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Magic Leap’s technology may be years away from completion

232 points by evilnig 10y ago

BinaryIdiot 10y ago
Hmm interesting. So the article makes it sound like one of their faked videos was used to bring in software developers but if they come in and it's simply not working anywhere near the level shown, wouldn't that seem suspicious? I don't think this necessarily means the company is a scam or anything like that but it seems a little...suspect at least to me if I was interviewing with them. Curious if the community has an issue with it or not.
- NuclearFishin 10y ago
  I can't help but have similar feelings about this, and I think your question about whether "the community has an issue with it" is especially pertinent. Many journalists and internet pundits suggest that Magic Leap's technology was obviously over-hyped. See for example the title of The Verge's article. Adding further evidence that it was too good to be true, they used faked videos to attract software developers, as you have pointed out. So how is it that Google, Alibaba, and Andreessen Horowitz were convinced to hand over hundreds of millions of dollars each to this company? Was it fraud, over-promising on behalf of Magic Leap's founders, or could these huge VC firms not see what everyone else could see? Is it really that easy to secure a billion dollars in funding? The question as to "what's going on here" relates as much to the startup / VC community as it does to Magic Leap.
- jobigoud 10y ago
  Nah, an engineer working in VR/AR/Computer vision would know the video was not a truthful representation of the actual thing, but more something they were "aiming at", or a presentation of a vision. I don't think it really fooled anyone into working for them. Not so sure about investors.
minimaxir 10y ago
This is essentially a reblog of the (paywalled) The Information article: https://www.theinformation.com/the-reality-behind-magic-leap https://www.theinformation.com/the-reality-behind-magic-leap
- melling 10y ago
  Someone posted a pastebin in this HN submission. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13135371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13135371
- bobbygoodlatte 10y ago
  Yep. The Information did a ton of deep investigative work on this. If you find this article interesting you should consider supporting them by subscribing. Sadly the way journalism works today is one outlet does a ton of time-consuming, expensive digging. Then within minutes of posting, every other outlet copies the story
- voltagex_ 10y ago
  I went to https://membership.theinformation.com/subscribe https://membership.theinformation.com/subscribe because it looks like something I'd pay for. I hate the trend of not putting pricing upfront. I'm just going to assume I can't afford it. Edit: possibly $400USD/year from https://hunterwalk.com/2013/12/17/400-for-the-information-is-about-whats-missing-not-whats-there/ https://hunterwalk.com/2013/12/17/400-for-the-information-is...
  - Aeolun 10y ago
    The pricing is hidden somewhere in their FAQ (https://theinformation.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/218865517-How-much-do-your-subscriptions-cost- https://theinformation.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/2188655...) That said, $40/month is a bit much. I'm paying less for the IDE that I'm using every single day. I doubt I'd be getting the same value out of that website.
    - voltagex_ 10y ago
vorotato 10y ago
Actual title should be "Magic leap lied about a video demonstration of its tech". Or Magic Leap still noticeably inferior to the Microsoft Hololens
evv 10y ago
Not surprising, given that the hype train was billowing at full steam. A friend of a friend interviewed there and eventually walked away saying "Wow. That is a lot of cool-aid" Meanwhile, teams like Oculus are reportedly trying to sidestep AR by investing in "mixed reality", which will bring live camera feeds in to VR, with screens still covering both eyes.
- monk_e_boy 10y ago
  Interesting for sure, but from what I've hear from people using the Rift it's the fixed focus that gives them headaches. I know of a company that make cut scenes for A games, most of their people can't wear the Oculus for more than a few minutes. Big headaches, motion sickness, etc... Before you jump on me, this could be due to the stuff they are trying to show on the Rift -- would content make a difference? Sudden shifts in scene from close to far off?
  - munchbunny 10y ago
    It's a mix of a few things. First there's plain old motion sickness. The first time I flew in Elite Dangerous in VR, I tried swooping into a landing pad slot. It was a maneuver I could do ok autopilot from playing in a flat screen, but when I pitched up hard, my stomach dropped. My body was expecting G's it just wasn't feeling. I had to take the Rift off and take some deep breaths to ward off the nausea. I don't usually get motion sickness. I can read on shaky busses with no problems. Second is simulator sickness, which I think comes from latency and resolution issues? This also hits people differently. I have friends who can only do minutes with the Rift on. I can last as long as my face can take the pressure of the headset, meaning an hour or two at a time. All in all, yeah, some people just won't be able to handle cutrent gen VR for various reasons.
  - pfranz 10y ago
    I do vr projects for work occasionally and previously was in film when they were pushing stereo. Content makes a huge difference. On a flat screen the most dramatic space contrast is left-to-right, in stereo it's near to far. If you're exaggerating something you'd use those. It's way more fatiguing on your eyes to focus near to far, than left to right--it also takes like 10x as long for people to focus and recognize something that changes near-to-far. FPS games are awful for VR when you move around with a joystick. Also, a lot of the "dramatic" things that get used to try and sell games make you dizzy. There's also some acclimation. They say devs are the worst subjects for testing of some vr demo will cause sickness. I also think people underplay the motion sickness film and FPS video games can have on people who are unacclimated (FPS games didn't have big money pushing it in the early 90's and were on tiny, low res screens). I know I've felt motion sickness playing flight simulators and certain FPS games, especially at first. Movies like Blair Witch and Cloverfield were criticised for making people feel sick. To address the focus problem, I've been wondering why there's not much talk about light fields for VR (maybe because of patents?).
russdill 10y ago
(Contains mirror of article in the comments) https://www.reddit.com/r/magicleap/comments/5ha6kr/the_reality_behind_magic_leap_paywalled_article/ https://www.reddit.com/r/magicleap/comments/5ha6kr/the_reali...
melvinmt 10y ago
*than
- OJFord 10y ago
  An improvement, but still not good English.
- boardwaalk 10y ago
  Even then it doesn't sound like natural English. I'm not sure why the original title didn't suffice.
- mikestew 10y ago
  "Magic Leap is Further Behind than Expected" Better is: "Magic Leap is Further Behind than Previously Thought", but I don't know if it will fit.
kevinburke 10y ago
So VR is hard enough - to avoid jitter that makes users feel sick you have to respond to a user's head movement, render a new frame with the new information the user should see, respond to any button presses, then draw the frame, in under 14-20ms. Magic Leap was always a much more difficult problem... they have to respond to a user's head movement, parse the scene the user is looking at (which could be anything), figure out what to draw and where to draw it on the user's environment, then render, all in the same 14-20ms window. Compounding that they have to do it with a much weaker CPU/GPU/battery than Oculus and friends, which use a phone, or are tethered to a PC with a $1,000 GPU. You wear Magic Leap on your head, no cables. On its face I was always sort of surprised to hear about the good demos; it always seemed like such a difficult problem, and I know the VR folks are having a tough enough time with it.
- Retric 10y ago
  You don't need to parse the environment from scratch 60 times every second. As long as you get head tracking right you can just focus on what's moving and assume it will keep moving the same way. Further the demos all seem to be around a fairly static environmenment. Remeber you don't need to render the background so a simplified internal model works fine with AR. If it works near a closeline blowing in the wind that's really hard and impressive.
- ant6n 10y ago
  Isn't the head-tracking separate from the graphics rendering? I mean, you could just render onto an area that's somewhat larger than your fov, and select some area every couple of ms based on the head movement.
  - jobigoud 10y ago
    You want to integrate rendered objects onto the physical world, so you have to know exactly the pose these objects should be rendered at as if seen from your point of view. The objects transforms are piloted by the head tracking. Usually with pose prediction thrown in the mix to squash latency.
- monk_e_boy 10y ago
lowglow 10y ago
There is a ton of AR/VR hype driven by Adobe After Effects and not real product results. Now whenever I see AR/VR tech that follows this pattern, I stop paying attention. It's unfortunate for the entire industry.
Analemma_ 10y ago
Wow. So if Magic Leap is vaporware, does that leave Microsoft as the only ones publicly making progress in AR? Plenty of companies are shipping VR, but AR ends up being the future, HoloLens is building up quite a lead.
- gkoberger 10y ago
  Seems like SnapChat isn't doing too bad. Sure, maybe their tech isn't as advanced... but they've begun solving the equally hard problem of getting it into people's hands naturally and getting them to use it and even pay for it.
  - lazerwalker 10y ago
    Does Snapchat actually have any AR? I wasn't under the impression the goggles actually had any UI, just the "active" LED and camera input.
    - JacobKyle 10y ago
      Their current gen glasses do not do any AR - but they've been acquiring / hiring very aggressively in space for a couple of years now. It's pretty transparent what their long term goal is with their glasses. I think it's actually a really smart approach. MS spent ~2 billion and multiple years of R+D to get the Hololens built. Snapchat's coming at it from another angle, start simple and build up with each successive generation. The fact that they already have people clamoring for something this basic is telling...
- flukus 10y ago
  Hololens has the lead but whoever get's to the consumer market first will still have a huge advantage. The only thing stopping MS from getting to that point is having a consumer friendly price.
  - jerkstate 10y ago
    I'm not sure that there will be a significant first mover advantage here. Everybody thought that the Oculus CV would be the only headset to get because the DK2 was pretty cool, then the Vive was released and people realized how important motion controllers were for immersion, and Oculus got creamed. I think that there will be bits of tech like this for each generation of VR/AR, one small set of features that's obviously better, which will win the generation.
pmoriarty 10y ago
It's interesting just how many Magic Leap stories get posted to HN. In the last month or so I must have seen at least 3 stories about Magic Leap, but no other VR/AR technologies. I don't even remember the last time I saw a story on HN about Oculus, or Vive, or whatever the Sony Playstation VR product is called, nor about the Hololens. But the Magic Leap stories are popping up like mushrooms.
- dang 10y ago
  You'd be fine to post some :) These things often come in clusters, though we usually penalize posts that are from a string of copycat or follow-up posts that don't add new information. I have the impression that this one does, though, albeit cribbed from a better source.
  - pmoriarty 10y ago
    I'm not complaining. I just found it curious.
    - dang 10y ago
      Oh good. I fear my neurons have developed complaint-shaped receptors.
- jobigoud 10y ago
  > or whatever the Sony Playstation VR product is called It is, in fact, called the Playstation VR.
coldcode 10y ago
Further behind than expected. I have always suspected that this is a giant money pit with zero chance of success. Another decade or two and maybe technology will catch up to the desire to understand the world around you in real time, but today it's not possible. It's not magic, it's dreaming.
abraae 10y ago
> “This is a game we’re playing around the office right now,” reads the video’s description — an assertion that could not have been true. If by "game" they meant gaming potential employees and investors, then the assertion may well have been true.
fmihaila 10y ago
I don't like pointing out typos, but this one is in the title and should be fixed: it should be "than".
- tempestn 10y ago
  Or even better, change the title to that of the actual article: "Magic Leap is actually way behind, like we always suspected it was". That doesn't appear too long for a HN title.
  - dang 10y ago
    Not too long, but it's baity, so we need to change it as per the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). We'll see what we can do. Edit: ok, we changed it to language from the first sentence—often a source of lesser baitiness.
- colemickens 10y ago
  It doesn't really sound right still, even after that correction. "Magic Leap is actually way further behind than expected" would be more correct.
jonathankoren 10y ago
The video of the AR game embedded in the article looks very suspicious. It's hard to believe that's a game that actually exists, or at least exists anywhere except that specific room. We've got depth and occlusion of objects when the aliens come out from down the hallway, and the laser guns look like their physical props. I'd like it to be true, but it looks too good to be true.
Animats 10y ago
So what happens to the CEO? Does he get fired? Charged with fraud? Tarred and feathered? Given a pistol with one round and expected to do the honorable thing?
soneca 10y ago
Wow, people are quick to upvote news when it is something that everyone likes do agree. Kind of like facebook. Personally, I found this article with as much little substance as the ones hyping ML. Sites hunting clicks on both sides and we are providing it.
- frozenport 10y ago
  Indeed, but one of the issues is that HN has grown a lot. Five years ago an article with 100 votes was noteworthy, not so much today.
danieltillett 10y ago
The whole thing sounds rather similar to everyone's favourite black turtleneck wearing entrepreneur.
- scott_karana 10y ago
  Sounds like the opposite. All of Apple's most successful products were developed mainly rumour-free (and certainly hype-free) behind closed doors, popping suddenly into the world at WWDC or similar.
  - danieltillett 10y ago
    I wasn't referring to Steve, but the CEO of a far more recent fallen unicorn.
    - scott_karana 10y ago
      Gotcha. Thanks for the correction
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Geekette 10y ago
An archive of the original report cited in this post: http://archive.is/DHVL1 http://archive.is/DHVL1
bane 10y ago
I always find it instructive to read glassdoor reviews about a company I'm interested in. There's obvious astroturfing and upset people, but lots of interesting information also leaks out there. https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Magic-Leap-Reviews-E799754.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Magic-Leap-Reviews-E799754...
guycook 10y ago
> But at least one of these videos — showing an alien invader game that let the wearer of the supposed headset or glasses make use of real-world objects — was created by visual effects studio Weta Workshop. Prior to today, it was believed Weta had simply created the visual assets for the game. However, The Information reveals the entire video was created by the studio. Was this ever really in doubt? You don't have to be a physicist or AR expert to note that throughout the video they occlude bright background colours with dark AR elements - somehow projecting 'black light'. Whilst I wouldn't expect the man on the street to pick this up it would be nice if journalists about to pen a breathless puff piece would at least give the subject matter 30 seconds of consideration.
- jobigoud 10y ago
  Well yes, you do have to have an engineer mindset to pick this type of details.
- bhouston 10y ago
  Here is the video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPMHcanq0xM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPMHcanq0xM It doesn't have any disclaimers that this was faked -- some earlier videos from Magic Leap did have disclaimers. It is obviously too high resolution and pixel perfect to be from a headset display though. So it didn't fool me, but I think the way it is presented could be quite misleading to folks without a 3D background. EDIT: Later when Magic Leap did post videos that didn't use post production to create the effects, they put in a disclaimer that it was real: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw0-JRa9n94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw0-JRa9n94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCVd9ZDPjXU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCVd9ZDPjXU
- obj-g 10y ago
  Yeah, it's funny how they think they got some scoop here. It was obviously a concept video. Totally obvious, and not just from what you mentioned, just the look and feel of the whole thing in general.
hoodoof 10y ago
I don't want my living room as the backdrop for games - it's kind of a mess at the moment. I want to be taken OUT of the real world to a virtual world. Seems a dumb idea to be displaying stuff onto my living room. Outside things, maybe that different - as Pokemon go has proven.
- scott_karana 10y ago
  Has Pokemon Go really? The "AR" is extremely limit and I strongly suspect most players turn it off, other than to get occasional brag/joke photos.
  - OJFord 10y ago
    > [Pokemon Go's] "AR" is extremely limit and I strongly suspect most players turn it off Wandering around the real world with it gamified on your mobile phone is augmented reality. You can turn off the camera, but not AR.
aub3bhat 10y ago
Having used Microsoft HoloLens for more than a month. Microsoft is doing a disservice to a great product by dropping the ball on HoloLens compatible games & software. It has potential to greatly transform gaming. It ought to start dropping the price and releasing more titles.
- partiallypro 10y ago
  I have also used HoloLens, and Microsoft is not targeting gamers right now. They want engineers etc, corporations and universities with deep pockets. IMO the FoV is too narrow for the consumer market/gamers at this time. It is perfect for what they are aiming at right now though.
  - aub3bhat 10y ago
    Microsoft is surely targeting gamers, they showed Robo Raid during the presentation, including even an unreleased version of Minecraft. Robo Raid & Fragments are way more polished and utilize significantly more capabilities of HoloLens compared to any other app.
Jerry2 10y ago
Karl Guttag, one of the MagicLeap critics and analysts has an interesting update on what he thinks ML will actually release [0]. The product they might release is actually different from what all the hype has been about: LCOS Microdisplay, two sequential focus planes, Variable Focus, photonics Chip. [0]: http://www.kguttag.com/2016/12/06/magic-leap-when-reality-hits-the-fan/ http://www.kguttag.com/2016/12/06/magic-leap-when-reality-hi...
hogrammer 10y ago
I don't understand this title.
cromwellian 10y ago
It's not surprising because they are not basing it on any traditional widely manufactured components. It would be as if you promise to ship flat panel displays before LCD production lines have even been created and LCD only existed in the labs. So, either it's a scam, or, they legitimately plan to create a new industry which requires multiple years capital investment to get production off the ground.
- jobigoud 10y ago
  But you could build a $30K prototype and show it to investors, saying that the cost would go down when mass production ramps up.
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    And then not deliver on the pie in the sky promise, or delay long enough that somebody spray solves the issues. Also known as a scam.
    - cromwellian 10y ago
      Well to be fair, it could take 10 years to go from prototype to full scale production. People are too impatient these days.
cromwellian 10y ago
It's not surprising because they are not basing it on any traditional widely manufactured components. It would be as if you promise to ship flat panel displays before LCD production lines have even been created and LCD only existed in the labs. So, either it's a scam, or, they legitimately plan to create a new industry which requires multiple years capital investment to get production off the ground.
vonnik 10y ago
Can we please fix this headline to "further behind than expected"?
KaoruAoiShiho 10y ago
Jeez this sucks. I was always behind Magic Leap with the logic that "big investors like a16z google alibaba wouldn't get suckered" but god, :( this is disappointing.
- gumby 10y ago
  > I was always behind Magic Leap with the logic that "big investors like a16z google alibaba wouldn't get suckered" Here's a few clarifications that might change your thinking about funding announcements. Google Ventures passed on Magic Leap. Google Capital passed on Magic Leap. Sergey was enamored so Google's own balance sheet provided most of the B round. Word is that A16Z put only $3MM in -- basically enough to get some info rights and not piss google off.
  - DonHopkins 10y ago
    Do you know what chemicals fueled this moon shot? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY
    - gumby 10y ago
      Don, you're an expert in that technology!
      - DonHopkins 10y ago
        I don't kn2ow what you're talking about.
        gumby 10y ago
        Well played, sir!
  - argonaut 10y ago
    This is very interesting. Do you have a source on this? I can't find anything online.
WhitneyLand 10y ago
>>The company has raked in $1.4 billion in funding Let that sink in. Is it a record for startup funding with no product or service released? I don't recall how far along Uber was when they passed that mark. And what exit number do they need to be considered a success for the VCs?
- CardenB 10y ago
  They hold the record for largest series C round, if that helps put things into perspective
gumby 10y ago
I thought they had given up a couple of years ago on the gimbal-mounted fiber with the piezo collar. They raised the last round to buy a MEMS fab which I assumed was to do a DLP-like thing down a fibre laminate.
- gumby 10y ago
  And in fact the Guttag piece linked in this comment page also suggests this (says the DLP demo was the most impressive). I doubt they could use actual DLP (because the TI DLP group is a pain to work with) but it would make sense that their MEMS chip would be also a micro mirror array.
  - JeffKang2 10y ago
    From Dalv-hick on reddit (Jack Hayes @Halo_AR_ltd): >I presume they're going for something similar to what I'm building in one of the implementations, using switching polarisation-sensitive lenses in a stack. The other thing they mentioned and which is feasible immediately is using a liquid lens, if the input is small. This would be used for 45 degree combiner but too small for a waveguide exit or for Oculus size lenses. --- >Building a single FSD isn't difficult. Building a single FSD with wide deflection (more pixels) and fast oscillation (more frames and made necessary to counteract the wider deflection) is considerably more difficult. Building an FSD with the previous attributes an removing jitter/ distortion is more difficult. Doing all the previous for an assembled array to line up perfectly is more difficult again. Finally doing an array, particularly a 2D array at scale, and expecting a significant amount of them to actually work is crazy. The FSD improvements FredzL points to are at odds with each other. An FSD array can either use to each unit to create a different focus plane/ view or add extra pixels to the 2D resolution for any one instant of time. One of the University of Washington papers does hint at alternative though. In the paper it shows a fibre array (line) being placed in a thick block for better alignment. This would prevent the fibres being vibrated to create the image. Instead, on a single line, of a different paper they mention trying acousto-optic modulators. Dennis Smalley had a good paper on the subject, in which ultrasonic waves travelling through a class of materials will locally change the refractive index. Light bends by different amounts in different refractive indices, thereby allowing the possibility of image formation. Solid-state scanning arrays or even multiple beams on a MEMS mirror are probably better than FSDs. They might be able to use FSD, I don't think it's a good idea.
temuze 10y ago
Can anyone name a company that raised significant money pre-launch in a party round and that turned out okay? Color, Clinkle, Theranos, Magic Leap... they all have that in common. I'd be interested if there are counter examples.
- new299 10y ago
  What's a significant amount of money? Solexa raised 130MUSD pre-launch: http://41j.com/blog/2016/01/a-solexa-story/ http://41j.com/blog/2016/01/a-solexa-story/ Quite a new life science/biotech companies do.
  - bhouston 10y ago
    I think biomedical companies are very different than technology companies in terms of product launches. So not really comparable.
- pixelcloud 10y ago
  Otto
- MorePowerToYou 10y ago
  Don't forget about uBeam! https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/16/05/14/1548248/former-employee-accuses-wireless-charging-startup-ubeam-of-being-a-sham https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/16/05/14/1548248/former-em...
relfor 10y ago
What is troubling about AR/MR which I feel a lot of people overlook is the limited FOV. From the demo videos shown by Magic Leap (and Hololens) on YouTube it feels as if the entire FOV is available, which is barely the case - the Hololens has an FOV of 120x120 and Magic Leap is said to have a lower angle than that. Verge covered Hololens and they mention [1] the FOV as a limitation. 1: https://youtu.be/4p0BDw4VHNo?t=3m https://youtu.be/4p0BDw4VHNo?t=3m
- jobigoud 10y ago
  120x120°? That would be wider than VR headsets! Unfortunately Hololens FOV is more like 30×20°. Other AR players are mostly in the same ballpark at the moment. The good thing is that this gives very high pixel density. The other thing is that you don't see the edges unless the 3D render is cut off, so it may not feel as tunnelled as in VR.
- frik 10y ago
  Yes, that's the ugly truth. And their PR departments do their best to hide this almost deal-breaking fact. The current experience is underwhelming (limited FOV) in comparision to the faked PR demonstration videos.
cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
> $1.4 billion in funding at a valuation of $4.5 billion Man this number doesn't look good in more than one way. Valuations aside, I'm guessing the cumulative dilution for everyone in the company is super high
Tosh108 10y ago
Interesting to see that everyone here is so eager to assume that the article is right. The article might be right, but it's also just gossip.
- pavlov 10y ago
  The Information is a highly respected source, and the story was written by Reed Albergotti: https://www.theinformation.com/reporters/reed-albergotti https://www.theinformation.com/reporters/reed-albergotti It's investigative journalism, not gossip.
  - obj-g 10y ago
    Maybe, but it's still full of speculation.
    - pavlov 10y ago
      Everything in The Information's article seems sourced to me. Some of the sources are "former employees" or similarly vague, but the reporter had an actual demonstration of Magic Leap's latest and greatest.
joezydeco 10y ago
Abovitz, July 2016: "We have Class 100 cleanrooms running now. We're debugging a high production line this summer. We are in the go mode, soon-ish" http://www.stereoscopynews.com/hotnews/3d-technology/vr-ar/4359-magic-leap-turning-on-production-line http://www.stereoscopynews.com/hotnews/3d-technology/vr-ar/4... http://www.businessinsider.com/magic-leap-production-begins-summer-2016-2016-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/magic-leap-production-begins-...

232 points by evilnig 10y ago

Hmm interesting. So the article makes it sound like one of their faked videos was used to bring in software developers but if they come in and it's simply not working anywhere near the level shown, wouldn't that seem suspicious? I don't think this necessarily means the company is a scam or anything like that but it seems a little...suspect at least to me if I was interviewing with them. Curious if the community has an issue with it or not.

NuclearFishin 10y ago
I can't help but have similar feelings about this, and I think your question about whether "the community has an issue with it" is especially pertinent. Many journalists and internet pundits suggest that Magic Leap's technology was obviously over-hyped. See for example the title of The Verge's article. Adding further evidence that it was too good to be true, they used faked videos to attract software developers, as you have pointed out. So how is it that Google, Alibaba, and Andreessen Horowitz were convinced to hand over hundreds of millions of dollars each to this company? Was it fraud, over-promising on behalf of Magic Leap's founders, or could these huge VC firms not see what everyone else could see? Is it really that easy to secure a billion dollars in funding? The question as to "what's going on here" relates as much to the startup / VC community as it does to Magic Leap.
jobigoud 10y ago
Nah, an engineer working in VR/AR/Computer vision would know the video was not a truthful representation of the actual thing, but more something they were "aiming at", or a presentation of a vision. I don't think it really fooled anyone into working for them. Not so sure about investors.

minimaxir 10y ago

This is essentially a reblog of the (paywalled) The Information article: https://www.theinformation.com/the-reality-behind-magic-leap https://www.theinformation.com/the-reality-behind-magic-leap

melling 10y ago
Someone posted a pastebin in this HN submission. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13135371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13135371
bobbygoodlatte 10y ago
Yep. The Information did a ton of deep investigative work on this. If you find this article interesting you should consider supporting them by subscribing. Sadly the way journalism works today is one outlet does a ton of time-consuming, expensive digging. Then within minutes of posting, every other outlet copies the story
voltagex_ 10y ago
I went to https://membership.theinformation.com/subscribe https://membership.theinformation.com/subscribe because it looks like something I'd pay for. I hate the trend of not putting pricing upfront. I'm just going to assume I can't afford it. Edit: possibly $400USD/year from https://hunterwalk.com/2013/12/17/400-for-the-information-is-about-whats-missing-not-whats-there/ https://hunterwalk.com/2013/12/17/400-for-the-information-is...
- Aeolun 10y ago
  The pricing is hidden somewhere in their FAQ (https://theinformation.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/218865517-How-much-do-your-subscriptions-cost- https://theinformation.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/2188655...) That said, $40/month is a bit much. I'm paying less for the IDE that I'm using every single day. I doubt I'd be getting the same value out of that website.
  - voltagex_ 10y ago

vorotato 10y ago

Actual title should be "Magic leap lied about a video demonstration of its tech". Or Magic Leap still noticeably inferior to the Microsoft Hololens

evv 10y ago

Not surprising, given that the hype train was billowing at full steam. A friend of a friend interviewed there and eventually walked away saying "Wow. That is a lot of cool-aid" Meanwhile, teams like Oculus are reportedly trying to sidestep AR by investing in "mixed reality", which will bring live camera feeds in to VR, with screens still covering both eyes.

monk_e_boy 10y ago
Interesting for sure, but from what I've hear from people using the Rift it's the fixed focus that gives them headaches. I know of a company that make cut scenes for A games, most of their people can't wear the Oculus for more than a few minutes. Big headaches, motion sickness, etc... Before you jump on me, this could be due to the stuff they are trying to show on the Rift -- would content make a difference? Sudden shifts in scene from close to far off?
- munchbunny 10y ago
  It's a mix of a few things. First there's plain old motion sickness. The first time I flew in Elite Dangerous in VR, I tried swooping into a landing pad slot. It was a maneuver I could do ok autopilot from playing in a flat screen, but when I pitched up hard, my stomach dropped. My body was expecting G's it just wasn't feeling. I had to take the Rift off and take some deep breaths to ward off the nausea. I don't usually get motion sickness. I can read on shaky busses with no problems. Second is simulator sickness, which I think comes from latency and resolution issues? This also hits people differently. I have friends who can only do minutes with the Rift on. I can last as long as my face can take the pressure of the headset, meaning an hour or two at a time. All in all, yeah, some people just won't be able to handle cutrent gen VR for various reasons.
- pfranz 10y ago
  I do vr projects for work occasionally and previously was in film when they were pushing stereo. Content makes a huge difference. On a flat screen the most dramatic space contrast is left-to-right, in stereo it's near to far. If you're exaggerating something you'd use those. It's way more fatiguing on your eyes to focus near to far, than left to right--it also takes like 10x as long for people to focus and recognize something that changes near-to-far. FPS games are awful for VR when you move around with a joystick. Also, a lot of the "dramatic" things that get used to try and sell games make you dizzy. There's also some acclimation. They say devs are the worst subjects for testing of some vr demo will cause sickness. I also think people underplay the motion sickness film and FPS video games can have on people who are unacclimated (FPS games didn't have big money pushing it in the early 90's and were on tiny, low res screens). I know I've felt motion sickness playing flight simulators and certain FPS games, especially at first. Movies like Blair Witch and Cloverfield were criticised for making people feel sick. To address the focus problem, I've been wondering why there's not much talk about light fields for VR (maybe because of patents?).

russdill 10y ago

(Contains mirror of article in the comments) https://www.reddit.com/r/magicleap/comments/5ha6kr/the_reality_behind_magic_leap_paywalled_article/ https://www.reddit.com/r/magicleap/comments/5ha6kr/the_reali...

melvinmt 10y ago

*than

OJFord 10y ago
An improvement, but still not good English.
boardwaalk 10y ago
Even then it doesn't sound like natural English. I'm not sure why the original title didn't suffice.
mikestew 10y ago
"Magic Leap is Further Behind than Expected" Better is: "Magic Leap is Further Behind than Previously Thought", but I don't know if it will fit.

kevinburke 10y ago

So VR is hard enough - to avoid jitter that makes users feel sick you have to respond to a user's head movement, render a new frame with the new information the user should see, respond to any button presses, then draw the frame, in under 14-20ms. Magic Leap was always a much more difficult problem... they have to respond to a user's head movement, parse the scene the user is looking at (which could be anything), figure out what to draw and where to draw it on the user's environment, then render, all in the same 14-20ms window. Compounding that they have to do it with a much weaker CPU/GPU/battery than Oculus and friends, which use a phone, or are tethered to a PC with a $1,000 GPU. You wear Magic Leap on your head, no cables. On its face I was always sort of surprised to hear about the good demos; it always seemed like such a difficult problem, and I know the VR folks are having a tough enough time with it.

Retric 10y ago
You don't need to parse the environment from scratch 60 times every second. As long as you get head tracking right you can just focus on what's moving and assume it will keep moving the same way. Further the demos all seem to be around a fairly static environmenment. Remeber you don't need to render the background so a simplified internal model works fine with AR. If it works near a closeline blowing in the wind that's really hard and impressive.
ant6n 10y ago
Isn't the head-tracking separate from the graphics rendering? I mean, you could just render onto an area that's somewhat larger than your fov, and select some area every couple of ms based on the head movement.
- jobigoud 10y ago
  You want to integrate rendered objects onto the physical world, so you have to know exactly the pose these objects should be rendered at as if seen from your point of view. The objects transforms are piloted by the head tracking. Usually with pose prediction thrown in the mix to squash latency.
monk_e_boy 10y ago

lowglow 10y ago

There is a ton of AR/VR hype driven by Adobe After Effects and not real product results. Now whenever I see AR/VR tech that follows this pattern, I stop paying attention. It's unfortunate for the entire industry.

Analemma_ 10y ago

Wow. So if Magic Leap is vaporware, does that leave Microsoft as the only ones publicly making progress in AR? Plenty of companies are shipping VR, but AR ends up being the future, HoloLens is building up quite a lead.

gkoberger 10y ago
Seems like SnapChat isn't doing too bad. Sure, maybe their tech isn't as advanced... but they've begun solving the equally hard problem of getting it into people's hands naturally and getting them to use it and even pay for it.
- lazerwalker 10y ago
  Does Snapchat actually have any AR? I wasn't under the impression the goggles actually had any UI, just the "active" LED and camera input.
  - JacobKyle 10y ago
    Their current gen glasses do not do any AR - but they've been acquiring / hiring very aggressively in space for a couple of years now. It's pretty transparent what their long term goal is with their glasses. I think it's actually a really smart approach. MS spent ~2 billion and multiple years of R+D to get the Hololens built. Snapchat's coming at it from another angle, start simple and build up with each successive generation. The fact that they already have people clamoring for something this basic is telling...
flukus 10y ago
Hololens has the lead but whoever get's to the consumer market first will still have a huge advantage. The only thing stopping MS from getting to that point is having a consumer friendly price.
- jerkstate 10y ago
  I'm not sure that there will be a significant first mover advantage here. Everybody thought that the Oculus CV would be the only headset to get because the DK2 was pretty cool, then the Vive was released and people realized how important motion controllers were for immersion, and Oculus got creamed. I think that there will be bits of tech like this for each generation of VR/AR, one small set of features that's obviously better, which will win the generation.

pmoriarty 10y ago

It's interesting just how many Magic Leap stories get posted to HN. In the last month or so I must have seen at least 3 stories about Magic Leap, but no other VR/AR technologies. I don't even remember the last time I saw a story on HN about Oculus, or Vive, or whatever the Sony Playstation VR product is called, nor about the Hololens. But the Magic Leap stories are popping up like mushrooms.

dang 10y ago
You'd be fine to post some :) These things often come in clusters, though we usually penalize posts that are from a string of copycat or follow-up posts that don't add new information. I have the impression that this one does, though, albeit cribbed from a better source.
- pmoriarty 10y ago
  I'm not complaining. I just found it curious.
  - dang 10y ago
    Oh good. I fear my neurons have developed complaint-shaped receptors.
jobigoud 10y ago
> or whatever the Sony Playstation VR product is called It is, in fact, called the Playstation VR.

coldcode 10y ago

Further behind than expected. I have always suspected that this is a giant money pit with zero chance of success. Another decade or two and maybe technology will catch up to the desire to understand the world around you in real time, but today it's not possible. It's not magic, it's dreaming.

abraae 10y ago

> “This is a game we’re playing around the office right now,” reads the video’s description — an assertion that could not have been true. If by "game" they meant gaming potential employees and investors, then the assertion may well have been true.

fmihaila 10y ago

I don't like pointing out typos, but this one is in the title and should be fixed: it should be "than".

tempestn 10y ago
Or even better, change the title to that of the actual article: "Magic Leap is actually way behind, like we always suspected it was". That doesn't appear too long for a HN title.
- dang 10y ago
  Not too long, but it's baity, so we need to change it as per the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). We'll see what we can do. Edit: ok, we changed it to language from the first sentence—often a source of lesser baitiness.
colemickens 10y ago
It doesn't really sound right still, even after that correction. "Magic Leap is actually way further behind than expected" would be more correct.

jonathankoren 10y ago

The video of the AR game embedded in the article looks very suspicious. It's hard to believe that's a game that actually exists, or at least exists anywhere except that specific room. We've got depth and occlusion of objects when the aliens come out from down the hallway, and the laser guns look like their physical props. I'd like it to be true, but it looks too good to be true.

Animats 10y ago

So what happens to the CEO? Does he get fired? Charged with fraud? Tarred and feathered? Given a pistol with one round and expected to do the honorable thing?

soneca 10y ago

Wow, people are quick to upvote news when it is something that everyone likes do agree. Kind of like facebook. Personally, I found this article with as much little substance as the ones hyping ML. Sites hunting clicks on both sides and we are providing it.

frozenport 10y ago
Indeed, but one of the issues is that HN has grown a lot. Five years ago an article with 100 votes was noteworthy, not so much today.

danieltillett 10y ago

The whole thing sounds rather similar to everyone's favourite black turtleneck wearing entrepreneur.

scott_karana 10y ago
Sounds like the opposite. All of Apple's most successful products were developed mainly rumour-free (and certainly hype-free) behind closed doors, popping suddenly into the world at WWDC or similar.
- danieltillett 10y ago
  I wasn't referring to Steve, but the CEO of a far more recent fallen unicorn.
  - scott_karana 10y ago
    Gotcha. Thanks for the correction

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Geekette 10y ago

An archive of the original report cited in this post: http://archive.is/DHVL1 http://archive.is/DHVL1

bane 10y ago

I always find it instructive to read glassdoor reviews about a company I'm interested in. There's obvious astroturfing and upset people, but lots of interesting information also leaks out there. https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Magic-Leap-Reviews-E799754.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Magic-Leap-Reviews-E799754...

guycook 10y ago

> But at least one of these videos — showing an alien invader game that let the wearer of the supposed headset or glasses make use of real-world objects — was created by visual effects studio Weta Workshop. Prior to today, it was believed Weta had simply created the visual assets for the game. However, The Information reveals the entire video was created by the studio. Was this ever really in doubt? You don't have to be a physicist or AR expert to note that throughout the video they occlude bright background colours with dark AR elements - somehow projecting 'black light'. Whilst I wouldn't expect the man on the street to pick this up it would be nice if journalists about to pen a breathless puff piece would at least give the subject matter 30 seconds of consideration.

jobigoud 10y ago
Well yes, you do have to have an engineer mindset to pick this type of details.
bhouston 10y ago
Here is the video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPMHcanq0xM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPMHcanq0xM It doesn't have any disclaimers that this was faked -- some earlier videos from Magic Leap did have disclaimers. It is obviously too high resolution and pixel perfect to be from a headset display though. So it didn't fool me, but I think the way it is presented could be quite misleading to folks without a 3D background. EDIT: Later when Magic Leap did post videos that didn't use post production to create the effects, they put in a disclaimer that it was real: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw0-JRa9n94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw0-JRa9n94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCVd9ZDPjXU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCVd9ZDPjXU
obj-g 10y ago
Yeah, it's funny how they think they got some scoop here. It was obviously a concept video. Totally obvious, and not just from what you mentioned, just the look and feel of the whole thing in general.

hoodoof 10y ago

I don't want my living room as the backdrop for games - it's kind of a mess at the moment. I want to be taken OUT of the real world to a virtual world. Seems a dumb idea to be displaying stuff onto my living room. Outside things, maybe that different - as Pokemon go has proven.

scott_karana 10y ago
Has Pokemon Go really? The "AR" is extremely limit and I strongly suspect most players turn it off, other than to get occasional brag/joke photos.
- OJFord 10y ago
  > [Pokemon Go's] "AR" is extremely limit and I strongly suspect most players turn it off Wandering around the real world with it gamified on your mobile phone is augmented reality. You can turn off the camera, but not AR.

aub3bhat 10y ago

Having used Microsoft HoloLens for more than a month. Microsoft is doing a disservice to a great product by dropping the ball on HoloLens compatible games & software. It has potential to greatly transform gaming. It ought to start dropping the price and releasing more titles.

partiallypro 10y ago
I have also used HoloLens, and Microsoft is not targeting gamers right now. They want engineers etc, corporations and universities with deep pockets. IMO the FoV is too narrow for the consumer market/gamers at this time. It is perfect for what they are aiming at right now though.
- aub3bhat 10y ago
  Microsoft is surely targeting gamers, they showed Robo Raid during the presentation, including even an unreleased version of Minecraft. Robo Raid & Fragments are way more polished and utilize significantly more capabilities of HoloLens compared to any other app.

Jerry2 10y ago

Karl Guttag, one of the MagicLeap critics and analysts has an interesting update on what he thinks ML will actually release [0]. The product they might release is actually different from what all the hype has been about: LCOS Microdisplay, two sequential focus planes, Variable Focus, photonics Chip. [0]: http://www.kguttag.com/2016/12/06/magic-leap-when-reality-hits-the-fan/ http://www.kguttag.com/2016/12/06/magic-leap-when-reality-hi...

hogrammer 10y ago

I don't understand this title.

cromwellian 10y ago

It's not surprising because they are not basing it on any traditional widely manufactured components. It would be as if you promise to ship flat panel displays before LCD production lines have even been created and LCD only existed in the labs. So, either it's a scam, or, they legitimately plan to create a new industry which requires multiple years capital investment to get production off the ground.

jobigoud 10y ago
But you could build a $30K prototype and show it to investors, saying that the cost would go down when mass production ramps up.
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  And then not deliver on the pie in the sky promise, or delay long enough that somebody spray solves the issues. Also known as a scam.
  - cromwellian 10y ago
    Well to be fair, it could take 10 years to go from prototype to full scale production. People are too impatient these days.

cromwellian 10y ago

vonnik 10y ago

Can we please fix this headline to "further behind than expected"?

KaoruAoiShiho 10y ago

Jeez this sucks. I was always behind Magic Leap with the logic that "big investors like a16z google alibaba wouldn't get suckered" but god, :( this is disappointing.

gumby 10y ago
> I was always behind Magic Leap with the logic that "big investors like a16z google alibaba wouldn't get suckered" Here's a few clarifications that might change your thinking about funding announcements. Google Ventures passed on Magic Leap. Google Capital passed on Magic Leap. Sergey was enamored so Google's own balance sheet provided most of the B round. Word is that A16Z put only $3MM in -- basically enough to get some info rights and not piss google off.
- DonHopkins 10y ago
  Do you know what chemicals fueled this moon shot? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY
  - gumby 10y ago
    Don, you're an expert in that technology!
    - DonHopkins 10y ago
      I don't kn2ow what you're talking about.
      - gumby 10y ago
        Well played, sir!
- argonaut 10y ago
  This is very interesting. Do you have a source on this? I can't find anything online.

WhitneyLand 10y ago

>>The company has raked in $1.4 billion in funding Let that sink in. Is it a record for startup funding with no product or service released? I don't recall how far along Uber was when they passed that mark. And what exit number do they need to be considered a success for the VCs?

CardenB 10y ago
They hold the record for largest series C round, if that helps put things into perspective

gumby 10y ago

I thought they had given up a couple of years ago on the gimbal-mounted fiber with the piezo collar. They raised the last round to buy a MEMS fab which I assumed was to do a DLP-like thing down a fibre laminate.

gumby 10y ago
And in fact the Guttag piece linked in this comment page also suggests this (says the DLP demo was the most impressive). I doubt they could use actual DLP (because the TI DLP group is a pain to work with) but it would make sense that their MEMS chip would be also a micro mirror array.
- JeffKang2 10y ago
  From Dalv-hick on reddit (Jack Hayes @Halo_AR_ltd): >I presume they're going for something similar to what I'm building in one of the implementations, using switching polarisation-sensitive lenses in a stack. The other thing they mentioned and which is feasible immediately is using a liquid lens, if the input is small. This would be used for 45 degree combiner but too small for a waveguide exit or for Oculus size lenses. --- >Building a single FSD isn't difficult. Building a single FSD with wide deflection (more pixels) and fast oscillation (more frames and made necessary to counteract the wider deflection) is considerably more difficult. Building an FSD with the previous attributes an removing jitter/ distortion is more difficult. Doing all the previous for an assembled array to line up perfectly is more difficult again. Finally doing an array, particularly a 2D array at scale, and expecting a significant amount of them to actually work is crazy. The FSD improvements FredzL points to are at odds with each other. An FSD array can either use to each unit to create a different focus plane/ view or add extra pixels to the 2D resolution for any one instant of time. One of the University of Washington papers does hint at alternative though. In the paper it shows a fibre array (line) being placed in a thick block for better alignment. This would prevent the fibres being vibrated to create the image. Instead, on a single line, of a different paper they mention trying acousto-optic modulators. Dennis Smalley had a good paper on the subject, in which ultrasonic waves travelling through a class of materials will locally change the refractive index. Light bends by different amounts in different refractive indices, thereby allowing the possibility of image formation. Solid-state scanning arrays or even multiple beams on a MEMS mirror are probably better than FSDs. They might be able to use FSD, I don't think it's a good idea.

temuze 10y ago

Can anyone name a company that raised significant money pre-launch in a party round and that turned out okay? Color, Clinkle, Theranos, Magic Leap... they all have that in common. I'd be interested if there are counter examples.

new299 10y ago
What's a significant amount of money? Solexa raised 130MUSD pre-launch: http://41j.com/blog/2016/01/a-solexa-story/ http://41j.com/blog/2016/01/a-solexa-story/ Quite a new life science/biotech companies do.
- bhouston 10y ago
  I think biomedical companies are very different than technology companies in terms of product launches. So not really comparable.
pixelcloud 10y ago
Otto
MorePowerToYou 10y ago
Don't forget about uBeam! https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/16/05/14/1548248/former-employee-accuses-wireless-charging-startup-ubeam-of-being-a-sham https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/16/05/14/1548248/former-em...

relfor 10y ago

What is troubling about AR/MR which I feel a lot of people overlook is the limited FOV. From the demo videos shown by Magic Leap (and Hololens) on YouTube it feels as if the entire FOV is available, which is barely the case - the Hololens has an FOV of 120x120 and Magic Leap is said to have a lower angle than that. Verge covered Hololens and they mention [1] the FOV as a limitation. 1: https://youtu.be/4p0BDw4VHNo?t=3m https://youtu.be/4p0BDw4VHNo?t=3m

jobigoud 10y ago
120x120°? That would be wider than VR headsets! Unfortunately Hololens FOV is more like 30×20°. Other AR players are mostly in the same ballpark at the moment. The good thing is that this gives very high pixel density. The other thing is that you don't see the edges unless the 3D render is cut off, so it may not feel as tunnelled as in VR.
frik 10y ago
Yes, that's the ugly truth. And their PR departments do their best to hide this almost deal-breaking fact. The current experience is underwhelming (limited FOV) in comparision to the faked PR demonstration videos.

cocktailpeanuts 10y ago

> $1.4 billion in funding at a valuation of $4.5 billion Man this number doesn't look good in more than one way. Valuations aside, I'm guessing the cumulative dilution for everyone in the company is super high

Tosh108 10y ago

Interesting to see that everyone here is so eager to assume that the article is right. The article might be right, but it's also just gossip.

pavlov 10y ago
The Information is a highly respected source, and the story was written by Reed Albergotti: https://www.theinformation.com/reporters/reed-albergotti https://www.theinformation.com/reporters/reed-albergotti It's investigative journalism, not gossip.
- obj-g 10y ago
  Maybe, but it's still full of speculation.
  - pavlov 10y ago
    Everything in The Information's article seems sourced to me. Some of the sources are "former employees" or similarly vague, but the reporter had an actual demonstration of Magic Leap's latest and greatest.

joezydeco 10y ago

Abovitz, July 2016: "We have Class 100 cleanrooms running now. We're debugging a high production line this summer. We are in the go mode, soon-ish" http://www.stereoscopynews.com/hotnews/3d-technology/vr-ar/4359-magic-leap-turning-on-production-line http://www.stereoscopynews.com/hotnews/3d-technology/vr-ar/4... http://www.businessinsider.com/magic-leap-production-begins-summer-2016-2016-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/magic-leap-production-begins-...