Holomakerbot

Price needs to come down and it needs to be wireless. I would wager 3-5 years just for wireless. Could be a decade for price to come down under a thousand. But I also think by then the separate processor wont be necessary anymore, either using your phone or cloud.

Have you seen the breakthroughs that Magic Leap 2 has achieved? Still not at the price point for consumers but it pretty much solves all the annoyances of the first device or HoloLens for that matter. No longer looking through a tiny FOV, holograms no longer transparent, usable outdoors, first device able to display black. It is quite an achievement.

The irony with Karl’s blog is that he’s done nearly a 180 on Magic Leap with the debut of their second product. They’ve ironically becciome relevant again, just not in the consumer space at all.

There is a middle ground between hardware being ubiquitous and being like 3D Tv that fizzled out just a few years after launching. VR has been growing exponentially each year since its consumer launch in 2016. AR will just open up the use cases even more and helps it continue to grow.

People should really google this before asking the question multiple times.

They have two products. The second one has already been getting a lot of praise for two major breakthroughs— the ability to display black and the largest FOV in a see through optical headset. The whole topic of this thread is a bit of a straw man, as they’ve actually become relevant again, by making a compelling device and pivoting to enterprise. They’re just not in the consumer game anymore.

Honestly, with high priced dev kits they just need to be given out for free like Valve did with the Vive. Magic leap has given out thousands just to get devs on board.

Not really. Remember that before their device launched they were ridiculed for being too honest and showing the rock throwing guy demo. This was months before you could buy it: https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/273280-magic-leaps-first-...

He's underestimating (though not by a whole lot probably). The 6k numbers from the above article refer to the first 6 months sale. Guttag is talking about the last 18 months. Also doesn't account for the headsets that have been seeded to devs.

Notice that zero VR companies show you through the lens footage. This is not restricted to Magic Leap. You can find amateur attempts by owners to shoot through Magic Leap, Hololens, and various VR headsets if you go on Youtube and Twitter. But no company does this at all. Just another misunderstanding by people here who think they've found another reason to nitpick at Magic leap, but it's a widespread industry issue. VR is actually the worst about this because they only show straight from the PC output with none of the limitations you actually experience like FOV and screen door effect.

That's just how it goes with AR, you can find some amateur clips people have tried to shoot through the lens themselves but it's very difficult. Even Microsoft doesn't shoot through the lens and has gotten similar flack. Best they can do is composite imaging, which actually looks worse than through the lens.

You’ll actually be hard pressed to find any press anywhere that thinks the hardware is bad.

This was reported just the other day:

"The original HoloLens has been out for a long time now, so a new (hopefully cheaper) version is overdue, but it now looks like we won’t see it before 2020."

https://www.techradar.com/news/hololens-20-could-be-delayed-...

The silver lining is that devs actually really like the device. Despite the hype/reality factor that tainted the initial reviews the consensus is that the device itself is actually quite good. If all you read are the negatives, especially hit pieces from Guttag then I could see why you have the point of view you do. In fact you'll be hard pressed to find any reviews outside of Guttag and Palmer Luckey who state the device is bad:

Hololens developers:

https://brekel.com/category/magic-leap/

https://medium.com/futurepi/magic-leap-one-in-depth-review-b...

AR/VR reporters:

https://twitter.com/kentbye/status/1038927438279888896?s=21

https://uploadvr.com/heres-what-actual-developers-think-of-t...

New content is getting praise:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/19/17876488/angry-birds-magi...

And this is just the start. Their dev conference is in a week. Lots more to see and I don't think they're going anywhere for a very long time.

You either didn't notice or forgot the bad press Hololens endured for misleading advertising:

https://mashable.com/2015/10/06/microsoft-hololens-misleadin...

https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/6/9465839/microsoft-hololen...

Going back further, Microsoft has a history of this with things like Project Milo on the Kinect. These things really don't matter in the end though. Its the technology itself that matters, and how good or bad it is relative to the market.

Most reviews acknowledge that despite it not being a huge technological advancement it’s still the best standalone AR headset. Second, devs love it. Check out the activity on social media or hands on reviews from actual devs using it. They’re very positive about it.

Here’s a recent write up from a well known Hololens dev: https://brekel.com/my-thoughts-on-developing-with-magic-leap...

Ironic that you think HoloLens would be the one that plays nice with every device when it’s already limited to Windows. Magic Leap on the other hand is a less than two week old device that already plays nice with iOS/Android/MacOS and Windows.

Exactly. Take two minutes to look at the last popular posts about magic Leap here and it’s filled with patronizing criticism of anyone that thinks the product could either be real, not a scam, or actually good.

Lots of confusion over this device, which can be chalked up to all the FUD spread around about it. Nearly half the 2 billion they got was in the last year alone. Investors like Google have been there since day one and not left.

You may notice that nearly half their funding was gained in the last year, well after the existence of their current product.

Not even that really. They got series A funding in 2014. Releases this August. That’s less time than most Rockstar games.

This is a silly question. It just passed through the FCC and is launching next week.

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.

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.

They gave private demos at GDC in March. https://twitter.com/radiocurea/status/976549719664050176?s=2...

None of those companies are building a full stack computing platform.

Magic leap did not raise $2.3b 8 years ago. They raised that amount gradually over the course of the last 4 years.

That’s the opposite of what the very thorough hands on Rolling Stone article had to say about it. Why are we even speculating about the user experience at this point?

And yet this analysis from someone who hasn’t even touched the actual hardware or even has specs to base his analysis on is painting a completely different picture than the people who have reported on it since December. People are right to be skeptical of this just as they are magic leap.

2b is a drop in the bucket compared to other companies like Microsoft and Apple. They’re not just building a headset, but the software to run it and funding both 1st and 3rd party content.