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The Secretive $4.5 Billion Startup 'Magic Leap' Is Gearing Up To Release A Consumer Version of Its Tech (forbes.com)
Magic Leap is an incredibly secretive company based in Florida that develops "mixed reality" technology. While the company was valued at $4.5 billion in its latest round of financing, Magic Leap has never released a product. "It has never given a public demonstration of a product, never announced a product, and never explained the proprietary 'lightfield' technology that powers its products," writes David M. Ewalt for Forbes. That may be about to change, however, as the CEO Rony Abovitz said in a rare interview that the company has spent a billion dollars perfecting a prototype and has begun constructing manufacturing lines in Florida (Editor's note: may be paywalled, alternate source), gearing up for a release of a consumer version of its technology. "We are building a new kind of contextual computer," Abovitz says. "We're doing something really, really different." The final product of theirs is expected to fit into a pair of glasses when everything is said and done. "When you're wearing the device, it doesn't block your view of the world; the hardware projects an image directly onto your retina through an optics system built into a piece of semitransparent glass (the product won't fry your eyeballs; it's replicating the way we naturally observe the world instead of forcing you to stare at a screen)." Forbes adds: The hardware also constantly gathers information, scanning the room for obstacles, listening for voices, tracking eye movements and watching hands. As a result, mixed-reality objects are aware of their environment and have the ability to interact with the real world. On Magic Leap's hardware a Pokemon might escape capture by ducking behind your couch or, assuming you live in a "smart" home, turning off your lights and hiding in the dark. In one of its demos the Magic Leap team shows off a computer-generated "virtual interactive human," life-size and surprisingly realistic. Abovitz and his team imagine virtual people (or animals or anything else) as digital assistants -- think Siri on steroids, except with a physical presence that makes her easier to work with and harder to ignore. Ask your virtual assistant to deliver a message to a coworker and it might walk out of your office, reappear beside your colleague's desk via his or her own MR headset and deliver the message in person. Ewalt goes on to write about Abovitz's life growing up and the past companies he has founded, which have ultimately helped lead him to Magic Leap.
Amazingly, Magic Leap is actually listed on his site under "Other Works" ... Apparently, Neal is their Chief Futurist
http://www.nealstephenson.com/magic-leap.html
mrt
On Magic Leap's hardware a Pokemon might escape capture by ducking behind your couch or, assuming you live in a "smart" home, turning off your lights and hiding in the dark.
It's all fun and games until someone dies from falling down the stairs in the dark because a pokemon switched off their internet-vulnerable lights.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
What the fuck systemd? You just decided you needed to clean up my /tmp file system for me? Well fuck you. /tmp
stuoid systemd deleting my files from
fuck you
It deleted your porn, too. Only the furry stuff.
"We're doing something really, really different."
Translation: We're doing something slightly different than what someone else has already done, but not really groundbreaking in any meaningful way, and it will still have the same problems that the previous technology had.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Forture Magazine is more and more running articles originally authored by PR agencies under the guise of an "original" "investigative" article signed off by one of their own writers/editors. This whole article looks and smells a lot to me like the hype buildup for the Segway device - and how well did that all go?
It was a pretty good article. Well written and didn't sound like total hypus pocus.
There are only two reasons to keep a product secret while still talking about it:
1 can't be true since they explained what to expect from the product in this very article. Thus, it must be 2.
Last time a heard a story like this we got the Segway.
Exactly what I was thinking. The vulture capitalists valued the company at $500 million before any product was released.
They believed their own hype, and came out with an overly complicated electric scooter.
$100 million R&D so they could put the wheels left & right instead of front & back.
The hype machine on this reminds me of Dean Kaman's hype for the project Ginger that turned out to be the segway. It was a remarkable achievement that fell flat like a thud. One could see how they might have imagined greatness for it.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The initial video demo for Magic Leap looked very impressive, but it was just a concept video and was quite misleading. The problem is that the video shows various virtual objects that are darker than the background, e.g. The dark red robot against the cream wall at 49 seconds in.
Unlike the composited lies of the initial video, all their subsequent videos are shot through their device and it is abundantly clear that they are using an additive light technology (much like you would get from bouncing an image off a piece of glass at 45 degrees). The first thing you notice is that all of the videos shot through the device are in rather dark rooms, some very dark indeed. If you look at this shopping demo you will see that the eyes of the weird yellow lamp creature are meant to be black, but the grey background shows through them. This is a limitation of additive light.
Now people who have used the device say they were blown away and I'm quite sure that if I saw their Star Wars demo in a conveniently darked room, I would also be amazed. The problem is that people who have experienced the device in darkened rooms might come away with the impression that it can show dark objects, or rather, realistically lit objects, in a normal well-lit environment. In an outdoor environment, or even a well-lit room, the objects could look very washed-out, or at the very least, very bright, glowy and unnatural. If you just want to shoot glowing space aliens or read some glowy text, that isn't an issue. However, if people are expecting to see realistic naturally lit objects that actually look like they belong in your current environment, I think they may be sorely disappointed. The additive light limitations could also be a big problem for shopping applications. After all, it's a bit difficult to see how that dark green couch is going to look in your lounge if the wall behind it just shows through. Google's project tango has the advantage there since it can just composite naturally lit objects over the video feed.
I'm not saying their device couldn't be really useful, or even pretty amazing in certain situations and environments, but I think the limitations will cause issues and may put a lot of people off buying one. I could also be wrong, and for some reason they have been refusing to show their amazing light-blocking technology in their demo videos, but that seems unlikely.
P.S. Although they have been more honest in their videos recently, I should point out that their website still shows concept images that misleadingly give the impression that they are able to show objects darker than the background. I should also point out that Magic Leap have been far more honest than Microsoft who seem to exclusively composite their videos to hide their crappy field of view and similar additive light limitations.
If it's a scam, then it's an unusually clever one. Their demonstrations and patents convinced Google, Qualcomm & others to invest hundreds of millions in them (twice). Maybe soon we'll find out for sure.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
It's a non-story with nothing interesting to say because nobody knows enough to be able to talk about it. What the fuck is the point of articles like this?
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
It's a scam. They always are.
Abovitz and his team imagine virtual people (or animals or anything else) as digital assistants -- think Siri on steroids, except with a physical presence that makes her easier to work with and harder to ignore. Ask your virtual assistant to deliver a message to a coworker and it might walk out of your office, reappear beside your colleague's desk via his or her own MR headset and deliver the message in person.
I'll buy them for my entire department if it means I can inflict Clippy on other people.
I knew I needed to stop reading Slashdot and finish my PhD when I started to miss articles by Bennett Haselton.
I was right. How did I guess?
Truly amazing. Now fuck off.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Why does this feel like Dean Kamen and "IT" (Segway) all over again?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I imagine this thing to be the device that Riker brought back from Risa in "The Game"
Come on Wesley, try it! Everyone is doing it!
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.