13 ms·

Magic Leap House of Cards – FSD, Waveguides, and Focus Planes

100 points by QAPereo 9y ago

Steeeve 9y ago
I thought Magic Leap had already waived the white flag and decided to become yet another goggle vendor.
- bhouston 9y ago
  They have practically done that, none of their unique technology works, but not everyone is aware that this is what has happened.
ghusbands 9y ago
You're not going to find the technical truth on this blog. Look at the history of posts; the author clearly believes that Magic Leap is fraudulent at its core and wants to prove it. Everything Magic Leap does/says is attacked from that inherently biased position. Any facts or data presented on the blog will be with that goal in mind, and any facts or data that support the opposite will be downplayed or omitted. I don't know whether Magic Leap actually will produce anything of merit, but this blog won't help anyone find out.
- bhouston 9y ago
  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 think the author of this blog post isn't wrong.
  - sbarre 9y ago
    Can someone provide a brief summary of that difference as of today? I thought they were always going to be a Hololens-like AR product?
    - cryptoz 9y ago
      No, they were a product that did not require goggles or glasses or anything. They promised that you could see the effects without any glasses or contacts or anything on your face. Either they engaged in highly illegal false advertising about their current product or their old product was too magic and futuristic so they cancelled it. Not sure which. But they pivoted from a non-goggles technology to a googles-technology somewhere along the road.
      - sbarre 9y ago
        Oh wow, ok yeah.. I don't remember those claims at all, how would that even have been possible? The first time I heard of ML was the Wired piece, and I think that one was already referring to glasses. edit: Like the other comment here says, I just went back and checked a few places (Wikipedia and other articles) and it seems they've always been about glasses..
        QAPereo 9y ago
        Remember this? https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/09/magic_leap_neither_magic_nor_leaping/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/09/magic_leap_neither_... https://www.reddit.com/r/woahdude/comments/3q5bxc/magic_leap_whale_in_the_gym/ https://www.reddit.com/r/woahdude/comments/3q5bxc/magic_leap... https://www.cnet.com/news/magic-leap-shows-demo-video/ https://www.cnet.com/news/magic-leap-shows-demo-video/
        AndrewKemendo 9y ago
        From your links: The hardware is yet to be revealed (but it'll presumably use a headset) they waved away the fact that reducing it down to a wearable pair of glasses and an affordable computer was far from inevitable. The truth is that Magic Leap cannot get its huge prototype working in a much, much smaller version. Nobody who knows anything about AR ever thought it was anything but some form of glasses.
  - zero_intp 9y ago
    The author of the post is trying to prove the negative, that ML can not succeed because GP can not reconcile a successful solution from the the disclosed technologies, or that one does not exist. This may be true, but can not be proven.
    - bhouston 9y ago
      Dealing with ML often feels like dealing with climate change deniers. But ML has pivoted away from nearly all of their major technology advances at this point, so they are much more likely to deliver now what is likely to be an underwhelming product that is little differentiated from Hololens.
- 1_2__4 9y ago
  I would argue that at this point unbridled skepticism is reasonable.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Why not drop the ad hominem and address the numbers presented?
shadowmint 9y ago
> But everything I can see as an engineer says that Magic Leap’s display hardware is not going to have very good image quality and it is going to be expensive to make. So what? What are we supposed to take away from this? Even if true, its clearly not stopping them, and its not clear if that will or will not make a successful consumer device. If its rubbish, a few of people will lose a lot of money and we’ll all move on with our lives a bit disappointed, but otherwise not really caring. The sooner they ship whatever it actually is, the better. This kind of idle speculation is just gossip.
QAPereo 9y ago
Another post from today, really laying out the math behind hi-res FSD being a bad joke. http://www.kguttag.com/2018/01/06/magic-leap-fiber-scanning-display-fsd-the-big-con-at-the-core/ http://www.kguttag.com/2018/01/06/magic-leap-fiber-scanning-... Key point... Thus the fiber needs go 10.17 meters X 240/sec = 2,400 meters/sec. For reference, the speed of sound is a mere ~343 meters per second (varies with temp and air density) so the fiber has to average about 7 times the speed of sound and because it is accelerating and decelerating back to zero at each end, it has to have a peak velocity of greater than 14 times the speed of sound!!!!!
- drcode 9y ago
  I'm definitely a Magic Leap skeptic, but these Karl Guttag posts do not read like posts from someone who is trying to do an objective analysis of the tech, they read like posts from someone who has an axe to grind. Often, when I see posts from very smart and technically savvy people that call things "cons" or "scams" it's because they have very high personal standards of technology and are disappointed that others do not share their views. Frequently in these situations, it turns out that the mass consumer market is still satisfied with the product, since their expectations of the technology are more modest than those of a tech expert. I guess only time will tell whether Magic Leap will end up being a "con" or, instead, whether they are able to put in place some crude mitigations for these technical challenges that allows them to still release interesting and usable technology. In the latter case, the technology would likely still have flaws that Karl would find wholly unbearable, but may nevertheless allow for compelling products for ordinary consumers.
  - kguttag 9y ago
    Objective is often in the eye of the beholder. I do express opinion, but I try to back them up with evidence. The Fiber Scanning Display is in a whole different category. This looks like pure lying on Magic Leap's part. In this particular case I have tried to lay out the math that proves that Fiber Scanning Displays are never going to support high resolution. No amount of money or time is going to make Fiber Scanning Displays work. I picked this case because the math was simple to follow and easy to prove that it was not possible. Yet it has been a key point in Magic Leaps Presentations and patent applications through to the latest ones printed. I think it is a very valid point to asked how a company could have been presenting something that was not possible, why people invested in a company saying things that were not possible, and why Magic Leap is holding to the fiction that it might be possible. It seems to me to be a pretty simple question. Were they lying or did they not know what they are doing? There are other areas of optics and image quality where you can argue about whether the image quality will be "good enough" but Fiber Scanning Displays is a black and white issue.
deepnotderp 9y ago
Also Moore's Law in this context doesn't even seem to make sense, the "Law" deals in transistors, not optical technologies.
- kguttag 9y ago
  Sorry if that was not clear, but what you said was the point I was trying to make. People today are all the time waving their hands and invoking "Moore's Law" and saying "Steve Job did this" and applying it to everything (I see it all the time in AR and Optics) and therefore anything is possible.
  - throwawaybbqed 9y ago
    You mentioned CES prep .. are you presenting or at a booth? Or just packing? :) I went for the first time last year and didn't get to see to much stuff in optics (the big wow for me was seeing Kopin modules). Would love to get your thoughts on what is worth checking out at the show this year.
    - kguttag 9y ago
      I'm there as "press" and a consultant. I have been juggling my calendar (I'm almost fully booked from before 9AM past 6PM the first 3 days) and getting back to people I am meeting with. In-between I am studying up (prepping) on the companies I am going to be meeting with. I can't say who I am going to see as a lot of it is private. I will be spending a LOT of time in the Main Convention center South Hall with the AR and VR companies. The special section for AR and VR has moved from the back of South Hall to near the front this year. Then you have to look for the more established companies that booths elsewhere. The CES tools for finding booths and vendors have improved dramatically form where they were a few years back. You can search based on what you are trying to find. They also have a smartphone ap that comes in handy at the show.
      - throwawaybbqed 9y ago
        Thank you for the info. I noticed that AR/VR seem to have a bigger presence this year .. very excited for that! I'm an early-career professional scientist (on the SW side) .. I must say, I learned a lot about the capabilities of current hardware by talking to engineers at CES. I'm reading up on LCOS, waveguides, combiners, etc. so I can have meaningful conversations! I am a big believer in wearables (still have my Google Glasses!) ... it would be a dream if we had high quality wearable AR in the market. The main barrier to experimentation is that it is pretty hard to source and integrate the necessary optical systems. I read your older articles on LCOS with combiners. Are there specific modules you'd suggest a "hacker" to try out? (i.e. hobby-level resources as opposed to corporate-level).

100 points by QAPereo 9y ago

Steeeve 9y ago

I thought Magic Leap had already waived the white flag and decided to become yet another goggle vendor.

bhouston 9y ago
They have practically done that, none of their unique technology works, but not everyone is aware that this is what has happened.

ghusbands 9y ago

You're not going to find the technical truth on this blog. Look at the history of posts; the author clearly believes that Magic Leap is fraudulent at its core and wants to prove it. Everything Magic Leap does/says is attacked from that inherently biased position. Any facts or data presented on the blog will be with that goal in mind, and any facts or data that support the opposite will be downplayed or omitted. I don't know whether Magic Leap actually will produce anything of merit, but this blog won't help anyone find out.

bhouston 9y ago
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 think the author of this blog post isn't wrong.
- sbarre 9y ago
  Can someone provide a brief summary of that difference as of today? I thought they were always going to be a Hololens-like AR product?
  - cryptoz 9y ago
    No, they were a product that did not require goggles or glasses or anything. They promised that you could see the effects without any glasses or contacts or anything on your face. Either they engaged in highly illegal false advertising about their current product or their old product was too magic and futuristic so they cancelled it. Not sure which. But they pivoted from a non-goggles technology to a googles-technology somewhere along the road.
    - sbarre 9y ago
      Oh wow, ok yeah.. I don't remember those claims at all, how would that even have been possible? The first time I heard of ML was the Wired piece, and I think that one was already referring to glasses. edit: Like the other comment here says, I just went back and checked a few places (Wikipedia and other articles) and it seems they've always been about glasses..
      - QAPereo 9y ago
        Remember this? https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/09/magic_leap_neither_magic_nor_leaping/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/09/magic_leap_neither_... https://www.reddit.com/r/woahdude/comments/3q5bxc/magic_leap_whale_in_the_gym/ https://www.reddit.com/r/woahdude/comments/3q5bxc/magic_leap... https://www.cnet.com/news/magic-leap-shows-demo-video/ https://www.cnet.com/news/magic-leap-shows-demo-video/
        AndrewKemendo 9y ago
        From your links: The hardware is yet to be revealed (but it'll presumably use a headset) they waved away the fact that reducing it down to a wearable pair of glasses and an affordable computer was far from inevitable. The truth is that Magic Leap cannot get its huge prototype working in a much, much smaller version. Nobody who knows anything about AR ever thought it was anything but some form of glasses.
- zero_intp 9y ago
  The author of the post is trying to prove the negative, that ML can not succeed because GP can not reconcile a successful solution from the the disclosed technologies, or that one does not exist. This may be true, but can not be proven.
  - bhouston 9y ago
    Dealing with ML often feels like dealing with climate change deniers. But ML has pivoted away from nearly all of their major technology advances at this point, so they are much more likely to deliver now what is likely to be an underwhelming product that is little differentiated from Hololens.
1_2__4 9y ago
I would argue that at this point unbridled skepticism is reasonable.
QAPereo 9y ago
Why not drop the ad hominem and address the numbers presented?

shadowmint 9y ago

> But everything I can see as an engineer says that Magic Leap’s display hardware is not going to have very good image quality and it is going to be expensive to make. So what? What are we supposed to take away from this? Even if true, its clearly not stopping them, and its not clear if that will or will not make a successful consumer device. If its rubbish, a few of people will lose a lot of money and we’ll all move on with our lives a bit disappointed, but otherwise not really caring. The sooner they ship whatever it actually is, the better. This kind of idle speculation is just gossip.

QAPereo 9y ago

Another post from today, really laying out the math behind hi-res FSD being a bad joke. http://www.kguttag.com/2018/01/06/magic-leap-fiber-scanning-display-fsd-the-big-con-at-the-core/ http://www.kguttag.com/2018/01/06/magic-leap-fiber-scanning-... Key point... Thus the fiber needs go 10.17 meters X 240/sec = 2,400 meters/sec. For reference, the speed of sound is a mere ~343 meters per second (varies with temp and air density) so the fiber has to average about 7 times the speed of sound and because it is accelerating and decelerating back to zero at each end, it has to have a peak velocity of greater than 14 times the speed of sound!!!!!

drcode 9y ago
I'm definitely a Magic Leap skeptic, but these Karl Guttag posts do not read like posts from someone who is trying to do an objective analysis of the tech, they read like posts from someone who has an axe to grind. Often, when I see posts from very smart and technically savvy people that call things "cons" or "scams" it's because they have very high personal standards of technology and are disappointed that others do not share their views. Frequently in these situations, it turns out that the mass consumer market is still satisfied with the product, since their expectations of the technology are more modest than those of a tech expert. I guess only time will tell whether Magic Leap will end up being a "con" or, instead, whether they are able to put in place some crude mitigations for these technical challenges that allows them to still release interesting and usable technology. In the latter case, the technology would likely still have flaws that Karl would find wholly unbearable, but may nevertheless allow for compelling products for ordinary consumers.
- kguttag 9y ago
  Objective is often in the eye of the beholder. I do express opinion, but I try to back them up with evidence. The Fiber Scanning Display is in a whole different category. This looks like pure lying on Magic Leap's part. In this particular case I have tried to lay out the math that proves that Fiber Scanning Displays are never going to support high resolution. No amount of money or time is going to make Fiber Scanning Displays work. I picked this case because the math was simple to follow and easy to prove that it was not possible. Yet it has been a key point in Magic Leaps Presentations and patent applications through to the latest ones printed. I think it is a very valid point to asked how a company could have been presenting something that was not possible, why people invested in a company saying things that were not possible, and why Magic Leap is holding to the fiction that it might be possible. It seems to me to be a pretty simple question. Were they lying or did they not know what they are doing? There are other areas of optics and image quality where you can argue about whether the image quality will be "good enough" but Fiber Scanning Displays is a black and white issue.

deepnotderp 9y ago

Also Moore's Law in this context doesn't even seem to make sense, the "Law" deals in transistors, not optical technologies.

kguttag 9y ago
Sorry if that was not clear, but what you said was the point I was trying to make. People today are all the time waving their hands and invoking "Moore's Law" and saying "Steve Job did this" and applying it to everything (I see it all the time in AR and Optics) and therefore anything is possible.
- throwawaybbqed 9y ago
  You mentioned CES prep .. are you presenting or at a booth? Or just packing? :) I went for the first time last year and didn't get to see to much stuff in optics (the big wow for me was seeing Kopin modules). Would love to get your thoughts on what is worth checking out at the show this year.
  - kguttag 9y ago
    I'm there as "press" and a consultant. I have been juggling my calendar (I'm almost fully booked from before 9AM past 6PM the first 3 days) and getting back to people I am meeting with. In-between I am studying up (prepping) on the companies I am going to be meeting with. I can't say who I am going to see as a lot of it is private. I will be spending a LOT of time in the Main Convention center South Hall with the AR and VR companies. The special section for AR and VR has moved from the back of South Hall to near the front this year. Then you have to look for the more established companies that booths elsewhere. The CES tools for finding booths and vendors have improved dramatically form where they were a few years back. You can search based on what you are trying to find. They also have a smartphone ap that comes in handy at the show.
    - throwawaybbqed 9y ago
      Thank you for the info. I noticed that AR/VR seem to have a bigger presence this year .. very excited for that! I'm an early-career professional scientist (on the SW side) .. I must say, I learned a lot about the capabilities of current hardware by talking to engineers at CES. I'm reading up on LCOS, waveguides, combiners, etc. so I can have meaningful conversations! I am a big believer in wearables (still have my Google Glasses!) ... it would be a dream if we had high quality wearable AR in the market. The main barrier to experimentation is that it is pretty hard to source and integrate the necessary optical systems. I read your older articles on LCOS with combiners. Are there specific modules you'd suggest a "hacker" to try out? (i.e. hobby-level resources as opposed to corporate-level).