7 ms·

Magic Leap Announces Its Augmented Reality Developer Platform

90 points by xasos 11y ago

mkawia 11y ago
Everything is 'upcoming' with this company.
- steverb 11y ago
  Yes and I'd be loathe to spend any real time learning the SDK of a device that is so far mostly concept videos (as far as I can tell). That won't make a whit of difference to them of course, it's not like I'm known in the gaming space anyway... I'm pessimistically hopeful that they aren't just hype and don't spend so long trying to get it right that they're irrelevant by the time they launch.
  - burkaman 11y ago
    They have a ton of very high-profile investors, it can't be purely hype. It's hard to believe Google would put half a billion dollars into a company without seeing something concrete and impressive.
    - steverb 11y ago
      And Bezos and Jobs invested in the Segway, I'm not saying that it's pure hype, just that all they've shown is hype.
      - Joeri 11y ago
        To be fair, the segway did what was promised, but it turned out that it wasn't so useful in practice.
        aaronharnly 11y ago
        A plausible outcome for this technology as well.
    - seanp2k2 11y ago
      Glass.
  - ElijahLynn 11y ago
    This is the future and is going to revolutionize everything. Would be worth it (lucrative) to start now! I am thinking of abandoning my current, well paying, web dev career just to do these types of games and experiences.
ferrari8608 11y ago
> This chip powers its augmented reality headset that works by shooting light directly onto your eye, rather than sticking a screen in front of it. I'm curious to know exactly what they mean by shooting light directly into your eye. Wouldn't you see the source? That is basically what a screen does, though less direct. It makes light, some of which enters your eyes. You see more light when you look at the source, the screen.
- russdill 11y ago
  Every single display works by projecting photons into the eye.
  - Retric 11y ago
    If that where the case only one person could see your monitor at a time. Instead monitors send light across a vary wide viewing angle.
    - efnx 11y ago
      Light is made of photons. Every single display shoots photons into your eyes. Traditional displays send photons into everybody's eyes.
      - MichaelGG 11y ago
        Keyword is directly, to contrast it with, say, a page of [e]paper that reflects light into your eyes.
        seanp2k2 11y ago
        I'm thinking "looking into a tiny projector focused on your retina", but I'm having a hard time imagining what what would be like, since I've literally never experienced anything like that. Looking into a normal projector wouldn't be comparable really, as the focus for those is a field much larger than your retina. You'd need something with a lens that would focus it down to dime-size or smaller to get a similar effect, and I doubt you'd want to do this with anything more powerful than a pocket projector. Might be a fun weekend project to hack a new lens system into one and see what it can do if the internals are even hackable enough to make something like that possible (I'm thinking focal lengths and lens types).
AndrewKemendo 11y ago
As someone who is developing in the same space (AR) I am wondering if ML is going to be like the Segway in that there is something interesting there but the reveal is not going to be that much of a breakthrough. It just has too much backing from people that don't get suckered for that to be the case though, so it is really interesting.
pitchups 11y ago
How does Magic Leap compare with Microsoft's Hololens? It appears that both are implementing AR is slightly different ways. Was completely blown away though by the demo videos of the Hololens - https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us
- wodenokoto 11y ago
  Despite there been a lot of journalits who have used Hololens, it is surprisingly difficult to get an account of how it works or how well it works. I have however read that most of the augmented graphics on the hololens is semi transparent and the area of the visual field it can augment is limited. I also wonder how well it calibrates. Saw a presentation the other day about calibrating AR and the top of the line calibration in academia is not super good.
  - mwilcox 11y ago
    Oliver Kreylos probably has the best description of the current demo: http://doc-ok.org/?p=1223 http://doc-ok.org/?p=1223
- tmikaeld 11y ago
  Those who have tested the latest version complained a lot about the FOV being very small, thus breaking immersion. Though it's the first gen version, so i guess it will become much better.
- mwilcox 11y ago
  Magic Leap are promising MUCH more - realistic occlusion of virtual objects by real ones, dynamic transparency (allowing both AR and fully immersive VR), natural depth of field (refocusing on virtual objects without simulated blur), a scanning fiber light-field display, fully accurate hand tracking, both very near (holding something in your hand) and far (things flying through streets) depth tracking.. you get it. Not to mention, they haven't even said anything about their cloud platform yet, which you can bet Google are heavily involved with.. combining Tango area mapping with Google Maps.. they are trying to solve every problem in AR/Computer Vision, so it's no wonder people are skeptical. But if anyone's going to succeed, they have a pretty impressive team & investor lineup. Not to mention, Magic Leap are trying to build a whole ecosystem designed for AR experiences, right down to retails stores. Whereas Microsoft simply seem to be making 'Windows-AR'.
mwilcox 11y ago
I'm not really understanding what the announcement is here. They've had a Developers section on their site for almost 6 months?
M8 11y ago
VDK - vapourware development kit.
moron4hire 11y ago
Still only have his word to go on. Still no hardware actually demonstrated. Won't believe it till I see it.
6stringmerc 11y ago
As a musician, I'm curious about the potential for using the VR/AR envrionment as a production tool. DAWs are pretty static, but giving depth to composition by way of more granular interaction seems possible. With so much digital progress in emulation and networking, it would be very cool to finally have a VR/AR "jam room" that could unite musicians across the country/globe in one room to collaborate. A distant future, sure, but a reasonable application. As a capitalist, my biggest question is...I'm half joking here, but tongue in cheek serious...How is this eventually going to be used for porn?
- loudmax 11y ago
  Network latency is going to a significant factor for musicians jamming together. I could see it for musicians living in the same city or maybe a few hundred miles from each other. If they're on different continents, the speed of light will become a limiting factor: http://royal.pingdom.com/2007/06/01/theoretical-vs-real-world-speed-limit-of-ping/ http://royal.pingdom.com/2007/06/01/theoretical-vs-real-worl... It comes to about 1/10th of a second for people on the opposite side of the globe under ideal network latency. Okay for conversation, but could be a problem for musicians playing together. Don't get me wrong, I think there are a lot of interesting uses for this technology if they can get it to work as promised.
  - 6stringmerc 11y ago
    Yeah, it's been one of the more prolonged riddles. However I can say from firsthand experience that the JamKazam platform is usable and functional. Distance and connectivity do matter, that is true. Even on my very limited connection using a relatively modest USB audio device, I've had success on several occasions with one to several participants.

90 points by xasos 11y ago

mkawia 11y ago

Everything is 'upcoming' with this company.

steverb 11y ago
Yes and I'd be loathe to spend any real time learning the SDK of a device that is so far mostly concept videos (as far as I can tell). That won't make a whit of difference to them of course, it's not like I'm known in the gaming space anyway... I'm pessimistically hopeful that they aren't just hype and don't spend so long trying to get it right that they're irrelevant by the time they launch.
- burkaman 11y ago
  They have a ton of very high-profile investors, it can't be purely hype. It's hard to believe Google would put half a billion dollars into a company without seeing something concrete and impressive.
  - steverb 11y ago
    And Bezos and Jobs invested in the Segway, I'm not saying that it's pure hype, just that all they've shown is hype.
    - Joeri 11y ago
      To be fair, the segway did what was promised, but it turned out that it wasn't so useful in practice.
      - aaronharnly 11y ago
        A plausible outcome for this technology as well.
  - seanp2k2 11y ago
    Glass.
- ElijahLynn 11y ago
  This is the future and is going to revolutionize everything. Would be worth it (lucrative) to start now! I am thinking of abandoning my current, well paying, web dev career just to do these types of games and experiences.

ferrari8608 11y ago

> This chip powers its augmented reality headset that works by shooting light directly onto your eye, rather than sticking a screen in front of it. I'm curious to know exactly what they mean by shooting light directly into your eye. Wouldn't you see the source? That is basically what a screen does, though less direct. It makes light, some of which enters your eyes. You see more light when you look at the source, the screen.

russdill 11y ago
Every single display works by projecting photons into the eye.
- Retric 11y ago
  If that where the case only one person could see your monitor at a time. Instead monitors send light across a vary wide viewing angle.
  - efnx 11y ago
    Light is made of photons. Every single display shoots photons into your eyes. Traditional displays send photons into everybody's eyes.
    - MichaelGG 11y ago
      Keyword is directly, to contrast it with, say, a page of [e]paper that reflects light into your eyes.
      - seanp2k2 11y ago
        I'm thinking "looking into a tiny projector focused on your retina", but I'm having a hard time imagining what what would be like, since I've literally never experienced anything like that. Looking into a normal projector wouldn't be comparable really, as the focus for those is a field much larger than your retina. You'd need something with a lens that would focus it down to dime-size or smaller to get a similar effect, and I doubt you'd want to do this with anything more powerful than a pocket projector. Might be a fun weekend project to hack a new lens system into one and see what it can do if the internals are even hackable enough to make something like that possible (I'm thinking focal lengths and lens types).

AndrewKemendo 11y ago

As someone who is developing in the same space (AR) I am wondering if ML is going to be like the Segway in that there is something interesting there but the reveal is not going to be that much of a breakthrough. It just has too much backing from people that don't get suckered for that to be the case though, so it is really interesting.

pitchups 11y ago

How does Magic Leap compare with Microsoft's Hololens? It appears that both are implementing AR is slightly different ways. Was completely blown away though by the demo videos of the Hololens - https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us

wodenokoto 11y ago
Despite there been a lot of journalits who have used Hololens, it is surprisingly difficult to get an account of how it works or how well it works. I have however read that most of the augmented graphics on the hololens is semi transparent and the area of the visual field it can augment is limited. I also wonder how well it calibrates. Saw a presentation the other day about calibrating AR and the top of the line calibration in academia is not super good.
- mwilcox 11y ago
  Oliver Kreylos probably has the best description of the current demo: http://doc-ok.org/?p=1223 http://doc-ok.org/?p=1223
tmikaeld 11y ago
Those who have tested the latest version complained a lot about the FOV being very small, thus breaking immersion. Though it's the first gen version, so i guess it will become much better.
mwilcox 11y ago
Magic Leap are promising MUCH more - realistic occlusion of virtual objects by real ones, dynamic transparency (allowing both AR and fully immersive VR), natural depth of field (refocusing on virtual objects without simulated blur), a scanning fiber light-field display, fully accurate hand tracking, both very near (holding something in your hand) and far (things flying through streets) depth tracking.. you get it. Not to mention, they haven't even said anything about their cloud platform yet, which you can bet Google are heavily involved with.. combining Tango area mapping with Google Maps.. they are trying to solve every problem in AR/Computer Vision, so it's no wonder people are skeptical. But if anyone's going to succeed, they have a pretty impressive team & investor lineup. Not to mention, Magic Leap are trying to build a whole ecosystem designed for AR experiences, right down to retails stores. Whereas Microsoft simply seem to be making 'Windows-AR'.

mwilcox 11y ago

I'm not really understanding what the announcement is here. They've had a Developers section on their site for almost 6 months?

M8 11y ago

VDK - vapourware development kit.

moron4hire 11y ago

Still only have his word to go on. Still no hardware actually demonstrated. Won't believe it till I see it.

6stringmerc 11y ago

As a musician, I'm curious about the potential for using the VR/AR envrionment as a production tool. DAWs are pretty static, but giving depth to composition by way of more granular interaction seems possible. With so much digital progress in emulation and networking, it would be very cool to finally have a VR/AR "jam room" that could unite musicians across the country/globe in one room to collaborate. A distant future, sure, but a reasonable application. As a capitalist, my biggest question is...I'm half joking here, but tongue in cheek serious...How is this eventually going to be used for porn?

loudmax 11y ago
Network latency is going to a significant factor for musicians jamming together. I could see it for musicians living in the same city or maybe a few hundred miles from each other. If they're on different continents, the speed of light will become a limiting factor: http://royal.pingdom.com/2007/06/01/theoretical-vs-real-world-speed-limit-of-ping/ http://royal.pingdom.com/2007/06/01/theoretical-vs-real-worl... It comes to about 1/10th of a second for people on the opposite side of the globe under ideal network latency. Okay for conversation, but could be a problem for musicians playing together. Don't get me wrong, I think there are a lot of interesting uses for this technology if they can get it to work as promised.
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  Yeah, it's been one of the more prolonged riddles. However I can say from firsthand experience that the JamKazam platform is usable and functional. Distance and connectivity do matter, that is true. Even on my very limited connection using a relatively modest USB audio device, I've had success on several occasions with one to several participants.