
Magic Leap One Creator's Edition First Look - AndrewDucker
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/08/magic-leap-one-creators-edition-first-look.html
======
Guest9812398
As always with Magic Leap, I'm still not seeing a single compelling use case.
Sea turtles swimming around the air, or a T-rex on the desk is fun for a few
minutes, but it's not worth the price of entry. At this point, I've lost all
faith in their vision. After years of following their posts, they haven't
demonstrated a single thing of value.

What are they expecting now? They honestly think developers are going to flock
to this device with no audience for $2,250 and produce groundbreaking
applications and games that will sell millions of Magic Leaps to consumers to
recover their investment?

Why don't they take that 2.5 billion dollars, and prove a single application
or game _can_ be developed for this product that people will line up to buy?
If they can't do it with unlimited money, almost a decade of time, and the
future of their business depending on it, then why do they expect some random
developers are going to pay money to do it for them?

I know this post sounds negative, but I'm 100% convinced this product will be
dead on arrival and nothing more than a 2.5 billion dollar mistake to show a
few hundred people floating jellyfish in their living room.

~~~
lionpixel
Totally disagree. AR will be the future of modern businesses in 10 years.
Every employee will be equipped with this technology having a virtual
keyboard, email inbox, avatar chat... all within one device.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
You may be surprised to learn that the vast majority of white collar employees
are already equipped with one device that has a keyboard, email inbox, and
chat.

~~~
tim333
And AR creatures for that matter if you download the Pokemon app.

------
michaelbuckbee
MagicLeap definitely has been overhyped, but for HN readers, there are still
reasons to be cautiously optimistic that this is real progress.

1\. There's a neat hardware size progression for ML that was posted on
Twitter: MagicLeap's gone from a device like you stare through at the
optometrists office down to something comparable to a scuba mask.

[https://twitter.com/karanganesan/status/1024970520205307904?...](https://twitter.com/karanganesan/status/1024970520205307904?s=19)

2\. There are a few different ways to achieve AR style displays and what Magic
Leap has chosen is the hard way -> lightfields and eye tracking (two
technologies that haven't really been attempted to ship at scale).

3\. This is still a developers' release - and not truly a "paradigm shift" or
whatever overhyped term you want to use.

Separate from all that, I still think the end game of AR (in the next 10ish
years) is to be the thing that comes "next" after smartphones. The proper way
to view this ML Dev kit is that it's the equivalent to a PalmPilot or other
barely functional PDA that had some good ideas, but didn't quite hit the right
inflection point of portability, screen, battery life, form factor, etc. but
that paves the way to get there.

~~~
tehsauce
I think calling this "equivalent to a palm pilot" is a stretch. The palm pilot
was an successful consumer product that was obviously useful and easily
improved on. Current AR offerings like magic leap and hololens are super cool,
but nothing close to useful. The fact they are labeled as "development kits"
makes this pretty clear. AR/VR is going to have a much rockier road to
usefulness than smartphones, which are really hard to beat.

~~~
fsloth
"nothing close to useful"

I disagree. Hololens is used for plenty of custom applications in the
construction industry. You just don't hear about them because they are pretty
much inhouse projects, likely implemented on top of unity (hence low cost and
simple to deploy).

Here is an example
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF8H_GAm8mM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF8H_GAm8mM)

No consumer killer apps yet, that is of course true. But I wouldn't see AR in
any major way in consumer space - just like you don't have HUD displays in a
large category of vehicles, even though they are critical to military
cockpits.

~~~
giobox
How big is 'plenty' I wonder? I see videos like this that look like fancy tech
demos all the time, but I'm hesitant to claim this somehow demonstrates AR has
found a meaningfully sized market in an industry.

Personally, I'd put money on the number of people using HoloLens outside of
dev teams in applications like this being in the low hundreds/thousands, but
would love to be shown data to the contrary. Cool youtube videos unfortunately
do not really indicate anything.

~~~
kthejoker2
Concur, as a Microsoft partner we had one of the first 7 Hololens. We made
exactly 3 sales with it ... Of Hololens development. Though one was for a
training cave that served thousands of new hires a year, so maybe one more
order of magnitude in total?

But it brought a ton of clients in the door, so mission accomplished.

------
Klathmon
This was actually a pretty well grounded article compared to what I was
expecting.

I'm with the author, I absolutely think this kind of thing will be the next
step in computing. It just seems so obvious. Get rid of screeens and wear a
headset that lets you put application windows anywhere in your view.

I'm glad they questioned a lot of Magic Leap's claims and didn't just parrot
back the taglines and act like it's magic.

That being said, I don't think Magic Leap is going to be the product that
"wins". It seems from this article that it's going to run its own "OS", with
it's own special apps, and most likely limited integration with other stuff.

I don't want a new "device", a new os, a new "platform", I want a screen that
I strap to my face. One that I can eventually connect to my Linux machine, or
my windows desktop, or my MacBook. Maybe in wrong, but I feel like Magic Leap
is going to die if it demands that kind of integration, regardless of how
technically impressive it is.

Hololens on the other hand is something I'm giving a good amount of
consideration to, because they seem to be focusing on "a screen you strap to
your face".

~~~
tokyodude
But you don't really. (Well, I don't).

It seems obvious to me that there's a progression. Back in Apple II, C64, DOS
days computers generally ran a single app at a time.

Windowing systems were invented allowing multiple apps to share the same
screen. This is what we've had for 30-40 years.

For AR though we need multiple apps to share the same 3D space all running at
the same time just like I have 14 apps running on my laptop right now.

I need my mapping app drawing the path to my destination. I need my
transportation app showing me the next bus/train coming. I need my virtual pet
app adding my virtual pet around my feet. I need my social networking app to
show me my friends info next to them in me view. I need my dating app
highlighting people that are potential matches.

All of this has to happen simultaneously and at 90fps. That will require an
entirely new OS and possibly new hardware (dual GPUs, ... or pre-emptable
GPUs) one for compositing the 3D world at 90fps and one for apps so if app
takes too long to generate it's portion of the scene the entire OS doesn't
start running low. An old OS that only runs a single 3D app at a time and
who's apps don't share the same 3D space will be a huge hindrance to AR being
truly revolutionary.

I'm not saying Magic Leap's OS is that OS but that OS is not
MacOS/iOS/Windows/Linux/Android

~~~
bograt
> For AR though we need multiple apps to share the same 3D space all running
> at the same time

This is something that I've given some practical thought to. The approach that
I considered was to treat each application process as a client to a '3D space'
service through which it could add and modify defined geometry.

Failure/slowness of any given application would leave the existing application
geometry in-situ within the 3D environment and avoid the most jarring extremes
of user experience. I imagined that the service interface itself would mandate
the availability of simplified geometries together with meta information. This
would allow the service to appropriately degrade the 3D rendered environment
to maintain high framerates.

I think this approach could be effective and would not require a new OS.

~~~
photojosh
I had a similar thought a few weeks ago, but for smartphone camera and mapping
apps (and the intersection of the two when it comes to world-based AR). Rather
than every new app out there having to implement their own camera and map
view, have them provide an extension that can be called by the native
camera/map apps (providing the view bounds/coordinates/etc), that returns a
rendered layer that gets overlaid on the view.

Examples:

In my state we have a govt funded web/native app that provides the fuel prices
at all the service stations around you. If there was a mapping extension you
could turn on, it would show this directly within the mapping app, and also an
indicator "cheapest fuel within X km is at Y location" when you're in
navigation mode.

In camera view with an extension turned on, provide object detection similar
to how QR codes are recognised.

------
Ajedi32
I still don't quite get how Magic Leap's "Lightfield" display is different
from that of other augmented reality devices. The article has a few things to
say about this, but I still don't really understand:

> A Dynamic Digital Lightfield is a binocular display that can project digital
> objects into the world such that light enters the eye as if it were
> reflected from a real object. Our lightfield is biomimetic (mimics our
> biology/physiology). Magic Leap One creates a seamless experience where
> digital and analog lightfields combine into a single scene. For example,
> with Magic Leap One, you can render digital flowers in a physical vase so
> they can appear fresh every day.

Like that. How is that different from what Hololens does?

> Abovitz told me that the light can only be interpreted by a human — not a
> camera — so part of his problem in launching his product is that he can't
> film the experience.

How is a camera sufficiently different from the human eye that you physically
can't film an image through the headset? Or is this just saying you can't film
it in the sense that a flat image on a monitor can't really convey the
experience of trying the headset on for yourself? (The latter is a well known
problem with VR.) If the latter, again, how is that different from Hololens?

All-in-all the product does look promising; it appears to be less bulky than
competing headsets and the devkit is less expensive too. I'm just not sure
whether the display technology is a competitive advantage or not.

~~~
frabcus
I don't think we know quite enough about the detail of Magic Leap's technology
yet - there are some analysis articles based on their patents, but it's an
incomplete picture.

However, the general concept of a "light field display" is worth knowing.

Normal displays work by creating pixels that glow. Each pixel emits light in
all directions. That passes through your eye if it is looking at the object,
which focuses it back into one point on the retina.

In a (pure imaginary) light field display, instead individual rays of light
are produced, not pixels. The individual rays can be faked so even though
emitted very near your eye, they are focused by your eye and your brain thinks
they are further away.

Possible advantages of this (off the top of my head based on reasoning from
the physics and the way vision works and the way existing displays are used):

\- Can create objects at any distance - including infinity. Your brain (it's
stereoscopy tricked) will believe they really are at that distance.

\- The viewer can change focus, and the objects will correctly blur and come
in and out of focus.

\- An individual large object could have varying distance and focus across its
form as in the real world.

\- Because of the improved stereo and focus, in an AR display especially,
there will be less contrast between the projected objects and the real world.
They will just seem "more real" in comparison to real objects.

\- Vision correction. In theory a light field display could project images
that correct for any vision defects you have - dynamically. (In practice the
talk of special lenses for glasses whereas in the OP article shows that Magic
Leap isn't at a level it can do that yet)

\- Special effects. So of course you can then do other funky things - play
with faking visual defects for special effects. Your character could appear to
need glasses, and then get them as a powerup etc. Or you could make someone's
vision blur when they're tired or about to die. Or have a boss which is always
out of focus in an odd way.

Of course Magic Leap won't be that good. It is only digital. It will be
granular both in normal resolution and in effective depth of field resolution.
But still... It really does sound like it has _some_ of the above benefits.

~~~
russdill
There's a really easy way to tell if something is that type of light field
display and ML is clearly not. Such a display would only be visible from a
single point.

From the very weak way ML is using the term light field, anytime there is
light, there is a light field. An LCD monitor produces a light field.

------
georgeecollins
I'm glad to see a ML release a product but people who are overoptimistic about
AR need to understand that this doesn't work in very low or bright light--
like being outdoors. So the idea that you are going to walk around a
construction site, or get directions from it, are unrealistic. You are not
going to wear it for long periods of time unless you are in a very controlled
environment. Also, there is a long way to go in terms of field of view, so the
idea that the display will annotate everything you see is a long ways off.

I believe this technology will advance, but I think some of the unrealistic
expectations do not help.

------
ArtWomb
Congrats to ML on shipping! Achieving the technical challenge of seamless
natural and artificial photon sources will pay dividends for many decades to
come. But in the immediate term, market fit is going to be the next enormous
challenge here. Their paradigm is dubbed "spatial computing". It is in a
sense, "high-fidelity" augmented reality. Close range precision tolerances for
delicate design work is probably the most demonstrable application. Although
it has yet to be integrated into existing pipelines for microscopy, etc.
However, CEO Rony Abovitz seems to be positioning the ML One Creator Edition
as a consumer electronics device for casual gaming enthusiasts?

I am just unsure which demographic they are targeting with a $2500+ headset.
The tagline: free your mind. With a poster that even includes a reference to a
VW microbus. Obvious roots in psychedelic culture. For which, undoubtedly, the
experience would be immensely hedonic and synesthetic. How large is this
audience of virtual shamans?

~~~
veli_joza
The audience is mentioned in article - it's dev kit for content creators. It's
too bulky for general consumer market and there is not enough content yet. I
suspect the current processing power will also be upgraded in final product
for higher fidelity of 3D graphics.

So far the gaming industry was driver behind tech, but with augmented reality
being so useful for industry (navigating warehouses, for example), this might
change. The prices will drop, but I don't expect ML will be priced at <$1000
anytime soon.

Psychedelic application would be very interesting. Imagine experiencing
something like Waking Life or Scanner Darkly wherever you look. A gimmick, but
good demonstration of tech.

------
bryanlarsen
The verge's first look was less positive:
[https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/8/17662040/magic-leap-one-
cr...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/8/17662040/magic-leap-one-creator-
edition-preview-mixed-reality-glasses-launch)

~~~
Analemma_
This seemed especially worrying:

 _> Tracking was generally good, but objects occasionally shifted or jittered.
A few times, animated objects seized up altogether, which might have been an
issue with tracking, Lightpack performance, or something else._

I tried a HoloLens last year[0] and, whatever its other fauls, the tracking
was perfect and objects moved smoothly like they were actually real. If Magic
Leap is behind Microsoft's two-year-old tech, that's a bad sign, especially
when they've pitched themselves as being categorically better than all other
AR.

[0] My thoughts here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14106028#14107939](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14106028#14107939)

~~~
dingo_bat
Microsoft's software prowess may well turn out to be the deciding factor if it
ever comes to a showdown between hololens and magicleap. I don't see a great
big difference in hardware quality or tech. Software's going to be the
differentiator, just like in the smartphone wars where iphone won everything
in spite of the early hardware being lacklustre compared to competitors.

------
uptown
"Magic Leap One starting at $2,295. Magic Leap One is available to creators in
cities across the contiguous US. And the list is growing daily. To help you
take your first step into spatial computing, we’re going to hand deliver the
device to your doorstep and personally get you set up."

Interesting deployment strategy.

~~~
swalsh
In the wired article, it mentions that the device is closely related to your
physiology, so setup can be difficult. Adding a person to help you get set up
can probably make the experience a bit less frustrating.

------
aphextron
As someone who has owned every major VR HMD since Oculus DK1 and spent
thousands of hours developing in VR I will not be buying this. We have _soooo_
far to go yet in terms of hardware for VR/AR to truly catch on. I don't see
anything here that is any more impressive than what Microsoft has been doing
with Hololens for over 2 years now.

Even worse, are their pricing tiers [0] - you have to pay an extra $500 for
"Early access to beta software and developer tools", which is just the height
of absurdity. You then have to pay ANOTHER $500 for a "Priority Service Plan"
and a "shoulder strap". I figured the company was shady but this is just
hilarious.

[0] [https://i.imgur.com/eqxiEjT.png](https://i.imgur.com/eqxiEjT.png)

------
telltruth
Neither magic, nor leap. Pretty much HoloLens 1.2. Rony Abovitz Had been
apologizing in interviews that they had been too arrogant. He should. I
especially hated his act at Ted where he wasted everyone’s time with absolute
arrogant elitness of putting themselves as ultra-creative people. Can’t
believe all these big name investors fell for them. How did these creative
elites couldn’t even figure out a single killer app for so many years to ship
with the device? Remember all those secret press interviews where they teased
that it’s not another me-too HoloLens? And where is that whale jumping out in
front of school kids? Here’s a shout out for you and you deserve it:
Fraudsters!

------
atonalfreerider
>"When you have a human working with AI, they always beat the AI. That's super
powerful."

This isn't always the case. The best Centaur Chess players (Human + AI) still
lose to the best AI: [https://www.chess.com/news/view/stockfish-outlasts-
nakamura-...](https://www.chess.com/news/view/stockfish-outlasts-
nakamura-3634)

~~~
drivers99
It compared "the latest development build [of top chess engine Stocktish]
compiled for OS X and running on a 3ghz 8-core Mac Pro." vs a highly ranked
player and "the assistance of an older version of Rybka (about 200 points less
than Stockfish's 3200+ rating), and it ran on a 2008 MacBook." I think the
question is how does a top AI compare to the same top AI + (skilled?) human.

------
partiallypro
What is the FoV compared to the HoloLens? The article reads like it has the
same FoV issue but didn't go over specifics. Though we have to keep in mind
that HoloLens is now an older device and a new version is coming out soon. So
then the question becomes, did they ship this 2 years too late, or does it
even matter?

I also find it interesting that instead of making it stand alone, they require
a belt/pocket clip computer unlike Hololens. The headset seems much more
compact, makes me wonder what Microsoft will be able to squeeze out in v2 of
Hololens. Either way, competition is good.

~~~
ByronFortescue
The Verge said in their video: FOV of 50, so very small, where an oculus has
80 and HTC Vive (I believe) has 100 FOV.

------
tomp
Wow, this actually sounds amazing. Not magical in any way, nor a real leap,
but still... It's like looking at the first iPod. Looking back, it looks
awfully retarded, but back then, it was the first primitive iteration of a
paradigm-changing technology.

Personally, the only "convincing" I need is price, weight/convenience, and
software. All will come in time, I'm certain. Eventually, these have a real
chance of being way _better_ than phones/laptops, e.g. they'll likely use much
less battery (as the "screen" is smaller).

~~~
gremlinsinc
I'd say it's more like a palm-pilot vs a modern iphone or samsung galaxy... we
still have a long ways to go. It's exciting sure, it'll change everything
but..we have to wait for it to get to modern smartphone levels of coolness..

------
kup0
From what I've gathered, they aren't actually using light fields, and they
suffer from the same "looking through a window" problem that Hololens has

So, have they really accomplished anything other than creating a new HMD, one
with less of an ecosystem than existing products?

------
dmode
One thing I feel nobody talks about with regards to AR is that it introduces a
new paradigm, a new behavior that is "not normal". It asks you to wear
something and walk around all day with information being displayed. That's not
a muscle memory we have today. If you think about the most successful
companies today, what they have done is that they have taken an existing
behavior and make it better. We already shopped at stores and Amazon just made
it easier to do it online. We already had friends and Facebook simply made it
easier to interact with them. Google helped us search information faster that
we were already looking for. Very few companies have introduced a completely
new behavior to humans that we weren't already doing. In that sense, I am
struggling to think about a behavior that AR and consequently Magic Leap will
replace. I can think of B2B applications with oil industry and perhaps
surgery. But that' niche. Beyond that, what exactly is it solving for ?

------
aerophilic
So far, one of the more informative, balanced articles I have seen on Magic
Leap.

I still remain curious what do they really mean by the lightfield. Does anyone
have more information here?

The best I can infer is they don’t actually have a “screen” with pixels per
say, but they somehow attenuate the light as it goes through the “rectangle”.
Why I say this is different than pixels is that it almost seems like they are
doing something more “analog”. By attenuating the light as it comes in, rather
than adding its own light, I see how that you could get a different “type” of
light that may be better from a human processing perspective. The “screen”
would effectively consist of a high resolution array of “windows” that
selectively attenuate the light going through them. It would also explain why
they can’t take “video” of the experience.

Do others agree with my shot in the dark? Or is there some other way they
could be realizing this technology?

------
freeone3000
Augmented reality standalone computers are cool, but these guys are at the
same price point as the Hololens, and have three components instead of one,
with less battery and a narrower field of view. Maybe they can differentiate
themselves on a better development environment?

~~~
tigershark
It's exactly the opposite. Hololens is 3000$, it's heavier on your head
because it has only one piece, the battery life is shorter and the field of
view is much smaller (30x17.5 for hololens vs 40X30 for magic leap).

~~~
freeone3000
Magic Leap is marketed as $2500. That's $500 cheaper, or 15% of the price.
Essentially meaningless for anyone planning to buy one. Claimed battery life
for Magic Leap is 3 hours, claimed battery life for hololens is 5.5 hours.
(I've personally gotten a bit longer but that's not objective.)

Weight concerns are valid - I wish they included actual figures for the weight
of the Magic Leap for comparison.

~~~
tigershark
No, it's marketed at 2295. Hololens ia a bit more than 30% more expensive, I
would not say that it is not meaningless. Doing what on hololens for 5.5
hours?

~~~
freeone3000
Application testing. 3D scenes rendered on top, a few holograms, remote
debugging enabled.

------
gadders
This is a review of the June LiveStream [1] from Karl Guttag that did a
detailed analysis of the hardware.

[1] [https://www.kguttag.com/2018/06/10/magic-leap-
livestream-02-...](https://www.kguttag.com/2018/06/10/magic-leap-
livestream-02-gives-up-some-clues/)

------
h4b4n3r0

      The Magic Leap One is 
      sort of like looking through 
      a window within your 
      field of view
    
    

So they've basically created Hololens, but unlike Hololens it doesn’t run any
of the existing software, and isn’t self contained. What a waste of money.

------
throwaway13337
This thing looks ridiculous.

AR glasses won't be a thing until they stop trying to put a tiny TV screen in
front of your face. It needs to fill your visual field.

They also won't be a mass adopted thing until they don't make you look like an
80s cartoon character.

The question remains whether VR will still have it's time before AR becomes
reasonable.

Until that is answered, VC money will continue to be sacrificed in a giant
fire on the alter of getting there first.

~~~
XorNot
The "look" of anything really doesn't matter provided it's comfortable and
useful.

The problem at the moment is we are technologically well behind where we need
to be to make practical AR in terms of screen resolutions.

~~~
Klathmon
I disagree.

I think the screen resolution isn't that big of a deal for many applications
(mostly games and stuff like it), and it's not like it's impossible right now,
just expensive.

The bigger hurdle from where I'm sitting is getting framerates and latency in
a good position. Everyone I've seen use a current gen VR headset gets horribly
motion sick in a lot of cases. That NEEDS to be fixed, and I think that comes
down to crazy high refresh rates, and super low latency, both of which really
crank up the processing power needed.

~~~
jobigoud
People don't get motion sick from the fps, latency and fov of current gen (PC)
VR (90 fps, ~0ms, ~100°). They get motion sick from vection and _maybe_ from
vergence accomodation conflict.

~~~
Impossible
People do get motion sick from FPS because a lot of popular games and
applications are not optimized, or have degenerate cases that cause hitches.
ASW\ATW help with this (run at half fps and interpolate basically), but don't
fix really bad fps or hitches. It doesn't help that often people are running
PC VR with under powered (minspec or lower) or "misconfigured" (bad drivers,
software, etc.) setups.

------
ArlenBales
Can Lightfield be done without glasses eventually? Every popular depiction of
AR in sci-fi is glasses-free, because wearing glasses everytime you want to do
AR is a nuisance and impractical. For example, the interactive and holographic
models in The Expanse series. If Magic Leap is paving the way for that
technology, then I hope they stay on their course despite the criticisms
toward their first product.

------
aj7
Soon: The Magic Leap and Theranos auctions.

