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Magic Leap One Creator's Edition First Look

175 points by AndrewDucker 8y ago

kapauldo 8y ago
Amazing technical achievement with small business opportunity. I just don't see this happening until its $50 and invisible to other people.
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throwaway13337 8y ago
This thing looks ridiculous. AR glasses won't be a thing until they stop trying to put a tiny TV screen in front of your face. It needs to fill your visual field. They also won't be a mass adopted thing until they don't make you look like an 80s cartoon character. The question remains whether VR will still have it's time before AR becomes reasonable. Until that is answered, VC money will continue to be sacrificed in a giant fire on the alter of getting there first.
- XorNot 8y ago
  The "look" of anything really doesn't matter provided it's comfortable and useful. The problem at the moment is we are technologically well behind where we need to be to make practical AR in terms of screen resolutions.
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    I disagree. I think the screen resolution isn't that big of a deal for many applications (mostly games and stuff like it), and it's not like it's impossible right now, just expensive. The bigger hurdle from where I'm sitting is getting framerates and latency in a good position. Everyone I've seen use a current gen VR headset gets horribly motion sick in a lot of cases. That NEEDS to be fixed, and I think that comes down to crazy high refresh rates, and super low latency, both of which really crank up the processing power needed.
    - jobigoud 8y ago
      People don't get motion sick from the fps, latency and fov of current gen (PC) VR (90 fps, ~0ms, ~100°). They get motion sick from vection and maybe from vergence accomodation conflict.
      - Klathmon 8y ago
        Interesting! I've got some reading to do! But regardless, I don't think resolution is going to be what makes or breaks VR/AR. We worked with computers just fine when they were ~500 "pixels" tall, and it's not like screen resolution technology has hit a wall that it can't get past yet, things are still improving.
      - Impossible 8y ago
        People do get motion sick from FPS because a lot of popular games and applications are not optimized, or have degenerate cases that cause hitches. ASW\ATW help with this (run at half fps and interpolate basically), but don't fix really bad fps or hitches. It doesn't help that often people are running PC VR with under powered (minspec or lower) or "misconfigured" (bad drivers, software, etc.) setups.
  - swalsh 8y ago
    Fashion is a 2.4 TRILLION dollar industry (according to mckinsey) people very much care about the way things they wear look.
- intruder 8y ago
  You could say the same thing about any early tech.
Klathmon 8y ago
This was actually a pretty well grounded article compared to what I was expecting. I'm with the author, I absolutely think this kind of thing will be the next step in computing. It just seems so obvious. Get rid of screeens and wear a headset that lets you put application windows anywhere in your view. I'm glad they questioned a lot of Magic Leap's claims and didn't just parrot back the taglines and act like it's magic. That being said, I don't think Magic Leap is going to be the product that "wins". It seems from this article that it's going to run its own "OS", with it's own special apps, and most likely limited integration with other stuff. I don't want a new "device", a new os, a new "platform", I want a screen that I strap to my face. One that I can eventually connect to my Linux machine, or my windows desktop, or my MacBook. Maybe in wrong, but I feel like Magic Leap is going to die if it demands that kind of integration, regardless of how technically impressive it is. Hololens on the other hand is something I'm giving a good amount of consideration to, because they seem to be focusing on "a screen you strap to your face".
- XorNot 8y ago
  No mention of resolution (what I keyword search in every article about the Magic Leap). Anyone who's tried VR knows what that means - 1920x1080 is not enough useful lines for serious work with text, it's just barely enough for gaming.
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    Well it seems they aren't pushing toward "serious work with text" based on this article. They are looking for devs to make apps, this means stuff like the NBA app, or games and stuff. I think you are right about higher resolution being needed for real "work", but since this doesn't run a "real" OS either, i'm not sure how much work you could get done on it anyway.
  - bpicolo 8y ago
    Might not be mentioned because there's no actual pixel display?
    - 8y ago
freeone3000 8y ago
Augmented reality standalone computers are cool, but these guys are at the same price point as the Hololens, and have three components instead of one, with less battery and a narrower field of view. Maybe they can differentiate themselves on a better development environment?
- tigershark 8y ago
  It's exactly the opposite. Hololens is 3000$, it's heavier on your head because it has only one piece, the battery life is shorter and the field of view is much smaller (30x17.5 for hololens vs 40X30 for magic leap).
  - yborg 8y ago
    50° FOV. It's still like looking at the world through a shoebox strapped to your face.
    - freeone3000 8y ago
      Note that both technologies are "augmented reality" - as in, the field of view listed is for the holographic augmentation, not the entire visible world, whose field of view is unchanged (but darker).
      - shiftpgdn 8y ago
        Have you used a hololens? The small FOV is very jarring.
        tigershark 8y ago
        The strange thing is that most of the people that are attacking so harshly magic leap in this thread have business link with hololens that has really an abysmal FOV. Disclosure: I’m not buying a magic leap, I have no financial interest on it, I just want some working environment that I would really really enjoy.
  - 8y ago
uptown 8y ago
"Magic Leap One starting at $2,295. Magic Leap One is available to creators in cities across the contiguous US. And the list is growing daily. To help you take your first step into spatial computing, we’re going to hand deliver the device to your doorstep and personally get you set up." Interesting deployment strategy.
- swalsh 8y ago
  In the wired article, it mentions that the device is closely related to your physiology, so setup can be difficult. Adding a person to help you get set up can probably make the experience a bit less frustrating.
aerophilic 8y ago
So far, one of the more informative, balanced articles I have seen on Magic Leap. I still remain curious what do they really mean by the lightfield. Does anyone have more information here? The best I can infer is they don’t actually have a “screen” with pixels per say, but they somehow attenuate the light as it goes through the “rectangle”. Why I say this is different than pixels is that it almost seems like they are doing something more “analog”. By attenuating the light as it comes in, rather than adding its own light, I see how that you could get a different “type” of light that may be better from a human processing perspective. The “screen” would effectively consist of a high resolution array of “windows” that selectively attenuate the light going through them. It would also explain why they can’t take “video” of the experience. Do others agree with my shot in the dark? Or is there some other way they could be realizing this technology?
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aj7 8y ago
Soon: The Magic Leap and Theranos auctions.
Ajedi32 8y ago
I still don't quite get how Magic Leap's "Lightfield" display is different from that of other augmented reality devices. The article has a few things to say about this, but I still don't really understand: > A Dynamic Digital Lightfield is a binocular display that can project digital objects into the world such that light enters the eye as if it were reflected from a real object. Our lightfield is biomimetic (mimics our biology/physiology). Magic Leap One creates a seamless experience where digital and analog lightfields combine into a single scene. For example, with Magic Leap One, you can render digital flowers in a physical vase so they can appear fresh every day. Like that. How is that different from what Hololens does? > Abovitz told me that the light can only be interpreted by a human — not a camera — so part of his problem in launching his product is that he can't film the experience. How is a camera sufficiently different from the human eye that you physically can't film an image through the headset? Or is this just saying you can't film it in the sense that a flat image on a monitor can't really convey the experience of trying the headset on for yourself? (The latter is a well known problem with VR.) If the latter, again, how is that different from Hololens? All-in-all the product does look promising; it appears to be less bulky than competing headsets and the devkit is less expensive too. I'm just not sure whether the display technology is a competitive advantage or not.
- danielvf 8y ago
  The Magic Leap doesn't just dangle one image in front of your eyes, like Microsoft's Hololens. Rather, the Magic Leap projects physically projects several visual layers at different focus distances. If you are looking at something near in the real world, your eye will change focus to look at it, and the "near" projection in the Magic Leap will be in focus, while the "far" projection will go blurry, right along with the "far" in the real world. However, I think Magic Leap has reduced the number of layers down to something like three [edit: two], from the many more layers they were showing before.
  - tigershark 8y ago
    in this model there are only two focal planes as far as I know.
  - 8y ago
michaelbuckbee 8y ago
MagicLeap definitely has been overhyped, but for HN readers, there are still reasons to be cautiously optimistic that this is real progress. 1. There's a neat hardware size progression for ML that was posted on Twitter: MagicLeap's gone from a device like you stare through at the optometrists office down to something comparable to a scuba mask. https://twitter.com/karanganesan/status/1024970520205307904?s=19 https://twitter.com/karanganesan/status/1024970520205307904?... 2. There are a few different ways to achieve AR style displays and what Magic Leap has chosen is the hard way -> lightfields and eye tracking (two technologies that haven't really been attempted to ship at scale). 3. This is still a developers' release - and not truly a "paradigm shift" or whatever overhyped term you want to use. Separate from all that, I still think the end game of AR (in the next 10ish years) is to be the thing that comes "next" after smartphones. The proper way to view this ML Dev kit is that it's the equivalent to a PalmPilot or other barely functional PDA that had some good ideas, but didn't quite hit the right inflection point of portability, screen, battery life, form factor, etc. but that paves the way to get there.
- jamesrcole 8y ago
  > MagicLeap definitely has been overhyped In HN discussions of it, it's been "over-dismissed". In my recollection, the majority of the comments viewed it as smoke and mirrors. Many were basically or even outright saying it was fraudulent. See for yourself: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=magic%20leap&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=magic%20leap&sort=byPopularity...
  - mrguyorama 8y ago
    Their initial press was undoubtedly fraudulent
    - jamesrcole 8y ago
      I'm referring to things like people claiming it was like Theranos where there was no real technology at all.
tomp 8y ago
Wow, this actually sounds amazing. Not magical in any way, nor a real leap, but still... It's like looking at the first iPod. Looking back, it looks awfully retarded, but back then, it was the first primitive iteration of a paradigm-changing technology. Personally, the only "convincing" I need is price, weight/convenience, and software. All will come in time, I'm certain. Eventually, these have a real chance of being way better than phones/laptops, e.g. they'll likely use much less battery (as the "screen" is smaller).
- ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
  I understand your aversion to political correctness, but your use of the word "retarded" is very distracting from the solid point you are trying to make.
- gremlinsinc 8y ago
  I'd say it's more like a palm-pilot vs a modern iphone or samsung galaxy... we still have a long ways to go. It's exciting sure, it'll change everything but..we have to wait for it to get to modern smartphone levels of coolness..
atonalfreerider 8y ago
>"When you have a human working with AI, they always beat the AI. That's super powerful." This isn't always the case. The best Centaur Chess players (Human + AI) still lose to the best AI: https://www.chess.com/news/view/stockfish-outlasts-nakamura-3634 https://www.chess.com/news/view/stockfish-outlasts-nakamura-...
- munin 8y ago
  I wish more people knew this! There's a very middle-brow response to "well we've got system A, and system B, so obviously the combination will be better than A or B alone!" but this doesn't need to be the case. People think it's this way because of chess but that was apparently an anomaly.
- drivers99 8y ago
  It compared "the latest development build [of top chess engine Stocktish] compiled for OS X and running on a 3ghz 8-core Mac Pro." vs a highly ranked player and "the assistance of an older version of Rybka (about 200 points less than Stockfish's 3200+ rating), and it ran on a 2008 MacBook." I think the question is how does a top AI compare to the same top AI + (skilled?) human.
ArtWomb 8y ago
Congrats to ML on shipping! Achieving the technical challenge of seamless natural and artificial photon sources will pay dividends for many decades to come. But in the immediate term, market fit is going to be the next enormous challenge here. Their paradigm is dubbed "spatial computing". It is in a sense, "high-fidelity" augmented reality. Close range precision tolerances for delicate design work is probably the most demonstrable application. Although it has yet to be integrated into existing pipelines for microscopy, etc. However, CEO Rony Abovitz seems to be positioning the ML One Creator Edition as a consumer electronics device for casual gaming enthusiasts? I am just unsure which demographic they are targeting with a $2500+ headset. The tagline: free your mind. With a poster that even includes a reference to a VW microbus. Obvious roots in psychedelic culture. For which, undoubtedly, the experience would be immensely hedonic and synesthetic. How large is this audience of virtual shamans?
- VectorLock 8y ago
  ITs hedonic killer app will be something other than shamans.
- neiled 8y ago
  Seems to me it is initially a 'developer release' for people to start working out what they want to do with it. That being said it sounds like it might be quite a challenge to get the price point down to something even a VR enthusiast might be interested in purchasing.
  - veli_joza 8y ago
    If there was a good AR app for managing medium businesses, this product could catch on quickly. The businesses could increase efficiency of their workers at very reasonable price. I can think of good applications for this technology for example in shipyard inspection, factory management, city utilities workers, police, even farming operations.
- veli_joza 8y ago
  The audience is mentioned in article - it's dev kit for content creators. It's too bulky for general consumer market and there is not enough content yet. I suspect the current processing power will also be upgraded in final product for higher fidelity of 3D graphics. So far the gaming industry was driver behind tech, but with augmented reality being so useful for industry (navigating warehouses, for example), this might change. The prices will drop, but I don't expect ML will be priced at <$1000 anytime soon. Psychedelic application would be very interesting. Imagine experiencing something like Waking Life or Scanner Darkly wherever you look. A gimmick, but good demonstration of tech.
gadders 8y ago
This is a review of the June LiveStream [1] from Karl Guttag that did a detailed analysis of the hardware. [1] https://www.kguttag.com/2018/06/10/magic-leap-livestream-02-gives-up-some-clues/ https://www.kguttag.com/2018/06/10/magic-leap-livestream-02-...
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partiallypro 8y ago
What is the FoV compared to the HoloLens? The article reads like it has the same FoV issue but didn't go over specifics. Though we have to keep in mind that HoloLens is now an older device and a new version is coming out soon. So then the question becomes, did they ship this 2 years too late, or does it even matter? I also find it interesting that instead of making it stand alone, they require a belt/pocket clip computer unlike Hololens. The headset seems much more compact, makes me wonder what Microsoft will be able to squeeze out in v2 of Hololens. Either way, competition is good.
- ByronFortescue 8y ago
  The Verge said in their video: FOV of 50, so very small, where an oculus has 80 and HTC Vive (I believe) has 100 FOV.
bryanlarsen 8y ago
The verge's first look was less positive: https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/8/17662040/magic-leap-one-creator-edition-preview-mixed-reality-glasses-launch https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/8/17662040/magic-leap-one-cr...
- Analemma_ 8y ago
  This seemed especially worrying: > Tracking was generally good, but objects occasionally shifted or jittered. A few times, animated objects seized up altogether, which might have been an issue with tracking, Lightpack performance, or something else. I tried a HoloLens last year[0] and, whatever its other fauls, the tracking was perfect and objects moved smoothly like they were actually real. If Magic Leap is behind Microsoft's two-year-old tech, that's a bad sign, especially when they've pitched themselves as being categorically better than all other AR. [0] My thoughts here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14106028#14107939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14106028#14107939
  - dingo_bat 8y ago
    Microsoft's software prowess may well turn out to be the deciding factor if it ever comes to a showdown between hololens and magicleap. I don't see a great big difference in hardware quality or tech. Software's going to be the differentiator, just like in the smartphone wars where iphone won everything in spite of the early hardware being lacklustre compared to competitors.
Guest9812398 8y ago
As always with Magic Leap, I'm still not seeing a single compelling use case. Sea turtles swimming around the air, or a T-rex on the desk is fun for a few minutes, but it's not worth the price of entry. At this point, I've lost all faith in their vision. After years of following their posts, they haven't demonstrated a single thing of value. What are they expecting now? They honestly think developers are going to flock to this device with no audience for $2,250 and produce groundbreaking applications and games that will sell millions of Magic Leaps to consumers to recover their investment? Why don't they take that 2.5 billion dollars, and prove a single application or game can be developed for this product that people will line up to buy? If they can't do it with unlimited money, almost a decade of time, and the future of their business depending on it, then why do they expect some random developers are going to pay money to do it for them? I know this post sounds negative, but I'm 100% convinced this product will be dead on arrival and nothing more than a 2.5 billion dollar mistake to show a few hundred people floating jellyfish in their living room.
- fsloth 8y ago
  AR applications already provide concrete added value in construction where you can overlay the digital model with the site for inspections and such. I would see Magic Leap falls to same category as hololens - which is used for real work in the construction industry - but only on a more affordable price point. The key question is how easy it is to develop applications for it. Hololens basically consumes unity apps which makes it a pretty easy for development and deployment.
  - AndrewKemendo 8y ago
    AR applications already provide concrete added value in construction where you can overlay the digital model with the site for inspections and such You say that, but we built the leading product for this in 2014 (Visidraft) and AEC still isn't ready in 2018 for this for a host of reasons. Forgetting for a moment that 99% of these applications are on tablets and phones - which is still too difficult to manage for most AEC firms - the problems inherent in the lack of infrastructure to solve the 3D content management, object localization, user collaboration and markup management are still unsolved. Not technically mind you, but in business processes and workflow. Add HMD to that and you cut the market deployment by 1/1000th. So a demo here or there from DAQRI or Hololens does not prove the value of it being a serious and concrete product. Beyond that though, the biggest problem was that it ends up providing the most value as a sales/collab tool between clients and developers, and we constantly heard that architects didn't want to use it because it put too much power into the client's hand. Imagine that. So I'm not sure where you're getting the "provide concrete added value." Show me the successful product - not a demo, or a pilot product, but one that is generating profit at scale and is integrated into an entire business process at a firm like Gensler (one of our clients previously). It's a theoretically great use case, but in practice, it requires too much from the user to make it work as a stable product. [1] https://www.architectmagazine.com/videos/visidraft-augmented-reality-for-visualizing-cad-designs https://www.architectmagazine.com/videos/visidraft-augmented...
georgeecollins 8y ago
I'm glad to see a ML release a product but people who are overoptimistic about AR need to understand that this doesn't work in very low or bright light-- like being outdoors. So the idea that you are going to walk around a construction site, or get directions from it, are unrealistic. You are not going to wear it for long periods of time unless you are in a very controlled environment. Also, there is a long way to go in terms of field of view, so the idea that the display will annotate everything you see is a long ways off. I believe this technology will advance, but I think some of the unrealistic expectations do not help.
ArlenBales 8y ago
Can Lightfield be done without glasses eventually? Every popular depiction of AR in sci-fi is glasses-free, because wearing glasses everytime you want to do AR is a nuisance and impractical. For example, the interactive and holographic models in The Expanse series. If Magic Leap is paving the way for that technology, then I hope they stay on their course despite the criticisms toward their first product.
dmode 8y ago
One thing I feel nobody talks about with regards to AR is that it introduces a new paradigm, a new behavior that is "not normal". It asks you to wear something and walk around all day with information being displayed. That's not a muscle memory we have today. If you think about the most successful companies today, what they have done is that they have taken an existing behavior and make it better. We already shopped at stores and Amazon just made it easier to do it online. We already had friends and Facebook simply made it easier to interact with them. Google helped us search information faster that we were already looking for. Very few companies have introduced a completely new behavior to humans that we weren't already doing. In that sense, I am struggling to think about a behavior that AR and consequently Magic Leap will replace. I can think of B2B applications with oil industry and perhaps surgery. But that' niche. Beyond that, what exactly is it solving for ?
h4b4n3r0 8y ago
The Magic Leap One is sort of like looking through a window within your field of view So they've basically created Hololens, but unlike Hololens it doesn’t run any of the existing software, and isn’t self contained. What a waste of money.
kup0 8y ago
From what I've gathered, they aren't actually using light fields, and they suffer from the same "looking through a window" problem that Hololens has So, have they really accomplished anything other than creating a new HMD, one with less of an ecosystem than existing products?
aphextron 8y ago
As someone who has owned every major VR HMD since Oculus DK1 and spent thousands of hours developing in VR I will not be buying this. We have soooo far to go yet in terms of hardware for VR/AR to truly catch on. I don't see anything here that is any more impressive than what Microsoft has been doing with Hololens for over 2 years now. Even worse, are their pricing tiers [0] - you have to pay an extra $500 for "Early access to beta software and developer tools", which is just the height of absurdity. You then have to pay ANOTHER $500 for a "Priority Service Plan" and a "shoulder strap". I figured the company was shady but this is just hilarious. [0] https://i.imgur.com/eqxiEjT.png https://i.imgur.com/eqxiEjT.png
telltruth 8y ago
Neither magic, nor leap. Pretty much HoloLens 1.2. Rony Abovitz Had been apologizing in interviews that they had been too arrogant. He should. I especially hated his act at Ted where he wasted everyone’s time with absolute arrogant elitness of putting themselves as ultra-creative people. Can’t believe all these big name investors fell for them. How did these creative elites couldn’t even figure out a single killer app for so many years to ship with the device? Remember all those secret press interviews where they teased that it’s not another me-too HoloLens? And where is that whale jumping out in front of school kids? Here’s a shout out for you and you deserve it: Fraudsters!

175 points by AndrewDucker 8y ago

Amazing technical achievement with small business opportunity. I just don't see this happening until its $50 and invisible to other people.

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throwaway13337 8y ago

This thing looks ridiculous. AR glasses won't be a thing until they stop trying to put a tiny TV screen in front of your face. It needs to fill your visual field. They also won't be a mass adopted thing until they don't make you look like an 80s cartoon character. The question remains whether VR will still have it's time before AR becomes reasonable. Until that is answered, VC money will continue to be sacrificed in a giant fire on the alter of getting there first.

XorNot 8y ago
The "look" of anything really doesn't matter provided it's comfortable and useful. The problem at the moment is we are technologically well behind where we need to be to make practical AR in terms of screen resolutions.
- Klathmon 8y ago
  I disagree. I think the screen resolution isn't that big of a deal for many applications (mostly games and stuff like it), and it's not like it's impossible right now, just expensive. The bigger hurdle from where I'm sitting is getting framerates and latency in a good position. Everyone I've seen use a current gen VR headset gets horribly motion sick in a lot of cases. That NEEDS to be fixed, and I think that comes down to crazy high refresh rates, and super low latency, both of which really crank up the processing power needed.
  - jobigoud 8y ago
    People don't get motion sick from the fps, latency and fov of current gen (PC) VR (90 fps, ~0ms, ~100°). They get motion sick from vection and maybe from vergence accomodation conflict.
    - Klathmon 8y ago
      Interesting! I've got some reading to do! But regardless, I don't think resolution is going to be what makes or breaks VR/AR. We worked with computers just fine when they were ~500 "pixels" tall, and it's not like screen resolution technology has hit a wall that it can't get past yet, things are still improving.
    - Impossible 8y ago
      People do get motion sick from FPS because a lot of popular games and applications are not optimized, or have degenerate cases that cause hitches. ASW\ATW help with this (run at half fps and interpolate basically), but don't fix really bad fps or hitches. It doesn't help that often people are running PC VR with under powered (minspec or lower) or "misconfigured" (bad drivers, software, etc.) setups.
- swalsh 8y ago
  Fashion is a 2.4 TRILLION dollar industry (according to mckinsey) people very much care about the way things they wear look.
intruder 8y ago
You could say the same thing about any early tech.

Klathmon 8y ago

This was actually a pretty well grounded article compared to what I was expecting. I'm with the author, I absolutely think this kind of thing will be the next step in computing. It just seems so obvious. Get rid of screeens and wear a headset that lets you put application windows anywhere in your view. I'm glad they questioned a lot of Magic Leap's claims and didn't just parrot back the taglines and act like it's magic. That being said, I don't think Magic Leap is going to be the product that "wins". It seems from this article that it's going to run its own "OS", with it's own special apps, and most likely limited integration with other stuff. I don't want a new "device", a new os, a new "platform", I want a screen that I strap to my face. One that I can eventually connect to my Linux machine, or my windows desktop, or my MacBook. Maybe in wrong, but I feel like Magic Leap is going to die if it demands that kind of integration, regardless of how technically impressive it is. Hololens on the other hand is something I'm giving a good amount of consideration to, because they seem to be focusing on "a screen you strap to your face".

XorNot 8y ago
No mention of resolution (what I keyword search in every article about the Magic Leap). Anyone who's tried VR knows what that means - 1920x1080 is not enough useful lines for serious work with text, it's just barely enough for gaming.
- Klathmon 8y ago
  Well it seems they aren't pushing toward "serious work with text" based on this article. They are looking for devs to make apps, this means stuff like the NBA app, or games and stuff. I think you are right about higher resolution being needed for real "work", but since this doesn't run a "real" OS either, i'm not sure how much work you could get done on it anyway.
- bpicolo 8y ago
  Might not be mentioned because there's no actual pixel display?
  - 8y ago

freeone3000 8y ago

Augmented reality standalone computers are cool, but these guys are at the same price point as the Hololens, and have three components instead of one, with less battery and a narrower field of view. Maybe they can differentiate themselves on a better development environment?

tigershark 8y ago
It's exactly the opposite. Hololens is 3000$, it's heavier on your head because it has only one piece, the battery life is shorter and the field of view is much smaller (30x17.5 for hololens vs 40X30 for magic leap).
- yborg 8y ago
  50° FOV. It's still like looking at the world through a shoebox strapped to your face.
  - freeone3000 8y ago
    Note that both technologies are "augmented reality" - as in, the field of view listed is for the holographic augmentation, not the entire visible world, whose field of view is unchanged (but darker).
    - shiftpgdn 8y ago
      Have you used a hololens? The small FOV is very jarring.
      - tigershark 8y ago
        The strange thing is that most of the people that are attacking so harshly magic leap in this thread have business link with hololens that has really an abysmal FOV. Disclosure: I’m not buying a magic leap, I have no financial interest on it, I just want some working environment that I would really really enjoy.
- 8y ago

uptown 8y ago

"Magic Leap One starting at $2,295. Magic Leap One is available to creators in cities across the contiguous US. And the list is growing daily. To help you take your first step into spatial computing, we’re going to hand deliver the device to your doorstep and personally get you set up." Interesting deployment strategy.

swalsh 8y ago
In the wired article, it mentions that the device is closely related to your physiology, so setup can be difficult. Adding a person to help you get set up can probably make the experience a bit less frustrating.

aerophilic 8y ago

So far, one of the more informative, balanced articles I have seen on Magic Leap. I still remain curious what do they really mean by the lightfield. Does anyone have more information here? The best I can infer is they don’t actually have a “screen” with pixels per say, but they somehow attenuate the light as it goes through the “rectangle”. Why I say this is different than pixels is that it almost seems like they are doing something more “analog”. By attenuating the light as it comes in, rather than adding its own light, I see how that you could get a different “type” of light that may be better from a human processing perspective. The “screen” would effectively consist of a high resolution array of “windows” that selectively attenuate the light going through them. It would also explain why they can’t take “video” of the experience. Do others agree with my shot in the dark? Or is there some other way they could be realizing this technology?

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aj7 8y ago

Soon: The Magic Leap and Theranos auctions.

Ajedi32 8y ago

I still don't quite get how Magic Leap's "Lightfield" display is different from that of other augmented reality devices. The article has a few things to say about this, but I still don't really understand: > A Dynamic Digital Lightfield is a binocular display that can project digital objects into the world such that light enters the eye as if it were reflected from a real object. Our lightfield is biomimetic (mimics our biology/physiology). Magic Leap One creates a seamless experience where digital and analog lightfields combine into a single scene. For example, with Magic Leap One, you can render digital flowers in a physical vase so they can appear fresh every day. Like that. How is that different from what Hololens does? > Abovitz told me that the light can only be interpreted by a human — not a camera — so part of his problem in launching his product is that he can't film the experience. How is a camera sufficiently different from the human eye that you physically can't film an image through the headset? Or is this just saying you can't film it in the sense that a flat image on a monitor can't really convey the experience of trying the headset on for yourself? (The latter is a well known problem with VR.) If the latter, again, how is that different from Hololens? All-in-all the product does look promising; it appears to be less bulky than competing headsets and the devkit is less expensive too. I'm just not sure whether the display technology is a competitive advantage or not.

danielvf 8y ago
The Magic Leap doesn't just dangle one image in front of your eyes, like Microsoft's Hololens. Rather, the Magic Leap projects physically projects several visual layers at different focus distances. If you are looking at something near in the real world, your eye will change focus to look at it, and the "near" projection in the Magic Leap will be in focus, while the "far" projection will go blurry, right along with the "far" in the real world. However, I think Magic Leap has reduced the number of layers down to something like three [edit: two], from the many more layers they were showing before.
- tigershark 8y ago
  in this model there are only two focal planes as far as I know.
- 8y ago

michaelbuckbee 8y ago

MagicLeap definitely has been overhyped, but for HN readers, there are still reasons to be cautiously optimistic that this is real progress. 1. There's a neat hardware size progression for ML that was posted on Twitter: MagicLeap's gone from a device like you stare through at the optometrists office down to something comparable to a scuba mask. https://twitter.com/karanganesan/status/1024970520205307904?s=19 https://twitter.com/karanganesan/status/1024970520205307904?... 2. There are a few different ways to achieve AR style displays and what Magic Leap has chosen is the hard way -> lightfields and eye tracking (two technologies that haven't really been attempted to ship at scale). 3. This is still a developers' release - and not truly a "paradigm shift" or whatever overhyped term you want to use. Separate from all that, I still think the end game of AR (in the next 10ish years) is to be the thing that comes "next" after smartphones. The proper way to view this ML Dev kit is that it's the equivalent to a PalmPilot or other barely functional PDA that had some good ideas, but didn't quite hit the right inflection point of portability, screen, battery life, form factor, etc. but that paves the way to get there.

jamesrcole 8y ago
> MagicLeap definitely has been overhyped In HN discussions of it, it's been "over-dismissed". In my recollection, the majority of the comments viewed it as smoke and mirrors. Many were basically or even outright saying it was fraudulent. See for yourself: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=magic%20leap&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?query=magic%20leap&sort=byPopularity...
- mrguyorama 8y ago
  Their initial press was undoubtedly fraudulent
  - jamesrcole 8y ago
    I'm referring to things like people claiming it was like Theranos where there was no real technology at all.

tomp 8y ago

Wow, this actually sounds amazing. Not magical in any way, nor a real leap, but still... It's like looking at the first iPod. Looking back, it looks awfully retarded, but back then, it was the first primitive iteration of a paradigm-changing technology. Personally, the only "convincing" I need is price, weight/convenience, and software. All will come in time, I'm certain. Eventually, these have a real chance of being way better than phones/laptops, e.g. they'll likely use much less battery (as the "screen" is smaller).

ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
I understand your aversion to political correctness, but your use of the word "retarded" is very distracting from the solid point you are trying to make.
gremlinsinc 8y ago
I'd say it's more like a palm-pilot vs a modern iphone or samsung galaxy... we still have a long ways to go. It's exciting sure, it'll change everything but..we have to wait for it to get to modern smartphone levels of coolness..

atonalfreerider 8y ago

>"When you have a human working with AI, they always beat the AI. That's super powerful." This isn't always the case. The best Centaur Chess players (Human + AI) still lose to the best AI: https://www.chess.com/news/view/stockfish-outlasts-nakamura-3634 https://www.chess.com/news/view/stockfish-outlasts-nakamura-...

munin 8y ago
I wish more people knew this! There's a very middle-brow response to "well we've got system A, and system B, so obviously the combination will be better than A or B alone!" but this doesn't need to be the case. People think it's this way because of chess but that was apparently an anomaly.
drivers99 8y ago
It compared "the latest development build [of top chess engine Stocktish] compiled for OS X and running on a 3ghz 8-core Mac Pro." vs a highly ranked player and "the assistance of an older version of Rybka (about 200 points less than Stockfish's 3200+ rating), and it ran on a 2008 MacBook." I think the question is how does a top AI compare to the same top AI + (skilled?) human.

ArtWomb 8y ago

Congrats to ML on shipping! Achieving the technical challenge of seamless natural and artificial photon sources will pay dividends for many decades to come. But in the immediate term, market fit is going to be the next enormous challenge here. Their paradigm is dubbed "spatial computing". It is in a sense, "high-fidelity" augmented reality. Close range precision tolerances for delicate design work is probably the most demonstrable application. Although it has yet to be integrated into existing pipelines for microscopy, etc. However, CEO Rony Abovitz seems to be positioning the ML One Creator Edition as a consumer electronics device for casual gaming enthusiasts? I am just unsure which demographic they are targeting with a $2500+ headset. The tagline: free your mind. With a poster that even includes a reference to a VW microbus. Obvious roots in psychedelic culture. For which, undoubtedly, the experience would be immensely hedonic and synesthetic. How large is this audience of virtual shamans?

VectorLock 8y ago
ITs hedonic killer app will be something other than shamans.
neiled 8y ago
Seems to me it is initially a 'developer release' for people to start working out what they want to do with it. That being said it sounds like it might be quite a challenge to get the price point down to something even a VR enthusiast might be interested in purchasing.
- veli_joza 8y ago
  If there was a good AR app for managing medium businesses, this product could catch on quickly. The businesses could increase efficiency of their workers at very reasonable price. I can think of good applications for this technology for example in shipyard inspection, factory management, city utilities workers, police, even farming operations.
veli_joza 8y ago
The audience is mentioned in article - it's dev kit for content creators. It's too bulky for general consumer market and there is not enough content yet. I suspect the current processing power will also be upgraded in final product for higher fidelity of 3D graphics. So far the gaming industry was driver behind tech, but with augmented reality being so useful for industry (navigating warehouses, for example), this might change. The prices will drop, but I don't expect ML will be priced at <$1000 anytime soon. Psychedelic application would be very interesting. Imagine experiencing something like Waking Life or Scanner Darkly wherever you look. A gimmick, but good demonstration of tech.

gadders 8y ago

This is a review of the June LiveStream [1] from Karl Guttag that did a detailed analysis of the hardware. [1] https://www.kguttag.com/2018/06/10/magic-leap-livestream-02-gives-up-some-clues/ https://www.kguttag.com/2018/06/10/magic-leap-livestream-02-...

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partiallypro 8y ago

What is the FoV compared to the HoloLens? The article reads like it has the same FoV issue but didn't go over specifics. Though we have to keep in mind that HoloLens is now an older device and a new version is coming out soon. So then the question becomes, did they ship this 2 years too late, or does it even matter? I also find it interesting that instead of making it stand alone, they require a belt/pocket clip computer unlike Hololens. The headset seems much more compact, makes me wonder what Microsoft will be able to squeeze out in v2 of Hololens. Either way, competition is good.

ByronFortescue 8y ago
The Verge said in their video: FOV of 50, so very small, where an oculus has 80 and HTC Vive (I believe) has 100 FOV.

bryanlarsen 8y ago

The verge's first look was less positive: https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/8/17662040/magic-leap-one-creator-edition-preview-mixed-reality-glasses-launch https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/8/17662040/magic-leap-one-cr...

Analemma_ 8y ago
This seemed especially worrying: > Tracking was generally good, but objects occasionally shifted or jittered. A few times, animated objects seized up altogether, which might have been an issue with tracking, Lightpack performance, or something else. I tried a HoloLens last year[0] and, whatever its other fauls, the tracking was perfect and objects moved smoothly like they were actually real. If Magic Leap is behind Microsoft's two-year-old tech, that's a bad sign, especially when they've pitched themselves as being categorically better than all other AR. [0] My thoughts here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14106028#14107939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14106028#14107939
- dingo_bat 8y ago
  Microsoft's software prowess may well turn out to be the deciding factor if it ever comes to a showdown between hololens and magicleap. I don't see a great big difference in hardware quality or tech. Software's going to be the differentiator, just like in the smartphone wars where iphone won everything in spite of the early hardware being lacklustre compared to competitors.

Guest9812398 8y ago

As always with Magic Leap, I'm still not seeing a single compelling use case. Sea turtles swimming around the air, or a T-rex on the desk is fun for a few minutes, but it's not worth the price of entry. At this point, I've lost all faith in their vision. After years of following their posts, they haven't demonstrated a single thing of value. What are they expecting now? They honestly think developers are going to flock to this device with no audience for $2,250 and produce groundbreaking applications and games that will sell millions of Magic Leaps to consumers to recover their investment? Why don't they take that 2.5 billion dollars, and prove a single application or game can be developed for this product that people will line up to buy? If they can't do it with unlimited money, almost a decade of time, and the future of their business depending on it, then why do they expect some random developers are going to pay money to do it for them? I know this post sounds negative, but I'm 100% convinced this product will be dead on arrival and nothing more than a 2.5 billion dollar mistake to show a few hundred people floating jellyfish in their living room.

fsloth 8y ago
AR applications already provide concrete added value in construction where you can overlay the digital model with the site for inspections and such. I would see Magic Leap falls to same category as hololens - which is used for real work in the construction industry - but only on a more affordable price point. The key question is how easy it is to develop applications for it. Hololens basically consumes unity apps which makes it a pretty easy for development and deployment.
- AndrewKemendo 8y ago
  AR applications already provide concrete added value in construction where you can overlay the digital model with the site for inspections and such You say that, but we built the leading product for this in 2014 (Visidraft) and AEC still isn't ready in 2018 for this for a host of reasons. Forgetting for a moment that 99% of these applications are on tablets and phones - which is still too difficult to manage for most AEC firms - the problems inherent in the lack of infrastructure to solve the 3D content management, object localization, user collaboration and markup management are still unsolved. Not technically mind you, but in business processes and workflow. Add HMD to that and you cut the market deployment by 1/1000th. So a demo here or there from DAQRI or Hololens does not prove the value of it being a serious and concrete product. Beyond that though, the biggest problem was that it ends up providing the most value as a sales/collab tool between clients and developers, and we constantly heard that architects didn't want to use it because it put too much power into the client's hand. Imagine that. So I'm not sure where you're getting the "provide concrete added value." Show me the successful product - not a demo, or a pilot product, but one that is generating profit at scale and is integrated into an entire business process at a firm like Gensler (one of our clients previously). It's a theoretically great use case, but in practice, it requires too much from the user to make it work as a stable product. [1] https://www.architectmagazine.com/videos/visidraft-augmented-reality-for-visualizing-cad-designs https://www.architectmagazine.com/videos/visidraft-augmented...

georgeecollins 8y ago

I'm glad to see a ML release a product but people who are overoptimistic about AR need to understand that this doesn't work in very low or bright light-- like being outdoors. So the idea that you are going to walk around a construction site, or get directions from it, are unrealistic. You are not going to wear it for long periods of time unless you are in a very controlled environment. Also, there is a long way to go in terms of field of view, so the idea that the display will annotate everything you see is a long ways off. I believe this technology will advance, but I think some of the unrealistic expectations do not help.

ArlenBales 8y ago

Can Lightfield be done without glasses eventually? Every popular depiction of AR in sci-fi is glasses-free, because wearing glasses everytime you want to do AR is a nuisance and impractical. For example, the interactive and holographic models in The Expanse series. If Magic Leap is paving the way for that technology, then I hope they stay on their course despite the criticisms toward their first product.

dmode 8y ago

One thing I feel nobody talks about with regards to AR is that it introduces a new paradigm, a new behavior that is "not normal". It asks you to wear something and walk around all day with information being displayed. That's not a muscle memory we have today. If you think about the most successful companies today, what they have done is that they have taken an existing behavior and make it better. We already shopped at stores and Amazon just made it easier to do it online. We already had friends and Facebook simply made it easier to interact with them. Google helped us search information faster that we were already looking for. Very few companies have introduced a completely new behavior to humans that we weren't already doing. In that sense, I am struggling to think about a behavior that AR and consequently Magic Leap will replace. I can think of B2B applications with oil industry and perhaps surgery. But that' niche. Beyond that, what exactly is it solving for ?

h4b4n3r0 8y ago

The Magic Leap One is sort of like looking through a window within your field of view So they've basically created Hololens, but unlike Hololens it doesn’t run any of the existing software, and isn’t self contained. What a waste of money.

kup0 8y ago

From what I've gathered, they aren't actually using light fields, and they suffer from the same "looking through a window" problem that Hololens has So, have they really accomplished anything other than creating a new HMD, one with less of an ecosystem than existing products?

aphextron 8y ago

As someone who has owned every major VR HMD since Oculus DK1 and spent thousands of hours developing in VR I will not be buying this. We have soooo far to go yet in terms of hardware for VR/AR to truly catch on. I don't see anything here that is any more impressive than what Microsoft has been doing with Hololens for over 2 years now. Even worse, are their pricing tiers [0] - you have to pay an extra $500 for "Early access to beta software and developer tools", which is just the height of absurdity. You then have to pay ANOTHER $500 for a "Priority Service Plan" and a "shoulder strap". I figured the company was shady but this is just hilarious. [0] https://i.imgur.com/eqxiEjT.png https://i.imgur.com/eqxiEjT.png

telltruth 8y ago

Neither magic, nor leap. Pretty much HoloLens 1.2. Rony Abovitz Had been apologizing in interviews that they had been too arrogant. He should. I especially hated his act at Ted where he wasted everyone’s time with absolute arrogant elitness of putting themselves as ultra-creative people. Can’t believe all these big name investors fell for them. How did these creative elites couldn’t even figure out a single killer app for so many years to ship with the device? Remember all those secret press interviews where they teased that it’s not another me-too HoloLens? And where is that whale jumping out in front of school kids? Here’s a shout out for you and you deserve it: Fraudsters!