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Mixed reality outfit Magic Leap nets $793.5M
- walkingolof 11y agoIs there anything stopping these guys from covering the whole view field ? I've tried a number of VR headsets and they all feel like a stopgap solution, there has to be something better than wearing 2 x 4" screens mounted in a cone on your head....
- bosdev 11y agoThe same thing which is stopping anyone from covering the whole visual field, the need for serious technological innovation. It's possible they've figured that out, but who knows.
- nilkn 11y agoThis is AR, not VR, right? The two are quite different. VR does not aspire to be AR. It seeks to completely replace the world around you, not just add onto it. From what I understand, upcoming VR headsets like the Rift and Vive have pretty solid FOVs, but Microsoft's HoloLens AR headset has a significantly more limited FOV.
- RangerScience 11y agoMicrosoft does. ;) AFAIK that's because they're trying to keep the price-point low, since they're aiming for consumers. Edit: AFAIK, the tech they're using can support a wider FOV, but then the price jumps pretty quickly. I definitely do NOT know for sure, however; that's just what we figured when they were first announcing.
- josephpmay 11y agoMicrosoft could slightly enlarge the Hololens FOV for a significant increase in cost, but it still wouldn't be good. They would have to change the display technology they use to have something immersive.
- seibelj 11y agoHas anyone tried out this technology? What is it like? It's just so hard for me to imagine investing so many billions before any product is released
- moron4hire 11y agoIf they have, they won't be commenting here. MagicLeap locks everyone up with an NDA.
- semerda 11y agoIs this another Theranos? I hope not but all we are hearing are promises, NDAs and big rounds/valuations for a product not yet on the market. One kinda grows suspicious after so many howls.
- robinsloan 11y agoThis is the best narration/description I've seen so far => https://www.technologyreview.com/s/534971/magic-leap/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/534971/magic-leap/
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- AndrewKemendo 11y agoInteresting comment thread from r/oculus about this announcement: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/43tehp/magic_leap_raises_794_million_and_announces_mixed/ https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/43tehp/magic_leap_r...
- untog 11y agoSomeone else in this thread mentioned Theranos and while the two businesses are wildly different, I still think there's something to it: investors can be fooled by flashy presentations. I'm going to continue to be suspicious of Magic Leap until I actually see something that delivers on the promises they are making. Luckily(!) for me, I don't have enough spare money to be an investor in these things anyway...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- rdl 11y agoI hope to be wrong, but secrecy like this usually doesn't bode well. Best case, I'm expecting something like Segway or Apple Watch -- overhyped from secrecy, but legitimate, but not all that amazing. Middle case is something like Theranos; not overt fraud from the beginning, but the result of a lot of pivots and coverup. But most often it is outright bad. Short term practical or tactical secrecy, sure. And in some industries, probably not as bad a signal. But software-heavy hardware ecosystems aren't one of those. Outside of wars, Ultra or Manhattan just aren't that good a way to work. Why cut yourself off from the global community?
- 6stringmerc 11y agoFor a moment, I felt bad about having reservations about the prospects of ML - I've seen some neat public videos and announcements, but they all struck me as similar to a AAA videogame release from years ago, you know, "Not actual game footage" type stuff. Then I come here and see you mention something that popped into my head as a related case - the Segway - and I don't feel like I'm being overly negative. I grew up learning to deal with hype in part thanks to Saturday morning cartoon ads for action figures, so I'm trying to stay on a general "Wait-and-see" positive angle, but as time marches on, it's taxing on the patience.
- defen 11y ago"Interesting" blog post from the founder, too: http://www.magicleap.com/#/blog/atoms-not-included http://www.magicleap.com/#/blog/atoms-not-included
- chaostheory 11y agoSo far we've only seen MS's AR offering via Hololens. Has anyone tried the ex-Valve AR system? I think it's called castAR.
- AndrewKemendo 11y agoCastAR is not AR in the same sense that ML or Hololens are supposed to be for any environment anywhere. Think of it like 3D glasses for specific surfaces.
- RangerScience 11y agoBoth Daqri and ODG have had floor demos. CastAR is pretty neat and damn simple, although you have to prepare the space. If I had to bet on a consumer AR technology, I'd probably bet on CastAR, although I haven't checked up on them in awhile.
- aresant 11y agoIn the founder's own words: http://www.magicleap.com/#/blog/atoms-not-included http://www.magicleap.com/#/blog/atoms-not-included
- melted 11y agoThis truly must be the second coming of Jesus Christ. Billions of dollars in investment and nothing to publicly show for it yet.
- benlower 11y agoTechCrunch had a piece on this today (http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/02/ar-startup-magic-leap-raises-793-5m-series-c-at-4-5b-valuation-led-by-alibaba/#.g65xml:lJY1 http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/02/ar-startup-magic-leap-raise...) I find it interesting that the top image (of the floating robot) has the text saying "no special effects" whereas the gif of the elephant in the hands (been available online for awhile) does not. This tells me that all the videos/gifs we've seen (the elephant, the whale splashing down thru the gym floor) are "aspirational" (AKA "bullshit"). Don't get me wrong, the floating robot is cool but this is doable on HoloLens (yet to ship but coming in Q1). Definitely seems like there's a real risk here of overhyping MagicLeap. EDIT: Fixed the link to TechCrunch...If you saw the other link we're hiring :)
- josh2600 11y agoThe floating robot is not doable on the hololens because metallic effects require black, which is not reproducible on the hololens display... Yes, I have seen the photos of hololens output that show black. I don't believe that's a reproducible effect on their wearable.
- benlower 11y agotrue about black so colors might look different.
- RangerScience 11y agoYou have no idea. You also have to consider the colors of real things behind your fake things.
- randomgyatwork 11y agoMaybe they are building something like those in eye projectors that were featured in a couple of episodes of Black Mirror.
- josephpmay 11y agoTheir form factor is a headset/glasses of some sort
- rasz_pl 11y agoNo, last time they did a real (aka not a fake PR YT clip) demo their form factor was a giant table with a Phoropter like strap on producing low res single color image.
- josephpmay 11y agoI meant as a consumer product, not as a current prototype.
- shady_trails 11y agoI am happy to see they pulled this magnitude of investment. Curious why? There are exactly two possibilities: 1. The product is developed and released in a few years, its amazing, and everyone is happy. 2. It sucks, investors lose their money. #1 is a win for me, #2 is a who cares.
- S4M 11y ago> #2 is a who cares. It's a very shortsighted reasoning. If this turns out to be a completely lost investment, investors will become wary of investing in VR startups, which will have for consequences less R&D jobs in virtual reality (which itself will decrease negotiating leverage of all R&D engineers), and less VR products, sold at a more expensive price. I don't know anybody who works at Magic Leap, but I'd rather prefer they don't waste all that money.
- beisner 11y agoAlthough, if the whole thing ends up being a misguided boondoggle, it means that money wasn't invested in other, potentially viable companies.
- robotresearcher 11y agoWhether it succeeds or fails, you might consider the opportunity cost of that financial investment and hours of work. For example, that's a lot more than the development of the original Macintosh, roughly 0.5% of the Apollo program and roughly 3% of the Manhattan project (both in today's dollars).
- WhatIsDukkha 11y agoI'm still not seeing the usefulness of AR in the near term.(Disclosure: I think VR is here and ready with lots of useful possibilities). I see AR being useful in verticals ie "pipe fitter" or "nurse". As a general tool for everyone what is the problem solved? "It's like an iWatch but in your vision all the time" "you can enhance X with digital information" "you can play games that somehow make sense in your ambient environment?" I have not heard very many use cases that don't just sound like visual clutter for little benefit. Balance that against what is likely to be more then putting on a pair of Raybans ie the battery pack and display bits. What's the not-awkward input method that's even plausible? edit: Gestures have some serious downsides.
- nwatson 11y agoWhat's the first supposed application of any technology? I'm not really in favor of this idea, but here's a shot at what someone will do with AR: "what do people shopping with me and eating the free samples here at Costco look like when they're naked?"
- WhatIsDukkha 11y agoI'll point out that your example requires some pretty significant amounts of image capture, processing and ui that doesn't exist :) Also you'll be really sorry when you look at the wrong person.
- nwatson 11y agoSlap a depth-sensing thing (like Project Tango https://www.google.com/atap/project-tango/ https://www.google.com/atap/project-tango/) onto the AR stuff, you can probably get a Kinect-like algorithm to sense peoples' limbs, bodies, etc., and come up with a hypothetical-location-in-3d-space. Then the hilarity will start with projecting cartoon body overlays. Successive versions of the app will do better recognition and fitting and come up with more realistic images. Eventually you can have AR "beer goggles" or whatever effect you want.
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- liquidise 11y agoThis blows my mind. Not because of the amounts raised without a single released product: investors have shown a propensity to throw spectacular amounts of money at baffling ventures. Instead, my shock is the implied burn rate of these raises. LinkedIn reports Magic Leap is between 201-500 employees. They are no indications of them mass-producing a product. No sales, and their marketing seems to be exclusively articles about the enormity of their rounds. How, then, is a company raising 790M 1.5 years after raising 500M? What possible expenditures, without mass product development, sales and marketing, consumes finances at a rate that warrants these raises? Or, alternatively, maybe the founders and employees simply despise maintaining ownership of their company.
- monk_e_boy 11y agoIt's the total opposite of release early and often.
- rsp1984 11y agoI've asked myself the same thing. I think burn rate alone can't explain it, unless they are paying their employees way, way over market rate. Probably what they are planning to do with the money is a couple of acquisitions. I'd not be surprised.
- jkestner 11y agoLicensed content is really expensive.
- ryanSrich 11y agoAside from the massive research efforts they're undertaking I'm under the impression that they're also manufacturing. I'd guess that comes at a serious cost. I really hope what they have is real, but my mind keeps going back to clinkle. A company that was able to raise a large sum of money with smoke and mirrors. Granted Magic Leap is raising an order of magnitude more than clinkle, but smart people have been fooled before.
- soared 11y agoBuilding your own fab will cost you a lot more than 1.5B!
- ilaksh 11y agoAR plus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_field https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_field
- ogreveins 11y agoIt's going to work but it's not going to work amazingly so, probably just suffering from a low FOV. With that said, there's too much money and too many people being hired for this to fail incredibly hard; it just wouldn't make sense.
- late2part 11y agoI don't think "nets" means what you think it means.
- codeisawesome 11y agoIt's actually ironic, most people seem to think: "getting investment" === "success" Even my JavaScript runtime knows better.
- late2part 11y agoI don't think "nets" means what you think it means.
- tim333 11y agoFor those wondering what the tech does here's their demo video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw0-JRa9n94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw0-JRa9n94 (the demo with the robot and solar system) quite cool but I'm not sure how that converts in to a product people buy
- femto113 11y agoThis can't possibly just be a hardware play. This investment would buy 1.3 million Oculus Rifts at retail price. At component prices and figuring economies of scale lets say it could fund the construction of perhaps 5 million units. Are there really 5 million people waiting to buy an AR device? Google Glass sold perhaps 50,000 units--has the market somehow grown by a factor of 100x in the past couple of years? I just don't see enough people wanting to own this tech. Not now, not even in 10 years. The more likely possibility in my mind is media (this becomes the thing that replaces 3D movies or 3D TV) where they collect a royalty on everyones content, or perhaps theme parks (they are in Florida after all). A Hogwarts where you could actually see the spells you cast, or an Imagineered experience where you could walk through Mary Poppins' animated countryside might be capable of generating enough revenue to justify this.
- NegatioN 11y agoI agree with much of what you're saying. However I'm not sure your comparison with Google Glass is fitting. The market for a functional Google Glass might also have been a lot bigger than 50 000. Not a lot of people outside the tech-environment knew a whole lot about it, and there weren't really an eco-system around it since it was never a consumer-grade product. So I think the market is bigger than previous numbers indicate, however I'm not sure how close to perfection it would need to be to show it's true colors. Hopefully the launch of Oculus and Vive might give us an indicator this year. (As an anecdote,) personally I would want something like this if it actually had enough content to let me reuse the product without indefinitelly replaying tech-demos. :)
- Lapsa 11y agosounds like money laundering
- Lapsa 11y agosounds like money laundering
- koolba 11y agoIs there any more info or examples (demo, video, etc) of Magic Leap available anywhere? Every article has the same "mini elephant in hands" picture. I've never seen anything else.
- TheMagicHorsey 11y agoTo me Magic Leap is an interesting test of the investment people at Google and Ali Baba. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, but if Magic Leap is a spectacular failure, I think it will be a strong signal that Google and Ali Baba's investment groups are similar to the groups at other big tech companies. i.e. full of strong political players without much industry acumen. I'm particularly biased though. I've always been a bit skeptical of the amount of money corporate development people make ... I feel like they don't bring that much value to the table as individuals, even when the corporate development function is essential. When you meet a good engineer, lawyer, or salesperson, you can usually pretty quickly understand what they are bringing to the table. With investment people I feel like they just make decisions, and then they aren't often measured against what the results of those decisions are. The people that should probably actually be corporate development people ... the ones that are unsure of themselves without sufficient data. The ones that listen quietly and form measured opinions. Those awkward types ... the ones with valuable insight ... I never see that type coming to visit our offices as part of the steady stream of investors. All I see are well put-together people, with good personalities, strong handshakes, excellently tailored clothes, good presentation skills ... and a fair understanding of the industry ... plus maybe slightly above average intelligence. They are usually warm and personable though. Its clear they have that skill. I have no idea why the CEOs select these people for the job though. Any one of our engineers if tasked to evaluate companies like ours, would ask better questions, would be more intelligent about figuring out what is our marketing fluff, and what is actually ready to go.