What we just learned about the Magic Leap One's hardware(cnet.com)
cnet.com
What we just learned about the Magic Leap One's hardware
https://www.cnet.com/news/magic-leap-is-ready-to-talk-more-about-its-ar-headset/
73 comments
The fact they refuse to let people try it is such a red flag.
They gave private demos at GDC in March. https://twitter.com/radiocurea/status/976549719664050176?s=2...
Apple is going about AR right: incremental, shipping now, and already building a developer ecosystem. Smartphone based AR is mediocre at best but millions of users already can access it and provide feedback on it. Apple doesn’t have to convince users to spend $600 (at least) today on a new gadget that would still mostly be a novelty. They have bought themselves time to develop a great AR hardware product, and when they do release it, a whole ecosystem will already be in place
In fact, Apple may have already won this space unless they seriously drop the ball or someone releases something amazing. I mean the hololens is shipping today and is really cool but few people seem to care because it’s so expensive and it’s not clear why you need AR. To make AR more than a novelty requires developers. Developers will go where the users are because that’s where the money is, and users go where the apps are and where their friends go. Apple is using smartphone based AR to work around this catch 22
In fact, Apple may have already won this space unless they seriously drop the ball or someone releases something amazing. I mean the hololens is shipping today and is really cool but few people seem to care because it’s so expensive and it’s not clear why you need AR. To make AR more than a novelty requires developers. Developers will go where the users are because that’s where the money is, and users go where the apps are and where their friends go. Apple is using smartphone based AR to work around this catch 22
The book practically writes itself: "Tragic Leap: An un-augmented look at the reality behind a secretive startup"
It's virtually unusable: A crystal clear post-mortem for spectacles with a foggy future
They didn't just "not mention specs". They mentioned someone asked a hardware spec related question, and then said something along the lines of "I'm not falling for that trick question."
That's waaaay worse than just silence in my opinion.
That's waaaay worse than just silence in my opinion.
No kidding. Have their staff not been trained to deflect questions using basic reasons that are omnipresent to any cutting edge hardware company? For example, "we are unable to reveal that information yet due to contractual obligations with our vendors" or "we can't talk about that yet because we are still finalizing a few minor details."
Here's a clip of the intro. Decide for yourself: https://clips.twitch.tv/BreakableTentativePassionfruitPipeHy...
I think this thing is going to be the biggest bust ever.
There are only so many variations of laser tag that one can play.
The twitch clip has a home shopping esque feel to it. That seems ...appropriate. All this from a company with a ~$6B valuation. Imo, that was the real magic leap.
I predict that in a few years, AR vendors will focus on AR for industrial purposes, and then it will be useful.
The twitch clip has a home shopping esque feel to it. That seems ...appropriate. All this from a company with a ~$6B valuation. Imo, that was the real magic leap.
I predict that in a few years, AR vendors will focus on AR for industrial purposes, and then it will be useful.
Industrial AR, $5K glasses shipping today:
https://daqri.com/about/leadership/
https://shop.daqri.com
https://daqri.com/about/leadership/
https://shop.daqri.com
It's already happening. After Google Glass bombed as a consumer product, they relaunched focusing on industrial applications[1].
[1] https://x.company/glass/
[1] https://x.company/glass/
> There are only so many variations of laser tag that one can play.
Off topic: When I was a kid we once augmented it with bottle rockets. A little stupid, but really fun.
Off topic: When I was a kid we once augmented it with bottle rockets. A little stupid, but really fun.
This project just has the feeling of a disaster playing out in slow motion- It'll be a sort of morbid fun to watch at a distance I suppose.
Part of me genuinely hopes I'm wrong and wishes we'll have cool AR soon... but right now it just feels like nothing good will come out of the work at Magic Leap.
Part of me genuinely hopes I'm wrong and wishes we'll have cool AR soon... but right now it just feels like nothing good will come out of the work at Magic Leap.
Even in the best case scenario, their products are pretty unlikely to live up to the early hype. Their strategy may have pulled in a lot of investment, but it also set very unrealistic expectations.
Sounds like it's slowly becoming the Duke Nukem Forever of hardware projects. Also no way it could have ever survived all the hype around it.
Am I missing something here? That video is amazingly boring. Nothing happens. She just puts on the device.
Yeah...
The most worrisome aspect of the presentation for me was that it's not designed to work outdoors. They said explicitly that the initial product is aimed at indoor use. Which makes me wonder what it has that my Vive doesn't, since the field of view is apparently limited. (One of their presentations in July is titled "FOV mitigation.")
Still, Magic Leap has proven time and again that they have a plan, and mixed reality is coming one way or the other. ML won't be the last player in the space.
The most worrisome aspect of the presentation for me was that it's not designed to work outdoors. They said explicitly that the initial product is aimed at indoor use. Which makes me wonder what it has that my Vive doesn't, since the field of view is apparently limited. (One of their presentations in July is titled "FOV mitigation.")
Still, Magic Leap has proven time and again that they have a plan, and mixed reality is coming one way or the other. ML won't be the last player in the space.
The main differences with indoors vs outdoors are illumination and distances. In terms of motion tracking, outdoors tends to be a lot easier because there are far more varied/unique textures than indoors.
Outdoor environments get a huge amount of NIR light which can swamp cameras without an IR cut filter. It's possible that the Leap is using infrared imagery for motion/depth tracking. Similarly devices which project structured light for 3D reconstruction usually use NIR projection. These devices fail in sunlight.
The other issue is depth. Depth sensing on a device like the Leap is going to be done using either time of flight, structured light or stereo [1]. Time of flight is unlikely due to the amount of power you need to dissipate on the LEDs (see the Kinect V2) - which are mounted next to your face. This approach would also preclude outdoor use, see above. If they're using stereo alone, then the depth accuracy will only be good at close range. For a typical baseline of say 20 cm, you're going to get reasonable results up to 5 metres [2]. More robustness if you use structured light to assist.
[1] There appear to be multiple cameras, so why would you not exploit the geometry?
[2] Back of the envelope calculation: stereo error at 10m using a 20cm baseline, 2.2um pixels, 5mm focal length and 0.5px accuracy is about 5cm. Accuracy at 5m is about 3cm.
Outdoor environments get a huge amount of NIR light which can swamp cameras without an IR cut filter. It's possible that the Leap is using infrared imagery for motion/depth tracking. Similarly devices which project structured light for 3D reconstruction usually use NIR projection. These devices fail in sunlight.
The other issue is depth. Depth sensing on a device like the Leap is going to be done using either time of flight, structured light or stereo [1]. Time of flight is unlikely due to the amount of power you need to dissipate on the LEDs (see the Kinect V2) - which are mounted next to your face. This approach would also preclude outdoor use, see above. If they're using stereo alone, then the depth accuracy will only be good at close range. For a typical baseline of say 20 cm, you're going to get reasonable results up to 5 metres [2]. More robustness if you use structured light to assist.
[1] There appear to be multiple cameras, so why would you not exploit the geometry?
[2] Back of the envelope calculation: stereo error at 10m using a 20cm baseline, 2.2um pixels, 5mm focal length and 0.5px accuracy is about 5cm. Accuracy at 5m is about 3cm.
You could get a bit better than stereoscopy by using say 4 cameras. Plus since it is on moving head, you could use a bit of surface from motion techniques.
You could also make the cameras rotate on their own (or mirror - like DLP; or lens), like eyes do, to enhance the result when head does not move.
Loads of processing power required... solvable.
Now the real problem is the display of sufficient brightness and colours. Some sort of future translucent LED screen could do it, maybe. DLP can do it at big cost and with bulky projectors. Current picoprojectors are not very bright...
And then three is a focal length problem to solve to have sharp image and good depth range while not messing with accommodation.
Loads of processing power required... solvable.
Now the real problem is the display of sufficient brightness and colours. Some sort of future translucent LED screen could do it, maybe. DLP can do it at big cost and with bulky projectors. Current picoprojectors are not very bright...
And then three is a focal length problem to solve to have sharp image and good depth range while not messing with accommodation.
Well, the whole thing reminds me of the Segway story back in the days. That didn’t play out as expected
If this goes like Segway, then we can expect 10 years later cheap chinese clones, slightly modified to show up and become popular in every household.
As happened with the "hoverboards" that are basically just cheap clones of the SegWay concept.
As happened with the "hoverboards" that are basically just cheap clones of the SegWay concept.
"Becomes popular" is more like "becomes a short-lived fad." No?
I don't have sales numbers but there are any number of articles suggesting that they came and went. [1] Certainly, one doesn't hear or see much about them these days.
[1] http://fortune.com/hoverboard-industry/
I don't have sales numbers but there are any number of articles suggesting that they came and went. [1] Certainly, one doesn't hear or see much about them these days.
[1] http://fortune.com/hoverboard-industry/
I think they wouldn't have become a fad if they were well made and didn't become huge fire hazards that were disallowed on airplanes. The decline in public use I saw was tied to the number of self combusting articles in the news.
But then they'd probably have been a lot more expensive and less interesting as a result--back to the upstream point. I actually think there were broader issues with Segways; they don't really work on either sidewalks or roads. But price didn't help.
[deleted]
"And that's the entire device!" (plus the cumbersome pack on your belt)
Interesting that she called the controller a "totem". Is that a common term? A Montreal VR startup called Vrvana was developing a headset called Totem.
Interesting that she called the controller a "totem". Is that a common term? A Montreal VR startup called Vrvana was developing a headset called Totem.
In their marketing it means a peripheral for the device.
For better or worse, Magic Leap PR is apt to invent Words.
For better or worse, Magic Leap PR is apt to invent Words.
I'm guessing that was the internal name and she was just told by the marketing team to use new terminology and slipped up.
Clickbait you can skip without missing out on anything.
All they learned is irrelevant details, sadly they did NOT say anything about the color of the top or the exact haptic feel of the third knob from the right.
Nothing about the vapourware tech to learn.
Skip and keep watching from your safe distance.
All they learned is irrelevant details, sadly they did NOT say anything about the color of the top or the exact haptic feel of the third knob from the right.
Nothing about the vapourware tech to learn.
Skip and keep watching from your safe distance.
> All they learned is irrelevant details
I disagree. Perhaps you mean that they didn't learn anything positive.
I learned that it doesn't work with glasses, that it can't work outside, that the required processing puck will run so hot that it needs ventilation, and that only months before release they still have no content, specs or anything functional except a green LED.
I think those things are very interesting and important.
The fact that they are all very damning of the company and its product is the story.
I disagree. Perhaps you mean that they didn't learn anything positive.
I learned that it doesn't work with glasses, that it can't work outside, that the required processing puck will run so hot that it needs ventilation, and that only months before release they still have no content, specs or anything functional except a green LED.
I think those things are very interesting and important.
The fact that they are all very damning of the company and its product is the story.
Exactly. This article seems to try to paint the tech in a positive light, but it really shows a damning story.
This thing is going to be the Daikatana of AR. Tons of hype, many years late, finally delivered as garbage nowhere close to what was promised. It's a shame they couldn't ship before the VR hype flamed out, otherwise they might have at least made some of their money back from curious buyers, but now there's going to be nothing.
Just get a HoloLens. That at least has shipping hardware and a real company behind it. Even if Magic Leap eventually does most of the same thing, it's not going to be so much better that it was worth all the bluster.
Just get a HoloLens. That at least has shipping hardware and a real company behind it. Even if Magic Leap eventually does most of the same thing, it's not going to be so much better that it was worth all the bluster.
"Rony Abovitz's about to make you his bitch."
Bets on whether or not that hockey puck just contains a Snapdragon 845 and some other COTS stuff? I'd wager significant money that it does.
More likely an XR1, but yeah there's absolutely no way these guys are designing silicon.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/29/snapdragon-xr1/
https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/29/snapdragon-xr1/
[deleted]
Save you the click: Absolutely nothing.
It must be for real now. It has lots of blinky lights.
I don't care how informative this article is, we should not be linking to pages that both prompt you for notification permission AND begin autoplaying a loud annoying video immediately upon page load.
I agree the autoplaying is annoying. I did however find value in the content. How to properly label that this link has a video that autoplays?
[mutebeforeclick]
tl;dr:
No specs, no demos, no video or images of what is seen through the glasses.
The only functionality demonstrated live was a green LED on the glasses.
Even in a world where the glasses work 100% as advertised, I’m still skeptical that goggle-vision AR will be a multi-billion dollar industry. Who wants to run around playing AR video games in their house or office? Who’d want to wear goggles and buckle a gaming PC to their belt just to check e-mail and watch YouTube? Where is the market for Magic Leap’s ideal, everything-works AR headset?
Some might say industry, architecture, or medicine, but that doesn’t appear to be their focus right now, and it’s hard for me to see those niche applications justifying their billions in investment so far.
No specs, no demos, no video or images of what is seen through the glasses.
The only functionality demonstrated live was a green LED on the glasses.
Even in a world where the glasses work 100% as advertised, I’m still skeptical that goggle-vision AR will be a multi-billion dollar industry. Who wants to run around playing AR video games in their house or office? Who’d want to wear goggles and buckle a gaming PC to their belt just to check e-mail and watch YouTube? Where is the market for Magic Leap’s ideal, everything-works AR headset?
Some might say industry, architecture, or medicine, but that doesn’t appear to be their focus right now, and it’s hard for me to see those niche applications justifying their billions in investment so far.
While this particular AR may be overhyped, I do expect AR to become a multi-billion-US$ industry before 2025. Even if it’s just two apps, Sunglasses.app and Google Maps pasted onto your view with no careful design, that’s still worth $30 and could run on that year’s version of the Raspberry Pi Zero. 30 million units per billion dollars, doesn’t feel unreasonable.
I can certainly construct scenarios where magic AR tech could be a breakout product category. Glasses that look approximately like other glasses. No social stigma. Able to automagically project directions, identify people, display information about places/objects. Unobtrusive control through a watch, vocal commands, or other means. Etc.
But that's asking a lot. I'd probably be willing to stipulate it will happen at some point, for at least some use cases (e.g. industrial). But Not sure that 5-ish years will do it.
But that's asking a lot. I'd probably be willing to stipulate it will happen at some point, for at least some use cases (e.g. industrial). But Not sure that 5-ish years will do it.
Is sunglasses.app just slightly darkening the lenses so they work as sunglasses?
Pretty much. People already pay a premium for photochromic lenses that take minutes to adjust, LCD can do the same in milliseconds.
I just want the Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses
Oh come on, let me have just a little bit of peril?
Here's a couple fun to think about ideas for AR.
- Take a tour of the Colosseum during its peak years.
- Architects might find that they can save money on design by building bland looking buildings with facades that enable easy AR projection onto them.
- AR could potentially replace smartphones if they can provide a better user experience.
- Take a tour of the Colosseum during its peak years.
- Architects might find that they can save money on design by building bland looking buildings with facades that enable easy AR projection onto them.
- AR could potentially replace smartphones if they can provide a better user experience.
Remember that even the first serious cinematographers, like Lumiere brothers considered cinema just a "toy" with no practical applications.
From my perspective AR applications in the future will be huge in all areas as it means a new way to interface with 3d editing on real time.
But having said that, I do not believe Magic Leap will be the one who bring this to the table. I see magic Leap as the Altavista or pets.com of the Internet, burning investor money like crazy and trowing things to the wall expecting something to stick.
From my perspective AR applications in the future will be huge in all areas as it means a new way to interface with 3d editing on real time.
But having said that, I do not believe Magic Leap will be the one who bring this to the table. I see magic Leap as the Altavista or pets.com of the Internet, burning investor money like crazy and trowing things to the wall expecting something to stick.
> the Altavista or pets.com of the Internet, burning investor money
I'm not sure it's fair to lump Altavista with pets.com.
The latter burned through something like 300 megabucks in just over 2 years.
The former was the first full-text search engine for the web and generated tens of megabucks of revenue, though they couldn't come up with a business model to keep it going (and eventualy lost out to Google on search quality [1], IIRC). I'm not sure we'll ever know how much it cost DEC to build and run it, but it seems credible that they at least came close to breaking even.
[1] Though I still miss their richer query language, incuding the NEAR keyword.
I'm not sure it's fair to lump Altavista with pets.com.
The latter burned through something like 300 megabucks in just over 2 years.
The former was the first full-text search engine for the web and generated tens of megabucks of revenue, though they couldn't come up with a business model to keep it going (and eventualy lost out to Google on search quality [1], IIRC). I'm not sure we'll ever know how much it cost DEC to build and run it, but it seems credible that they at least came close to breaking even.
[1] Though I still miss their richer query language, incuding the NEAR keyword.
There are a lot of big name companies betting a lot of money on the success of this device so I'm willing to give it a chance, but unless they start releasing some actual details about how well it works I remain sceptical.
This is one of the strongest counter arguments to all the cynicism in these comments. Sure they didn’t give specs but guess what neither did Hololens until preorders opened. The main thing they haven’t done yet is a live demo which we know is a challenge because when Microsoft did it they caught a bunch of flack for misleading the tiny FOV. For magic leap they’re not launching until end of the year. Demos are supposed to come in a couple more moths. But really what compels me Is all the partnerships. Why would Weta put their reputation on the line and say their magic leap game is launching this year if it were so obviously vaporware. Same for Framestore (big Hollywood gfx house) who announced this week that they’ve been working on content for years that will be available at launch as well. It’s one thing to be skeptical of magic leap, but it becomes harder to think that they’ve hoodwinked all these other reputable companies into making content for them for a product that is crappy or not ever coming out.there have also been about 30 other devs who have announced they’re early partners who have received hardware kits privately.
This is a puff piece that doesn't answer the fundamental question - have they solved the core problems with AR - field of view, and dark images?
Almost a direct quote from the presentation: ML is an additive device, meaning the darker an image is, the more transparent it is.
But in practice it probably isn't a problem. All that matters is that they deliver killer apps. What you can do with mixed reality vs the PC is what counts.
Remember how lifechanging the original iPhone's google maps integration felt? I used to get lost. No one ever gets lost anymore.
We need something like that for the mixed reality space. It's too early to know precisely what that could be, but we'd be betting on the wrong side of technology to dismiss it out of hand.
But in practice it probably isn't a problem. All that matters is that they deliver killer apps. What you can do with mixed reality vs the PC is what counts.
Remember how lifechanging the original iPhone's google maps integration felt? I used to get lost. No one ever gets lost anymore.
We need something like that for the mixed reality space. It's too early to know precisely what that could be, but we'd be betting on the wrong side of technology to dismiss it out of hand.
The problem is that they've been making lots of promises but then also publishing misleading demos that seemed to disobey the basic laws of physics (i.e. demos showing subtractive image synthesis in a compact form factor) which makes it hard to take any of their tech claims seriously.
>Remember how lifechanging the original iPhone's google maps integration felt? I used to get lost. No one ever gets lost anymore.
Ever is a bit strong, but yeah. GPS plus maps is such a great example of how quickly and pervasively tech can embed itself until it's almost hard to remember a world before it. Tropes like refusing to stop at a gas station to ask for directions? Gone. I have a bag of maps in the back of my car. Haven't opened in years.
Ever is a bit strong, but yeah. GPS plus maps is such a great example of how quickly and pervasively tech can embed itself until it's almost hard to remember a world before it. Tropes like refusing to stop at a gas station to ask for directions? Gone. I have a bag of maps in the back of my car. Haven't opened in years.
> Remember how lifechanging the original iPhone's google maps integration felt?
Just for historical perspective, Google Maps Navigation for Android predated the iOS version by three years ( 2009 vs 2012 ).
Just for historical perspective, Google Maps Navigation for Android predated the iOS version by three years ( 2009 vs 2012 ).
It's interesting seeing the tone in comment sections here change with time. Threads on Magic Leap used to have many defenders. Now, not so much.
can anyone think of any way to make money betting against magic leap?
Queue in a blog post by the guy who despises Magic Leap.
Karl Guttag rules.
Say what you will about him, but his predictions have proven accurate so far: ML has made very suspect claims to investors and the public and ML's technology offers little innovation over the status quo, based on the information available so far.
So far it's the only headset coming to market that contains all of the following: Standalone, eye tracking, variable focal planes, hand tracking and a 6DOF controller, and a significant increase in FOV over Hololens (roughly 55 degrees to Hololens' 35). There are other AR headsets announced that may have a huge FOV but are tethered to a PC and have questionable visuals. Really, once Magic Leap is out it will be quite unique, and not just because of the tech it packs compared to the competition but because they've also been building content from their first party studio as well as numerous gaming and productivity partnerships.
Theranos 2.0?
Citing an article that is 1.5 years old? Ignored
actually, I think you're missing out by ignoring that article.
'technology ... is “not really what we’re ultimately going to be shipping,” but that his company’s prototypes were good for showing investors and others'
Unlike Theranos, Magic Leap has received investment from people with knowledge in the industry, so I think it is less smoke and mirrors than Theranos, but similar in that they are doing a big promotion on technology that is not ready yet. I'm not going to call it vaporware, and I don't think Tharanos was vaporware either, but they were selling to investors and their customers a product that didn't exist as they had sold it.
'technology ... is “not really what we’re ultimately going to be shipping,” but that his company’s prototypes were good for showing investors and others'
Unlike Theranos, Magic Leap has received investment from people with knowledge in the industry, so I think it is less smoke and mirrors than Theranos, but similar in that they are doing a big promotion on technology that is not ready yet. I'm not going to call it vaporware, and I don't think Tharanos was vaporware either, but they were selling to investors and their customers a product that didn't exist as they had sold it.
[deleted]
Karl Kuttag was right all along I guess. Good for him, but a bit of a bummer for the dream ML was trying to sell. Of course that dream turns have been made of lies and horseshit, so...
I had high hopes for Magic Leap when it was first announced. I though this was going to be a device that had opaque overlay LCD or laser-retina projection so that it worked outside in daylight. I thought it would have a full on FOV. Now it seems really like a kind of Hololens 1.5.
At this point, I think we may have to wait for Apple to solve workable AR glasses.