From what I’ve read, especially on Karl Guttag’s blog, Magic Leap is a sort of running joke. They’ve pivoted to make something a bit less useful than Hololens, with a patent history that reads like a fever dream. Bullshitting about the price after so many outright lies abou fiber scanning nonsense seems tame.
the hype was around their fiber scanning display patents, they were showing investors a totally new technology that projects images into your eyeballs. There are numerous articles describing the patented pie-in-the-sky vs the state-of-the-art, just one example here: [0]
> They don’t even have an decent brightness control of the pixels and didn’t even attempt to show color reproduction (requiring extremely precise laser control). Yes the images are old, but there are a series of extremely hard problems outlined above that are likely not solvable which is likely why we have not seen any better pictures of an FSD from ANYONE (ML or others) in the last 7 years.
Magic Leap was unable to improve and miniaturize this technology - its a dead end - so they ended up using the same tech as everyone else
Originally I found the Magic Leap extremely exciting, because
in contrast to phones or tablets, whose touchscreens limit what sort of applications are feasible, AR could allow for arbitrary interfaces.
These interfaces could be present alongside the real world, making them both more convenient and maybe less of an attention-vortex.
This is (among other things) what Magic Leap pitched, and comparing the actual product to their press releases is to note a vast discrepancy.
Still, hope springs eternal, so while I wasn't impressed, I know how hard AR is and I wasn't inclined to judge too harshly-- maybe it will get better as technology improves.
After having read the article, I find myself rooting for them to fail.
This is a company that has taken (and arguably squandered) billions of dollars to release a slightly cheaper HoloLens.
Instead of feeling abashed, they continue blithely on, even having the temerity to invite developers to their platform because the rest of the world (and in particular, other platforms) has so much "baggage" and "negativity".
As the article notes, this is a company that is propped up by oligarchs, settles sex discrimination lawsuits, and is pursuing military contracts with repressive regimes.
Although to be fair, improving soldiers' lethality is the only use case they've articulated that justifies the price.
Now that the missed expectations and general shadiness are starting to catch up with them, they're moving to attract developers.
Somehow, despite all the money, they haven't been able to pay for an idea to justify the hype-- what else could you call it but a con?
Wow, talk about a tech news blind spot: I honestly though Magic Leap wasn't even around anymore. Last news I heard about them was they burned through $billions, their product woefully (almost fraudulently) failed to meet any of the hype they set out, they sold a handful of units, and then the company folded. How on earth are they still in business?
Sorry to say that MAgic Leap’s only relation to light fields is in their marketing and now defunct patents. Their actual product apppears to be a less impressive early Hololens.
Magic Leap's main product might be more than meets the eye. According to Quartz [1], there's probably more far-fetching tech that Magic Leap is working on that involves "deep learning techniques utilizing robotics," and Bradski's and Kaehler's termination forced their hand to divulge even the least bit of information. Maybe "artificial reality" is not a misnomer and the $4.5bn valuation is not just the AR.
This is poor quality. Magic Leap is still unique to Hololens and they have always had a very "long game" in mind. I feel this may be a little on the FUD side of things.
Also, the source of this is Slashdot > IBTimes > The Verge > The Information (which is behind a paywall). So none of us can actually read the source.
All the articles on Magic Leap are short of details. All their YouTube clips have had some questionable element. All we have are breathless investors, a couple of reporters, and the due diligence we assume was behind the $500+ million they received.
Until they show something to the public, I'll give them zero credence of having really advanced the state of the art.
A lot of experienced people in the computer graphics industry doubt Magic Leap and their claims -- myself included.
It is a fact that what ML started out saying they were going to do is not what they are currently doing. And what they are currently doing is incredibly similar now to the Hololens.
> I don't know whether Magic Leap actually will produce anything of merit, but this blog won't help anyone find out.
I'm fairly familiar with the space, and my office picked up a Magic Leap to tinker with it. It feels revolutionary if you haven't tried its predecessors; if you have then it feels like the logical next step. If you've tried the Hololens, it's a nice step up in both the control department (the controller is miles better than the crummy'stare-at-it-and-pinch-fingers' Hololens interaction) and the field-of-view department (It isn't perfect, but its a far step beyond Hololens' "tiny viewport if you look straight ahead". In general it feels more polished, and at a lower price point as well, I can't think of any reason you'd waste your time with Hololens now.
It is, however, over-=hyped. I hear the engineering team at Magic Leap hates the marketing team for hyping it like it's literal magic. The hardware team is supposedly steaming ahead, and compared to the one they are currently working on, the released version is pretty dated, but what are you gonna do when they want to finally release a product after all this hype?
Hololens was always somehow the thing that made me suspicious of Magic Leap. Because Hololens has the smell of "amazing things we can actually do." It is indeed amazing, and at the same time dorky looking and quite imperfect, much like VR is today.
Hololens is where our state of the art is - and I'm quite happy with that, it's imperfect magic! So when someone comes along and essentially says "we're doing all the magical stuff we can do today but somehow removing ALL the really hard limitations, and no we won't tell you how!" it just smells like wish-fulfillment hucksterism. I can just point a finger at Hololens and say "hey, this is what today's reality ACTUALLY looks like."
I'd had such big hopes for magic leap after Google invested in it and was secretly hoping that it would be something as revolutionary as the iPhone was, but now the cats out of the bag. I never understood how they convinced so many investors to put in so much money for something that is a little better than hololens (which too is arguable)
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.
I really haven't paid any attention to Magic Leap for a while. Is anything actually happening other than the "concept" videos and patents they release?
What happened to Magic Leap's advanced photonic lightfield chip? I thought the thing that made Magic Leap special was their light field tech, but this just appears to be stacked wave guides, which other than having 2 focal planes seems to be the same tech as Hololens.
Magic Leap seems to have mastered the idea of "Look investors, this next thing, it'll be the best trust me."
Meanwhile you can buy a Vive today or in a couple weeks a Windows Mixed Reality set (VR might be 'good enough' for most use cases ML would target). On top of the hololens, which is a closer product. Hololens fov leaves a lot to desire, but it actually works and anyone with the cash or willingness to go to the Kennedy Space Center can try it.
Not sure where Magic Leap is going right now, hopefully they'll release a revolutionary product, but the fact they never release a beta or devkit on the chip and projection system they've been talking up for half a decade is very worrisome.
Am I reading the first two paragraphs correctly as the founder was a former magic leap engineer?
Based on what they have said in the article, it sounds a little too good to be true. $1k price tag, lightweight, and good resolution? Maybe someone more familiar with this line of hardware can chime in on plausibility?
I get this feeling that Magic Leap is marginally better than Micrsoft's Hololens. But after seeing the Hololens, they decided that they need more work to beat Microsft. Marginally better isn't going to cut it.
reply