals” even thought of as bad with computers? I thought the stereotype was asians==really smart?
This is an anecdote, and I don't want it to come off as rude.
I know a person who is currently a director at ML. The simple fact they were hired and placed in an administrative/managerial role is enough to tell me never to work there. Shame too because I think the tech is cool and I'm fairly well qualified for the jobs this person posts incessantly on LinkedIn.
Don't mind South Florida either, go canes. Also 20% off the salary of most regions, but also no state income tax and relatively cheap home prices if you go up to Broward.
Doubtful their location ranks high on the list of reasons they couldn’t hire. I interviewed there and one of the major reasons I was excited was that it would give me a good reason to move back to Florida. The interview was, to put it nicely, unusual. The highlight of it was trying to have a conversation with a director who sounded like he was driving down I-95 in a convertible, and was getting frustrated that I couldn’t understand a word he was saying.
I absolutely think the region is high on the list of reasons they can't hire. They pay less for worse jobs at lamer companies and don't have money flowing to startups. Magic Leap was very much the exception, and it's kinda cool because it's there because the founder liked it, just like Shockley thought NorCal was dope.
And much like Shockley semi I think ML is a flash in the pan. But unlike Shockley Semi, Abovitz didn't hire an equivalent of the traitorous 8 because they already worked out here and got paid way more money to hang out at a FAANG or startup.
Everyone I'd want to work with from my time in South Florida is either out of the area or trying to leave. It pays like shit, and there is no money or companies down there to make cool shit to make up for it. Besides ML. But it appears that is shifting.
I moved from San Francisco to South Florida as an experiment in being fully remote. It's been pretty good so far, but if I was looking for another job, I'd hit up everyone I know in SF for a remote position first.
There aren't many like-minded people here, and that's kind of nice for a change. I still love San Francisco, but it simply priced me out of living there. I'd rather retire in 5 years here than work another 30 there.
Their staff is also a nightmare. I heard from friends that they had to sign an NDA just to interview, and even after that the interviewer gave away nothing about what my friend would be working on or what the job would entail. Needless to say he rejected the offer and went for a better job (I think Google or something)
I just double-checked, searching my email archives from everything from Envoy, a common front-desk app. Some of these places were interviews; most were just visiting somebody. All of them had NDA language, including these companies: Asana, Blink Health, Lever, Lyft, NerdWallet, Reddit, Slack, StitchFix, and Twilio. Just to walk in the door.
Maybe those folks are all outliers somehow. But I doubt it.
Rich people will do anything to avoid state income tax.
Florida is one of the US East Coast states with no state income tax.
Right after the "dot bomb", several SV VCs moved to Florida or Texas to avoid California state income tax.
Amazon's reason for re-investing all profit was to pay zero tax (in the USA you can do that, but in some countries they just tell you what percent is the minimum.)
Eh, I think you're just using a different definition of "rich" than the OP. A person who makes $350k/year and is a millionaire would be considered rich by quite a few people, though not everyone. A person like that would benefit quite a bit by avoiding state income taxes.
Funny because I'm still getting probed by their recruiters almost on a monthly basis for several of their positions. Perhaps because I live 5 minutes away from their HQ. ;-)
It's a shame but not a surprise. I have friends and acquaintances that have worked or still work there, and yet I wouldn't vent details of what I know here, everyone knows they have been struggling with their technology, overpromise and growth. Archetype of the "too much money in too little time" syndrome, and a despair to deliver and build a successful company. Be careful with what you wish for.
I don't know Abovitz personally, though I have worked with people who worked with or under him since the early Z-KAT days and he is well regarded. Contrary to what most think about engineers in South Florida (or Florida in general), we have some very capable people here. Companies complain that they can't find good talent. However most of the time they cannot put their money where their mouth is and commit over the local "market price", which is comparatively low, to secure a good hire. It has certainly been an issue in my career, indeed. But guess what? We faced the same difficulties in one of my companies finding the right people when I lived in the Bay area a couple of years ago. The answer is not that simple.
Having worked mostly in startups through my life, from the outside it amazes me how they were trying to spread out so early. When I first heard about them they were pitching movie producers, but after they got their first $50M things started going crazy. I once dated a girl who was a writer producing fancy literary content far before they had shipped anything. This was way before they hired Stephenson. I have experience in medical devices and robotics, and their recruiters have contacted me offering positions for healthcare applications, and also a very pushy one was trying to convince me to move to their Sunnyvale office where they have a robotics team. Think industrial manipulators. Then they go out and sue their once employee Gary Bradski for doing his usual Bradski things and for which he is lauded in the valley... but not here it seems. Certainly they have management problems due to lack of experience.
It would be painful if they fail. They have been the most funded tech company in the state and at least they managed to ship, something many startups are unable to demonstrate.
The company isn’t just magically worth billions because they want it to be and want to exit. That may have worked years ago but those days are over.
They’re worth something relative to the revenues they’ve been able to generate. The IP is also worth something but given the cold shoulder from the FAANGs of the world probably not as much as they’d like.
At some level these sales start to look like a stubborn buyer that’s asking far too much for their house. It will sell but a painful reset of valuation expectations is clearly required if one wants a sale to close.
The thing is - they don't really have much IP worth anything. They have filed a ton of patents for ridiculous stuff like that "wiggling" fiber idea (the fiber would need to reach ultrasonic speeds to get anywhere close to usable display).
They want to exit because their investors don't want to pour more money into that bottomless pit, with no prospects of profitability (not to mention that there are other vendors doing the same thing and better/cheaper).
So hype things up, offload the worthless junk to some sucker and move to the Caribbean to enjoy the "profits" ...
The lofty ask price may be unduly anchored by the hypothetical value it could have represented to Google in the scenario where something like this turned out to be the next big platform. Web and later mobile represented big shifts of economic activity, and the incumbents all know they need to place a big bet on candidates for any next potential shift, hence many of them making similar moves on VR, AR, self driving cars, etc. If they didn’t, and missed the next big step entirely, they would be judged to be incompetent; if they did and it simply didn’t pan out, no big deal since all the other players were making similar bets. In this context ML may see itself as still representing that potential future value, while others have updated their pricing based on limited uptake of VR and AR so far. It’s unclear where they could find a buyer at that price.
I agree with your analysis, and I think the fact that they've struggled to actually bring a compelling product to market at a price point that attracts consumers (outside of the technology bubble) means that, even if they had the best of intentions at disrupting the market for innovative user interfaces, either they are another Research In Motion (great product, with a long-term idea that wasn't quite ready for primetime yet), or just another side show that won't end up being culturally relevant beyond the passing captivation that individuals felt upon watching their "whale stadium" mock-up video.
In retrospect (at the time, even) it felt like complete BS. If you look back at the threads posted on HN, I distinctly remember people calling out their methods as super vague, and probably completely fictitious - amazing to see that the angry, dismissive comments actually turned out to be the most factually based!
The problem with Magic Leap is that it was always vaporware. I think the second you start using 3D CGI to "show what the product will be like" you're already kind of fucking up. I mean I get it, if youre building a concept car, you can't just immediately build it. But Magic Leap's videos were always like "yeah literally, it'll be like you're in Avatar."
Give me a break. I hope some mega-corp eats up the IP for like 7 cents on the dollar and actually uses some of the tech for something that sees the light of day.
From what I’ve heard (cannot confirm) their technology has to do with projecting directly into your eye, which for now supposedly provides better augmentation of reality than screen-based systems like Hololens; however, it requires a room fool of equipment to pull through. The valuation was predicated on being able to miniaturize that down to portable size.
The thing is, there is no way to “show” this to the masses, and there is not even a comparable experience (you can’t show oculus/vibe in an ad either, but everyone has played with a 3D display at some point even if only static - such as the red disc toy with 3D images whose name escapes me - stereoscope, maybe?)
What’s the comparable experience of something projecting into your eye?
Yes that was it. ML were supposed to be about a dynamic light field display. I would have bought a motorcycle helmet with a backpack from them if it delivered on the original concept from their prototype phase.
The’ expectations sold 6,000 pieces so they got something, but from what I’ve heard still way too heavy and expensive to be commercially viable. (Did not hear about compromises they made, if any, to image quality - compared to the room size prototype that wowed investors and got them well funded.
Lets say AR/VR it does become important... It doesn't seem to be exploding, but it is growing... so, lets say.
What does buying ML buy you? The goal isn't to own a product. The goal is the product. When Google bought Android, it was a two years (and a lot of money) away from being the only sane option for manufacturers not named apple.
ML is years and billions away from (I assume) an entrant in a high-end subsector of the market.
The counter-example to google's android is MSFT's nokia/windows mobile experience. A money suck and no benefit.
> When Google bought Android, it was a two years (and a lot of money) away from being the only sane option for manufacturers not named apple.
It took three years from google buying android until the absolute first android phone was launched, and I'd say that when microsoft bought nokias mobile bussiness (in 2014, nine years after google bought android) it still looked like there was a chance windows would be a serious third player in the mobile OS market.
They’re worth something relative to the revenues they’ve been able to generate.
A company is worth a value relative to whatever a buyer believes they'll generate in the future. The historic revenue is often a useful indicator of what that might be, but not always, especially if the company is operating in a very new industry or if the company isn't very old.
Exactly, Magic leap has an ambitious software ecosystem vision that they have had trouble to realize - neither content producers, nor end users showed up in meaningful quantities so far. You can't sell what you don't have. At best it's going to take lots more in investment to make this work, if it ever will. Doubts about that are what is probably driving these rumors.
They are also a hardware company with some cool patented solutions that seem to more or less work. IMHO any of the big companies could be potentially interested in adding that core technology to their portfolio. That's worth something but maybe not ten billion.
What they don't have is the operational side sorted to build and ship products in volume (at least not as far as I know). They are shipping a product in limited volume to developers only and so far the reception of this device has been luke warm. Presumably this is not the final version.
The reason they are allegedly looking to sell is either that they are running out of funding and are having issues securing more and/or because it's clear that their current strategy is failing.
The real question of course is what investors stand to lose their money and what kind of financial constructions they can come up with in terms of equity swaps, and portfolio consolidation to protect their investment and turn this into an acquihire/IP grab. I hear Google has a lot of money in this already and its CEO is on the board and it has a history of doing AR stuff (and not quite succeeding). Jack Ma is on the board too.
My comment wasn't really about Magic Leap, but just valuing companies in general, but to address this particular point the fact Magic Leap is looking for a sale could be seen as Google's reluctance to invest more money, or even that Google is looking for a way out. Neither is particularly good for Magic Leap.
The fact someone invested in a company in the past doesn't mean they still believe the company has value or is worthwhile investing in now. The sunk cost fallacy applies here.
The point may be Apple being very close to releasing their own version.
They had close relationship to them, and they may know something others don't. Even their initial stratospheric valuation came almost solely from them being a potential competitor to Apple's product, or an ip blocker, and an expectation that Apple will spare no money to buy them.
In Shenzhen, rumours were flying for quite some time down to photos of "suspicious HDI PCBs" with "property of Apple corporation" on them. And the fact that Foxconn has only one HDI PCB contractor in the city, gives a lot of credibility to that.
Even their initial stratospheric valuation came almost solely from them being a potential competitor to Apple's product, or an ip blocker, and an expectation that Apple will spare no money to buy them.
There are a couple problems with this theory. Firstly, it's pure speculation that Apple are even trying to make an AR headset. They might not be. Secondly, if Apple are and they've managed to get as far as making PCBs in Shenzhen without licensing any IP from Magic Leap then Apple believe they don't need to license the IP. Apple might be infringing and ML might be able to sue, but that's speculation. If Apple has managed to make a headset without infringing then ML's IP is basically worthless because no one else will need it either if they take whatever route Apple have taken.
To be honest I imagine if Apple wanted access to ML's tech they would just have invested in them during one of the many rounds ML went through, and then negotiated a favourable licence agreement between the two companies. It would have been much cheaper, they'd have access to the tech earlier, and it would have prevented someone else offering more.
You’re wrong about their lack of ability to manufacture at scale. This part they have nailed down and used a lot of the capital to get right. It’s just that the units haven’t sold.
You could argue about unit economics though.
>> They’re worth something relative to the revenues they’ve been able to generate
The days of "weird" values aren't over.
The new $trillion companies are worth a trillion because they achieved a lock of one sort or another on a market.... ideally a literal market, a platform or an exclusive data source.
That's basically the idea behind most of these valuations, from FB's "outrageous" IPO price to WeWork's shenanigans. Get a "monopoly^" or strengthen an eventual buyer's monopoly.
With Youtube, google was buying dominance in online video, with a lock on creators. With Android, they bought a running start to mobile dominance... market locks.
Magic Leap's problem is not revenue, it's strategic value.
When FB bought oculus for or $2bn They got to be a major competitor in the market immediately.... the assumption being that one or two of the early products will become the dominant platform.
What do you get if you buy magic leap? How do you get from here to a product that dominates its market?
VR is still not an important market, but it is interesting. Companies will buy into it, but they need to be buying into it. Magic Leap isn't really in the market, nevermind dominant.
Yes I was wondering if it is normal for companies to just declare a sale price like this. I don't pay much attention but I can't remember hearing much about that (apart from implied valuations like Snapchat saying 'no').
> Ultimately, companies are not sold, they are bought.
What does that even mean? Companies are both sold and bought. One implies the other. There are always willing buyers for entities with non-negative value. Hell, I'm a willing buyer for Magic Leap, at the right price.
> Hell, I'm a willing buyer for Magic Leap, at the right price.
You almost certainly aren't. Magic Leap is burning money at an incredible rate, reportedly $50 million/month. Even if you could buy it for $1 over their cash on hand, you'd be a fool to do it, as you'd have to spend the next several months laying people off, negotiating with creditors, liquidating assets, and fending off lawsuits. It would be miserable, and there's a good chance you'd have little to show for your time.
Any serious buyer would expect to put another couple billion in cash in just to get it to where it has a product people will actually pay money for. I'm guessing that isn't you.
It's more nuanced. A company being "bought" means that an acquirer actively sought them out because they were such an attractive target. This is the best position to be in.
A company being "sold" means that they don't have active interest and instead offer themselves up as a last resort for whatever price they can get. Usually everything is liquidated at the absolute minimum to avoid completely shutting down the company and still marking it as an "exit" on the investors books.
> I'm a willing buyer for Magic Leap, at the right price.
That's exactly the point, the buyer dictates the price it is willing to buy at. At the wrong selling price for a specific product, there are no buyers.
The best companies are bought, not sold - but fire sales still happen. There are various ways to get bankers/private equity/corp dev to find a home somewhere if you need to liquidate.
Given the money raised and all the talent and assets, it's unlikely they'll shutdown completely.
They assigned their patents to JP Morgan Chase last year presumably as collateral for a loan which they'll get back if they or the buyer pays back the loan:
I hope the cache includes whatever became of US20150016777A1 - the 180 page pièce de résistance application that ripped off literally dozens of UI concepts from various sources.
My understanding is Magic Leap assigned them, meaning they are pledged by Magic Leap as collateral on a loan[1]. This means that JPM only actually get them if Magic Leap default. (ie JPM can't just decide to sell those patents right now just like when you take a mortgage the bank can't just sell your house from under you if you remain current on your loan).
If I'm JP Morgan I'm sweating this sale process right now because if Magic Leap do default (eg say the sale process tanks and they burn through their remaining cash and default), the recovery on these patents is going to be difficult so JPM will take a writedown on the loan.
Their patents are by far not a blocker to the field.
Apple has actually have a much bigger patent contention with Beijing University with them holding the lockdown portfolio on the microled, and they recently "tainted" themselves through business relationship with one of Beijing University subsidiaries.
It may look to the court, or at least a Chinese one, that they solicited samples from them, and very expensive at that, without stated purpose just to sneak away the tech.
The more bad news like this is coming out, makes me wonder what did they show to the initial investors - it MUST have been something incredible, that was probably too bulky to wear and that they didn't manage to miniaturise.
I really hope someone talks about that after they either go broke or get acquired.
I'm thinking early investors have largely written this off in their mind. They would probably be happy to take small fraction of $2 billion they put in at this point. Realistically, would they even get $200 million?
The device is pretty good. It really achieves some tremendous stuff and has a highly polished user experience, so I'd say that just by the merit of its IP it's worth at least $200 MM.
I think their problem is basically timing. Nobody wants this thing right now. Nobody wants it in that specific form factor. And nobody wants to create content for a platform with such a high price point and unexpected future.
It's an egg and chicken situation. I can see why Facebook doesn't want them or need them since they probably have been developing parallel IP in their Oculus division.
Apple may be also very deep into the development and exploration of its own AR (which is already evident by accelerated development of ARKit).
Microsoft has its own competitor for years (Hololens).
So I think is really a problem of who might want all this IP and who can use it meaningfully to create a solid pipeline of AR products.
Again. Their problem is definitely timing. Consumers, content creators, and companies definitely want this type of technology. But not until they can have something with the same footprint as a pair of reading glasses. I think we are still very far from that.
There's still a long way to go in terms of usability.
I heard they had some cool ideas like compensating the prescriptions for individual's with glasses and other things they wanted to move forward on, but their technology still has a long way to go. Wearing the glasses covers everything with a dark tint (like Microsoft) and positioning the magic leap one on one's face to account for the limited field of vision that can be shown gets annoying. Occlusion issues were also present even though I'm pretty Magic Leap already has a solution for those types of problems internally (I think I heard that from someone in marketing some time last year).
I would think Google would want it, instant visual product search using the cameras is probably one of the killer apps for this on the consumer side. And oh, the data collection opportunities about the real world would have them salivating.
They are selling these for ~$6000. They already tried this marketing approach with Shaquille O'Neil. It's just not that cool to wear googles on your head.
Why is everyone talking about the still vaporware Apple goggles when Microsoft is actually selling Hololens (a direct competitor to Magic Leap) for longer than ML is even on the market.
Yeah, I do get it, Apple and all, but this is ignoring the elephant in the room.
Quoting from another HN comment I favorited a while back:
> Something that doesn't exist is just so much more exciting than something that does. Real things have caveats, limitations, and costs.
Right now Apple's glasses aren't real, so they have no caveats, limitations, or costs: only raw potential. That's way more exciting than a real product which we already know is too expensive for the average consumer to use.
One good reason- Because when Apple solves the equation, everyone else tends to fall in line. Microsoft gets props for having the product out for sure, but Apple is searching for the magic recipe to sell 10 million. Every quarter.
A phone is a commodity with little technological known-how required to pull off today.
iPhone sells for $1000 because people will pay so much for it but that doesn't mean that the technology in it costs so much.
However, when a single diffraction waveguide (the piece of glass that forms the display of devices like a Hololens or Magic Leap) which is the only known way how to make a flat-ish display (otherwise you need bulky mirrors or prisms) costs hundreds of dollars (and you need 3 per eye minimum, one for each color), then it is hard to see how Apple would pull that off. And that's only a display.
At least if we are talking a proper AR device, not a personal HUD/"smartglasses" like the Google Glass.
The price tag is exactly why you can't "buy directly" as you say. It's not currently intended for consumers - they understand the price point makes that a non-starter. Given that the COGs aren't going down anytime soon, I'm in complete agreement with that choice.
On the flip side, if you've got an actual business case for hololens, acquiring them is rather trivial. And quite frankly for the use-cases I've seen hololens deployed, $3,500 a pair is barely a rounding error in the project budget.
It is slightly laughable to complain about Microsoft selling their AR glasses for €3500 when their direct competitor would (will?) be Apple, who have no qualms selling a €1000 aluminium stand or €50 000 desktop computer. Expect a solid premium over Microsoft's pricing.
> 28 cores and 1.5TB of RAM is still very much workstation territory
But its still a rather overpriced workstation. However, thats not the topic.
Microsoft also charges what the market will bare, but it is a completely different market. MS has been quite focused on their B2B products for a while, so selling the expensive Hololens to companies and not private users makes perfect sense.
So if you're in that group, its a solid investment
Sure they did. Except those watches don't need several cameras to track your movement without which the AR overlays aren't possible.
Those cameras need video processing - that's big, hot and heavy compute capability somewhere nearby the camera itself because you can't stream that e.g. using Bluetooth to a phone in your pocket.
That compute also sucks batteries dry like there is no tomorrow, so a large battery has to be somewhere.
Oh and if you want to actually display an overlay to the user (and not only some text in the corner of your eye like Google Glass did), then you need fairly large optics - laws of physics won't budge only because it is Apple.
That's why the Hololens is so clunky and unsexy. Magic Leap has put the compute and batteries in the user's pocket, but then there is a cable between the two (and the goggles aren't much lighter/less clunky really).
Yes. My idea is that Apple will do the compute on their iPhones in the user's pocket with a wireless connection between the two. The glasses will be an accessory to the phone.
Perhaps their plan is to start small and scale up only as much as will be "sexy" year over year. Rather than go all in on a massive headset and shrink with iteration.
Yet people still refuse to accept that sometimes, being first makes little difference, delivering something well polished and usable as well as having a track record of quality is worth a lot, and people make choices for reasons other than release timelines.
This probably is going to come off the wrong way, but there has not been an "innovative" product to come out of Apple that truly impresses me since Steve Jobs died. It feels like the company has learned how to optimize what they already have, and its innovations are fueled by fumes.
Neither AirPods nor Apple Watch come off as impressive? That's pretty pessimistic. I'd say both were highly innovative and impressive -- further pushing miniaturization both of the physical hardware and the user interface.
Not just that but also refinement. When I bought my first MacBook around 2008 it wasn't innovative, but it had a lot of small things that other laptops lacked. The touchpad and MagSafe connector was superior. When you closed your laptop it went to sleep and it actually worked. Also, a lot of other things. Now you get touchbar and memojis and other gimmicks.
The only thing I want that Apple currently makes is a UK phone charger[1]. Its folding mechanism is far superior to any other charger. These things are what I really miss.
I don't think making an observation about a company's lack of innovation comes off the wrong way at all. Apple hasn't done anything new and noteworthy in some time. That's fine. Pointing it out is fine too.
Apple Watch is a joy to use. Helps you be more active, tracks your cardio, remote controls the TV, timers alarms flashlight messages EKG, I use it a ton and love it. Made under Tim Cook
The Pebble, as a black and white e-ink Watch, was more of a niche offering. Apple created a sleek, colorful product with mass market appeal that was also deeply integrated with the phone. So basically it was innovative in every way and also not in any way, as a matter of interpretation?
Android Wear was introduced a year ahead(2014) of Apple Watch(2015) with everything you stated. It was still great but not as innovative as the iPhone or the iPod was.
Thanks! I don't wear a watch so a smart watch doesn't appeal to me, so I never followed the product releases but you miss some of the nuanced history if you try and read what happened after the fact.
Apple has never invented anything truly innovative.
All they do (and all they have ever done) was reinvent the wheel. They do, however, consistently reinvent the wheel better than anyone else.
Case in point: In literally the year 2000, I owned an HP Jornada 548 pocket pc, complete with a wireless modem that worked on cell phone networks. It ran Windows CE, and I was able to surf the web, use AOL instant messenger, ICQ, do voice recordings (even transcription), handwriting recognition, play games, and yes, even make phone calls. But it was clunky, and it wasn't something that I would even dream of recommending to my grandmother (because the UI was terrible and slow, and it required a lot of fiddling with things to get it dialed in the way I liked it).
Contrast that with the iPhone (which was released a full 7 years later). Was it the first smart phone? Obviously not. But it was the first smart phone that I could honestly recommend to my grandmother.
This was the outcome for a long time now. They had a lot of infighting to begin with. They couldn’t agree on who leads and where the development needs to happen. I predicted that they will sell back to google for a discount a while ago and it still might happen.
I am going to do a reality check that will probably be unpopular, but it doesn’t matter...
While MS had products like hololens out, Magic Leap was still “in stealth”. This is the same company that was “worth billions” before they even released a product or before they had made public whatever product they wanted to sell. The marketing videos they produced early on (which were impressive) look nothing like the technology that was released years later. Look up the expectation vs reality videos of if you want a laugh.
Now they want out at a crazy valuation.
When the economy is “good” and there is plenty of dumb cash lying around (think these past years of bubble build up), an expert sweet talker is able to command money away from the vision fund type of folks. However, then the situation is like we are right now, we go back to the basics... things like market-fit, income, revenue, growth, sustainability... the healthy business.
We need the bubbles of the Magic Leaps, WeWorks and all the other unsustainable unicorn startups to burst. This is what will bring us back to industry sanity. The first dotcom bubble burst made our industry better. I hope this one does, too.
I've sold some AR projects to customers. Just product visualizations for trade fairs etc. nothing too fancy. It's cool and fun to work with but my takeaway was that for many practical applications it's pretty cost/time intensive to work on the non-technical parts of the projects (tuning the models and scenes so they look photorealistic). The devil is in the details. For example our typical projects involved getting CAD data from customers and turning it into a fairly simple AR-App. Most of the time was spent on fixing the models in various ways (and that's fairly hard to automate imo).
UX is also really tricky.
Reminds me a bit of the cost of working with data vs. the actual models in ML. The models and tuning them and playing with them is the cool stuff but most of the competitive advantages (imo) come from mastering the data part.
I learned a lot from my ventures into AR and it was fun and I've kept a mindset of pretending there was an AR device in contact-lense form to brainstorm what one could do with this breakthrough every now and then. But there's really not much beyond "novelty effect" and gaming I see as interesting products today. Even in areas where AR solutions are deployed in industry (warehousing and logistics), I feel that less glamorous solutions would provide similar benefits.
All that being said, long term I'm quite optimistic that the technology will bring very interesting changes and things I cannot imagine right now.
Chase, google, and a ton of others (I think even pichai personally) put big bets a few years back. ML portrayed the aurora of Snapchat, but ultimately their secrecy killed them as well.
Really reminds me of what happened with general magic (In secrecy w/ failed product and huge investor hype)
I also interviewed with this a while back: they were clearly frantic from what I could trll
This is just going to a We Work in headset category. Along with the end of bull market today, many startups burning cash will go kaput. Their tech is not worth more than a few hundred million $. It would have been it worth a lot had it succeeded, unfortunately didn't. Maybe hololens/quest have a shot.
Oh man, I didn't know he worked there... It would be interesting to read a candid retrospective from him ... although in all likelihood that might not happen for years if ever.
I have both a Magic Leap One and a HoloLens 1. I've done work on both. I also have every major VR headset, which I have also written software for each. I've been working in AR for about 10 years, and VR for almost 6.
And honestly, with the latest OS updates, the HoloLens 1, even today, is still the better device. You can compare specs on a sheet of paper all day long, but there are fundamental flaws in the Magic Leap hardware and software that prevent it from being a good user experience. The HoloLens, on the other hand, is just old.
Magic Leap's battery/compute pack turned out to not give it an appreciably longer battery life, while also making the device uncomfortable, as the cable constantly tugs on the back of your head. The HoloLens isn't comfortable, either, but that's mostly because the vast majority of people completely ignored the little, rubber strap that came in the case that you attach across your to take the bulk of the weight of the device.
The WiFi and Bluetooth an my ML are constantly failing. I've used three different units and have had the same experience on all of them.
The controller constantly loses tracking. It uses magnetic tracking and it just doesn't do well. Also, the sensor is on the right side of the headset, and it is legitimately worse to use the controller in your left hand. It's also way too complicated for just-a-pointer, while not being complicated enough for a bespoke user input device. HoloLens has a clicker instead. It's superfluous, but it does the job and doesn't fail.
The hand tracking is too broken to actually use. HoloLens' hand tracking isn't anything to write home about, but I've never encountered it doing something blatantly wrong. It's just slow. Magic Leap's is similarly slow and often wrong.
This goes hand-in-hand with the ML SDK being poorly documented and rather incomplete. One way HoloLens gets around its rather limited user input capability is by giving you voice recognition out of the box. And in writing software, it's incredibly easy to setup. It's also relatively easy (though takes some thoughful design) to create a speech-based UI that works reliably. Magic Leap, on the other hand, talks about how great it would be to have speech-recognition, but offers nothing in their 1st-party demos to demonstrate it and nothing in their SDK to implement it.
The operating system on ML is a hacked-up Android system. I'm sooooo over trying to do 3D graphics on Android systems. All the standalone VR headsets are also a gigantic pain for developing software. If you've ever developed software for the HoloLens, it's a joy in comparison.
And Microsoft did a lot to make 2D applications an integral, usable, and useful part of Windows Holographic. While Magic Leap has its own version of that feature, they bury the documentation and don't provide any good samples. Whereas, on HoloLens, you can basically run any pure UWP app, whether it was made for the HoloLens or not.
Your point about the software ecosystem is very good. I think the advantage you're talking about stems mostly from how Hololens is a first-class Windows 10/10X platform now, serving as one of their flagship new platforms for their new OS. It was clear from early on they wanted Windows Holographic to be clear extension/continuation of their goal for UWP to be the new write-once, run-everywhere platform (even if that goal was a bit aspirational/unrealistic).
That positioned Hololens as a more competent general-purpose computing platform. That's a valuable perspective to have on what AR/XR is supposed to look like: new, but not entirely new, and flexible enough to be able to run the old software.
I've got news for Magic Leap. Nobody is spending $10B on anything as speculative as AR/VR right now, with the macro environment being what it is. Maybe $1B.
just like Playground Global, Andy Rubins VC firm taking over CastAR and trying to pump valuation without releasing any product, ending in whole thing burning to the ground with IP sold off for pennies on the dollar back to founders and original IP creators.
And I think that points at some consumer uses, too. Basically anything where people are already using their hands has AR potential. When I still owned a car, I would have loved to have the repair manual info overlaid on whatever I was looking at. But so far I don't think anybody's found much compelling enough to pay what AR systems cost.
[1] See "Fundamentals of Wearable Computers and Augmented Reality" ch 14.
There will be less AR manuals since they will have to produce both paper and AR.
To recognise parts will take pretty good pattern recognition, but possible, what can a phone do now?
But the next step will take AI at a fairly high level if it's guiding you through a process.
If a camera can look at a motor and 'see' what to do, then just a voice telling you want to do will be close to brilliant and useful now, camera and speakers are easy.
True a overlay would be better, but the underline tech is AI, if you can make this AI then no need for AR at this stage, sell it now if it's possible.
AR won't give you "Automatic translations (on cue)"
It will only be able to do what current technology allows. IE Magic Lens / Google's Product
AR is not AI, it won't magically solve complex problems.
As I stated I have been in other countries with the tech, I have not been embarrassed to use it. I have never used it. Neither has anyone I have been with. In real life these situations just don't present themselves.
Have you used the current tech? I fail to believe you haven't because you are too embarrassed every time, if it's "very useful in almost any setting or environment".
1) Simple translations that google translate or similar can do sufficiently well. This exists, is useful in many scenarios, such as reading signage or posters and other stuff, but I never use it IRL because I don't want to walk around looking through my phone all the time. And for traffic signs, I obviously can't go throuh all of that while driving. AR can solve this when the tech is small enough.
It's not so much a case of that I'm too embarrassed to pick up my phone, it's more that the expected value of any single translation is very low, but taken all together I'm missing a lot of information, some of which could be useful.
2) Complex translations of documents and such. I have tried google translate for this but the text is typically both too complex and also can't fit on the screenspace so it never manages to get the whole paragraph to translate.
Some of this could theoretically be solved with a super high res AR device with a great translation AI, but obviously then a similar tech on my phone would also do the trick.
Virtual desktops that can be resized/placed anywhere. Imagine working at a monitor but that monitor can be anywhere in your frame of view and resized at will.
