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Magic Leap Finally Demoed Its Headset And It Is 'Disappointing' (digg.com)
From a story on Digg, via DaringFireball: Magic Leap, the secretive augmented reality company that has raised $2.3 billion, finally demoed its long-rumored, much-vaunted headset on Wednesday (and announced that the headset will ship this summer). It was disappointing. Magic Leap has promised big things -- remember the tiny elephant in your hands? Remember that whale jumping out of the gym floor? But the animations demonstrated on Wednesday fall short of those promises. Waaaay short. An executive with Magic Leap, which has long remained tight lipped on its roadmap and commercial availability of its products, said on a Twitch livestream this week that the Magic Leap One, a developer-geared headset, will ship this season. (Summer ends September 22, so the company has 10 weeks to meet its self-imposed deadline.)
How could something so mysterious not work the way they lied to us!
"What is it with this blind faith in technotoys?"
Mostly cheerleading and nothing more.
Remember when Google Plus was going to bury Facebook? Remember when Linux would be on every PC in the nation and Microsoft would be bankrupt about a decade ago? Remember when iPhones were going to disappear and everyone was going to be carrying an Android*? Remember when Amiga was going to overtake IBM compatibles? What about the bright futures of Steam Machine, Google Glasses, Google Wave, 3DTV?
We could probably have pages full of what people around here thought was going to be a game changer that fizzled. I've always said; If you want to know the future of a market, do the opposite of what the Slashdotters have to say about it.
* As close to a reality as the fanbois have ever come in their predictions.
What is this, 2006?
That is unfortunate, but expected. It would b e really great if we had something that looked even remotely close to their demo.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Remember those three devices at the demo? Yup we shipped those. One went to our CEO. Another went to the traveling sales guy. And the engineers demanded their prototypes so we gave one back.
All shipped. And guess which season that was in? Yup, Summer. Goal met, booya!
The headline might as well read "Magic Leap Finally Demoed Its Headset And It Is 'Disappointing' [to the Surprise of Absolutely Nobody]"
Actually to me those short demos were impressive. They demonstrate the AR interacting with the physical world (walls, hands, etc). I never saw the original marketing demos like the "whale" or "elephant" or anything though.
Hype and bullshit fantastical claims rarely translate into viable real world products.
All other VR companies will have to pay oppressive fees for "fast lanes".
Magic Leap doesn't have to work well. It has work well enough and be the only choice.
It's 1999 all over again!
Really? I haven't noticed Uber drivers giving out stock tips.
Goodbye, Slashdot!
It can test for 99% of all life-threatening diseases from only one drop of blood! And best of all, ANYONE'S BLOOD! Doesn't even have to be yours! This is technology, people. TECHNOLOGY! PEOPLE!
Considering he only posted twice after that one and that was over a year ago, I think you're "I told you so" will be missed
Two disappointments from the video: latency (the rock reacts to the hand well after the hand was there) and the translucency (everything is 'ghosty', a persistent problem for AR to present 'real' seeming things).
However, it did seem to do a serviceable job with fixed hard surfaces (floor and wall) and would probably be good enough to do the 'whale out of the floor' animation.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
More vaporware. That happens all the time. $2.3B? The idiocy of some is vast.
I'm not sure you needed to see the video at all to know how likely it was to be terrible. Just looking at the state of the art in AR or VR and compare to the ludicrous videos they used to hype this project.
Obviously, there is at least some demand because people are making them; but I really can't see VR being all that popular (beyond a fad hype at first). It feels to me like one of those things, that, whereas "cool tech", not something with a lot of sticking power.
Remember the Wii, the Kinect for Xbox. Those were really cool at the time- and for a while incredibly popular... but people went back to a keypad and a screen. VR will be cool and aweinspiring at first- and maybe for 5 years will be popular and a must have... but I can't see it really taking off- not this generation anyway. Who really wants to strap something to their face to play a game?
After an initial success it will go the way of the Wii and the Kinect.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Worse, Android is linux AND java. Hipsters everywhere cry into their caramel lattes everytime it crosses their mind.
Tech bubble? Add housing, stocks, and bonds.
Its an everything bubble this time
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ah.. Homophones.... Part of what makes English fun..
Your write! I new it two!
"Sow" they said "Wee new to. Wye waist thyme hear?
"For their's know weigh too sea awl en one seen.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Are soon parted. All you need is a good story and a slick prototype.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You must be very young / inexperienced. Throughout the history of high technology many predictions fell short while in other areas there has been rapid advancement that nobody anticipated. While their predictions didn't hold up in this case there is no reason why it couldn't have happened. You seem to be saying that anyone who had hopes and faith in a technology that didn't take off as hoped is a rabid technology fanboi. That is ridiculous.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I don't see the appeal until the projection scheme is unobtrusive; aside from some specialty applications, nobody is going to want to hold up a phone or ipad either.
No problem pouring one out for the early adopters funding things, but nobody wants to wear stupid shit on their head while they're interacting with the real world. Figure out how to do this with a contact lens? Yeah, now you're talking.
More anxious to see 4K VR, and that doesn't need materials advances to happen.
..don't panic
I have noticed Chinese advising that buying property that has barely started construction is "the best investment there is"
Everyone is carrying an Android- market share is over 80% world wide. iOS isn't going to go away anytime soon, but it will end up just like MacOs did in the 90s.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
The demos sensor-wise don't look like anything better than what the hololens could achieve (and maybe not as good, though it's hard to say if that's hardware or demo programming). The field of view of the AR looks way better than the last Hololens I tried (the Hololens just had an AR overlay over a fairly small portion of what you could see in front of you and the ML demos displayed an edge-to-edge red line overlay).
However I always thought the point of Magic Leap was a much better DISPLAY, which not of us here can judge without trying the actual device. Looking at videos is not going to tell you what it is like to look through the googles, it may be that actually viewing the display is person looks loads better than current VR/AR gear.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I mean.... it really doesn't take much. A phone and some lenses. Aligning them so things are in focus is a bit of a bitch.
I have noticed Chinese advising that buying property that has barely started construction is "the best investment there is"
Started construction? Around here they sell condos not only before the old building is torn down but when the selling company seems to have no plan to actually build it themselves, they collect deposits then sell the project to someone else if they can find a buyer.
In what way is an android PHONE a Linux PC?
Crowing about android in response to calling out the failure of "Year of Linux on the Desktop" to ever materialize is blatant moving of the goalposts.
You know what tech I would like?
A robot arm that takes the disc out of the Xbox, puts it back on the shelf, and loads a diferent disc.
THAT would be a game changer!
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
Wake me up in 10 years. I want a holodeck or nothing!
It's a mastapeece.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.