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Big Money, Big Dreams, Big Expectations and a Lot of Hype: Magic Leap One AR Headset Goes on Sale for $2,295 in Certain US Markets (cnet.com)
After earning the moniker "tech's most secretive startup" from Wired and telling Forbes in 2016 it was going to ship its system "soon-ish," the company is finally releasing the $2,295 Magic Leap One. For now, it will be available for purchase in limit U.S. markets. CNET: It includes a high-powered, moon pie-shaped computer called the Lightpack, a handheld remote called Control and a steampunk-inspired headset with round lenses and patented optics. That's called Lightwear. There's just one thing: Regular folks like us aren't the intended audience. At least not yet. This "Creator Edition," says CEO Abovitz, is part of a "controlled market release" in just a handful of cities in the United States for the developers and creative types Magic Leap will woo this year and next. The goal: for those makers to dream up the experiences (aka content) it needs to convince us to become Leapers. The company is already showing investors and partners prototypes of its smaller (and hopefully less expensive) Magic Leap Two and Magic Leap Three, but won't say when they'll be released. Magic Leap, valued at $6.3 billion as of two months ago, counts Google, Alibaba, Warner Bros, AT&T, and several top Silicon Valley venture capital firms and about a dozen other big names as its investors. More about the product going on sale here.
All the hallmarks of a classic Silicon Valley startup scam: initial, extremely high-priced product made available in limited quantities, illustrious sponsors spoken of in hushed tones, and absolutely no value proposition of any kind whatsoever.
I hate to say this but the product seems a little too expensive compared to what people are willing to pay for. Occulus Rift and HTC Vive which are both working VR solutions are at least half this amount (not including needing a really powerful PC) are struggling to survive. I don't see how this is going to work. Also people joked about Google Glasses looking goofy considering it was a version of AR overlay. So good luck, but it seems destined to fail.
It's exciting to see another computer independent headset coming out this year - I was hoping we'd get past the VR-only devices like the Oculus Go and Lenovo Mirage Solo. Good opportunity for wealthy early adopters to get to play with the new tech and help support it as we move into an AR enabled future! I don't think I can justify the cost for this first generation device, but it's a step in the right direction!
^
+---- TFA said the AR googles were not intended for regular folks, so I tried schpeaking mit a German accent. Maybe I qualify as one of ze irregulars?
I'll just wait till the price comes down when/if they start mass producing them. I don't have 2300 bucks to waste on fancy headsets, I got bills.
Cannot find REALITY.SYS. Universe halted.
At that pricing and with the mystery market it was released on Magic Leap does not anyone to buy ML1.
"Handful of cities"? What does that mean? You have to prove residency in L.A. to buy one? You have to queue up in line physically in one of these "cities" to get one?
Do I have to fork up $2300 to buy a thing you made, and then you're like "now get to fucking work making stuff for it and advertise it so our business doesn't go under, dipshit"? Who the hell is running that shit show? Steve Jobs?
biomechanical creatures called Leapers that attach to people through a bio-tether proboscis and induce hallucinatory visions of an imaginary world
OMGWTFLOLBBQ
anyone find a link to the comic book?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Magic Leap into the poor house.
At $2,295, this is no longer an easy purchase for a developer. Especially for something which at this time should be seen as â€oeI as a developer add more value to the platform than the platform adds to my productsâ€
At that price, I would have to go through way too much pain to order the 3 units I would need to even consider using time on this. There needs to be one for developers, one for QA and one for business folks. Thatâ€(TM)s almost $7000 just to get started.
Whatâ€(TM)s more, itâ€(TM)s a large investment to make in a market which is unproven from a vendor that is very much unproven. I seriously doubt they will even have a logistics strategy sorted out by the time I manage to ship a product on the platform. What I mean is, all their resellers will try it and stock a few and then give up. All sales would then end up being direct or through Amazon.
Also, with a product priced to sell hardly a few thousand units at that price point, there will be almost no usable bug reports generated. The result will be that a truly substandard platform will be shipped.
Developing quality products on platforms like this depends heavily on mass economy. If you donâ€(TM)t have at least a hundred thousand users, there will simply not be enough user feedback to make anything worth using.
try french
And good grief:
"My name is Sparkydog. You can call me Zander, all my friends do"
No they do not. That's no-friend-having-guy talk. Also that zoot-suit makes you look like a child molester.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"We're very conscious of how the product looks on your face. "
It looks like the peak of sophistication.