Magic Leap goes to Finland in pursuit of VR and AR talent

https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/magic-leap-goes-to-finland-in-pursuit-of-nordic-vr-and-ar-talent/?ncid=rss

by SkarredGhost • 10 years ago

99 63 10 years ago

koolba• 10 years ago

Curious how this is #8 on the front page with 3 points[1].

Even more curious what the actual product of this company is going to be. A VR dev kit? Their website is devoid of anything but videos of people going "Ooohh!" at special effects.

[1] http://archive.is/AwjrF

EDIT: Added link to snapshot.

cma• 10 years ago

Supposedly AR glasses with multiple focal planes and with localized occlusion (blacking out the world; don't know if this part is being done at the different focal planes, I'm more skeptical of it than any of the other parts, because all of their through-glasses views have been in very dim rooms).

mojomark• 10 years ago

Supposedly AR glasses with multiple focal planes and with localized occlusion (blacking out the world;

I recommend being more specific when referring to occlusion with respect to AR systems. There are two primary forms: (1) "Real Occlusion" in which selected wavefronts are blocked (occluded) such that a transparent near-eye display is capable of displaying black, (2) "Virtual Occlusion" in which real objects are actively scanned/tracked to permit virtual objects to appear occluded being real objects.

ML system claims both capabilities, and I agree with you that Real Occlusion is several orders of magnitude more difficult. I think real occlusion is valuable, because in addition to displaying black it enables images to appear solid vice translucent. However, I don't feel it's an absolutely necessary feature for a quality AR systems. After all, ultra bright projection displays present perfectly fine images without displaying true black. They simply exploit the properties of human eye perception with respect to brightness contrast of adjacent pixels. An AR system can do the same.

Personally, I would prefer to have a quality AR system with unlimited FOV constraints and virtual occlusion capability sooner rather than wait for real occlusion to be perfected.

bobsil1• 10 years ago

How Magic Leap probably works, based on patents: http://gpuofthebrain.com/blog/2016/7/22/how-magic-leap-will-...

bpicolo• 10 years ago

While Magic Leap is clearly going after talent in locations that have established themselves in fields integral to VR/AR. Florida – where the company is headquartered – is a burgeoning gaming and graphics hub with Orlando as one of the biggest video game development communities in the US.

Except they're in Ft. Lauderdale?

Still pretty skeptical of Magic Leap given time-to-market(public demo, etc). I do hope they do well, though - I grew up in the area, cool to see some interesting tech there.

existencebox• 10 years ago

So here's my concern with Magic Leap. (And I say this with friends working there, so I WANT them to succeed more than anything, but I can't help but look askew at some of the secrecy)

If their technology is _so critically secret_ that everything needs to be under more NDA/IP protection than I've seen in almost any other consumer product, one would think that implies it's readily duplicatable if someone just had the secret sauce? But in that case, one would expect to see more results after how long they've been in dev. I've heard in many cases founders/VCs laugh at the concept of "keeping your million dollar idea secret" because of the concern that someone will steal it, let alone a concept so complex that a group of some of the better specialists in this area (AR/VR/robotics/wearables/vision) have taken this long to bring a product to market.

So is the concern just about entities like Google/MSR who would show up out of the blue willing to throw essentially endless money at the problem? Because off the top of my head they have not shown a great track record of even executing on _their own_ ideas with a compelling end product on a fast enough time-scale to be competitive against someone with a multi year lead. I'm just not sure I follow the benefit of this level of secrecy compared to the amount of skepticism it naturally generates in someone who would love to be an early adopter.

mstresh• 10 years ago

Put it the other way: what would be the benefit of publicly disclosing their secret sauce? Perhaps to help fuel their recruiting pipeline, but I can't think of any other good reasons to do so.

They don't have a product out, their secret sauce might change, Google/MSR might be working on something similar and just need a few hints in the right direction to get there, they get to keep a big first-mover advantage in whatever area their tech enables them to move into, and there's no opportunity for possible early adopters like yourself to get in on the action yet.

I'm guessing their tech isn't so much "critically secret" as there just isn't a benefit to their business case for publicizing what they are doing

akhatri_aus• 10 years ago

If it is easily duplicatable this strategy allows them to build up tonnes of labour that would take a copier a lot of time to replicate. So there's a bit of time to capture up profits and evolve to the next iteration.

onion2k2• 10 years ago

It's wholly possible that taking the idea from a concept to a working product is just so hard that they don't want to show it off before it's 'ready'.

Demonstrating an innovative product before it's in a state where people can really understand it is risky - getting written down by tech pundits would seriously increase the time it'd take to get the public to buy in. Arguably that's what happened with Google Glass; early adopters bought in but couldn't realise the potential of their investment, so there was something of a backlash. That limited Google's options for a bigger launch because people wouldn't have bought in. They apparently kept going but in secret. Magic Leap are doing the same thing but without the mistake of launching too early.

mbesto3• 10 years ago

It's wholly possible that taking the idea from a concept to a working product is just so hard that they don't want to show it off before it's 'ready'.

So if it's not 'ready', then what do GV investors know/see about the product that an average person couldn't see? In other words, if the product is in a half state, then what confidence do the investors have the team will get it to the a full state. It's like saying "invest in my rocket company that is going to take people to another solar system...and here's the demo of a rocket going to the stratosphere". No one has been able to send a rocket to another solar system but a plethora of organizations have done so to the stratosphere, so what additional insight does one have that makes me so confident that this is the team to get us to another solar system?

cocktailpeanuts4• 10 years ago

Google Glass failed not because it wasn't ready. It WAS ready product-wise AND technology-wise. It failed because it was just a bad product. Nobody likes to be video recorded without knowing, and nobody likes to make other people uncomfortable.

If Google Glass had instead launched WITHOUT the live streaming and all the features that violate people's privacy, it may still be around, no matter how bad it looked.

What excited people about Google Glass was NOT being able to record others without them knowing, but how it could potentially provide value by augmenting reality.

Likewise, I'm sure Magic Leap should be "ready" at this point. If they are not, it means they still haven't found their MVP, which is a bad sign. I have never seen a piece of technology that succeeded by launching 100% refined. All successful technology launch as something that's not quite perfect but even with the limited performance provides value to small set of audience. And this includes even Apple.

gthtjtkt2• 10 years ago

Good point. That reminds me, they've also raised more than $1.4 billion, which seems like a pretty good barrier to entry, imo.

And, furthermore, there aren't even enough AR/VR programmers to support multiple companies in this market: http://www.businessinsider.com/magic-leap-lawsuit-secrets-re...

So anyone thinking of "stealing" their idea has to deal with the facts that 1. They're already way behind, 2. The monetary investment is massive, and 3. They may never catch up because they'll be in an endless employee poaching war

w1ntermute3• 10 years ago

That's like saying it costs a billion dollars to develop a drug, so there's a big barrier to entry. Making the first pill (or Magic Leap) might cost $1B, but the second will only cost a couple hundred bucks. That's why there's a patent system.

6stringmerc3• 10 years ago

If you'd like an individual take on secrecy and inventions from a bootstrap / one-guy perspective, I wrote an informal essay discussing a lot of the questions and concepts you touch upon:

https://medium.com/@6StringMerc/why-i-keep-secrets-as-a-wann...

fapjacks• 10 years ago

Ah, I'm just now noticing that this is your post. I enjoyed your writing in this post and others I read after clicking around. We seem to share interests, though I suppose that's not so surprising considering this is HN.

hyperpallium2• 10 years ago

The problem with VR/AR is latency. It needs to be 10ms or less to feel real. We aren't anywhere near it.

The same is true of touch screens: when latency gets below 10ms, the experience changes to an actual physical object. Current touchscreen latencies are terrible, but we don't notice it because they are still useful for input and we don't know any better.

If we can't even do it for touch screens, how can we do it for VR/AR? The glut of products is just a supply-side bubble.

doublerebel2• 10 years ago

Hololens runs at 60Hz and the leading VR glasses run at 90Hz. We're quite near it. Having used these products myself, it definitely can be enough for suspension of disbelief.

The reason touch screens have lag is because the render thread isn't as prioritized. An iOS device that isn't loaded with software has a basically instant response.

I would love it though if we prioritized the UI thread across all devices, it feels a bit nutty to have this much processing power these days, and still have a UI lock up.

smaddox• 10 years ago

Magic leap is way beyond designing low latency display drivers (hardware or software). They're designing and fabricating their own many-layer photonic crystals with complexity rivaling that of VLSI chips from a couple decades ago (except not on silicon, meaning they've had to reinvent a significant fraction of the process).

Latency may be an issue for them in terms of making seamless AR, due the limitations of existing camera hardware in terms of latency (existing camera hardware is not designed for low latency), but I suspect they're partnering (or will be partnering soon) with major players in the CMOS imaging realm. As far as display latency, I doubt it will be an issue for them. They're already having to design the entire display from the ground up---I suspect they have the forethought to design it as a low latency system.

alando46• 10 years ago

vaporware

pawanpe• 10 years ago

#4 now http://archive.is/82Q85

6stringmerc3• 10 years ago

Okay, I'm probably not the first or only person to have this sneaking suspicion, but here it goes anyway:

This run-up to Magic Leap is giving me déjà vu of the Segway.

xt00• 10 years ago

was totally thinking the same thing... 100% whatever they release unless it cures cancer and does AR and VR and uses displays that are like 1 million PPI, I think people are gonna be disappointed.. they are doing themselves a huge disservice by keeping it so hyped and so quiet.. same thing with the segway, people thought by the time it would launch that it would be like a legit hoverboard that shot beams of antigravity out the bottom.. then they launch and show people riding on two wheels with kids helmets and kneepads and elbow pads on.. I was like... um, no...

Jommi2• 10 years ago

Anybody want to actually discussed the news specifically, rather than just generally discussing magicleap yet again.

Or maybe the analysis was just So spot on? Not sure.

josephpmay2• 10 years ago

The article is seeping with misinformation. Not sure why it reached the front page vs. the other Magic Leap pieces that have come out this week.

Jommi2• 10 years ago

Hey thanks for responding! What parts are misinformation?

heeen2• 10 years ago

Does not really surprise me they picked Helsinki out of all the cities in europe, they already absorbed a bunch of ex Nokia talent

sagivo• 10 years ago

I like the facet that they don't follow the hype and actually open offices where they can find the best talent for their company. they did the same by opening an office in Israel as well where they can find a lot of VR/AR experience.

davesque• 10 years ago

I fear magic leap is riding the hype train more than is healthy. They're setting their potential future customers up for disappointment. It seems unlikely to me that whatever they're working on is so revolutionary that we're all going to agree that the secrecy was necessary.

I'd be interested to know if there's any precedent for this kind of strategy working to increase profits. The only examples I can think of (e.g. Segway) are ones in which the hype actually worked against adoption of the product when it was released.

At the end of the day, I really do hope they succeed. It will be great when someone comes up with the analogue of the first iPhone except for AR.

supermatt• 10 years ago

Most people (including the technical) that I've mentioned the name to, don't recognise it or know what it does. Maybe its just us hyping it up amongst ourselves?

vikascoder• 10 years ago

Suffice to say the tech that Magic Leap has is so much leaps and bounds better than Hololens that it will derail Microsoft's AR train completely once its launched. The hype is very real and so is the tech.

mrfusion• 10 years ago

I feel like we've been waiting for this product for almost ten years now. When is it coming?

efnx2• 10 years ago

I agree. I've been waiting since the Burger King vr boy.

mark_kalvelage• 10 years ago

Does anyone have any advice on how to start doing VR/AR development? What tools are used and knowledge is required?

glaze• 10 years ago

Get Unity or Unreal. Unity uses C#, Unreal uses C++ or a visual scripting system called Blueprints.

doublerebel2• 10 years ago

Microsoft has a series of tutorials using Unity for Hololens. Udacity just launched a new VR course using Unity as well.

However, performance can be a critical factor depending on the app, and C++ may be the only solution. For that you need low-level knowledge of shader+texture+render techniques, which for Hololens is generally all in DirectX.

There are very few business-oriented frameworks for any of the devices, almost everything is designed for gaming (short scripts and machine-oriented code organization). Implementing most of what we normally imagine being part of an 'app' has to be done from scratch.

Source: I am doing a Hololens startup.

skc• 10 years ago

I've been binging on Black Mirror episodes. So all this secrecy about whatever they are building is giving me the creeps.

bane• 10 years ago

At last, a VR/AR version of the classic game, "My Summer Car"

http://www.amistech.com/msc/

zump• 10 years ago

Why Finland and not Australia?

What's the Silicon Valley insiders attitude towards Australia?

Magic Leap goes to Finland in pursuit of VR and AR talent

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