
Another heavily-funded AR headset startup is shutting down - mathattack
https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/12/another-high-flying-heavily-funded-ar-headset-startup-is-shutting-down/
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RangerScience
I was at Daqri from employee ~12 to ~300. It was a wild ride and I've got some
really amazing memories with only a bit of scarring to show for it :)

Daqri was really good at recruiting amazing people, and really bad at turning
them into a functioning company. Communication between teams (and particularly
offices) was really lacking; I remember back when the helmet was built on
Android (in LA) and all the vision scientists were working on iOS (in
Sunnyvale), they had this amazing world-tracking demo that we just couldn't
use.

The Two Trees photonics tech is absolutely amazing, check it out if you get a
chance - field programmable holograms. Point the thing at any glass surface
and you get a hologram "in" it. Blew my mind the first time I saw it! Dunno if
it ever made it into headware.

~~~
aimablerex
Where do you feel the fault was, wrt communication problems and leadership?

Was it because of incentives being wrong in the company, the wrong people in
charge, something else?

~~~
RangerScience
Senior leadership didn't talk to individual contributors enough. They'd try
all sorts of things to set us up for success, but it was generally the wrong
thing, or at the wrong time, or the right thing in the wrong way. Re-orgs were
really common but really inneffective; I'd find myself on a new team with a
new boss and a week later I'd find myself working with the original team and
the original boss again, because to do what I needed to do those were the
people I needed to work with, not the new team and the new boss. I could
generally see what they'd be trying to accomplish with such re-orgs, but not
why they thought it would actually accomplish that.

The last re-org I was a part of before I left, our team was dissolved and I
was re-assigned to a new boss I'd had a pretty terrible time with in the past
to do exactly what I'd been doing on the dissolved team, minus many of the
best parts. He was absolutely surprised that I was not excited at this change,
and could not answer when I asked what the org change was supposed to fix
and/or improve. If they'd actually talked to any of us - including _my_ direct
manager at the time - prior to springing the change on us, could've probably
gotten us on-board and aligned, but that wasn't a thing that usually happened.

Incentives and having the right people in charge are a structure to facilitate
good communication, they are not a surrogate for that communication.

Thanks for the question!

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mdszy
The company I work for is trialing AR solutions for remote support purposes.
We've tried the glasses and customers hate it because it literally makes them
motion sick.

Our current thing is phone/tablet based where you can basically stream real
time video to our support staff and each party can draw on the screen, and
whatever they draw stays where it is in physical space.

Customers love it, it works great.

Nobody wants dorky glasses that make you sick.

~~~
chrisjc
> and whatever they draw stays where it is in physical space.

Wow... that's a great way to utilize AR.

~~~
Darkphibre
I've seen demos of this with Hololens. It really opens up new interactions.
Neat stuff.

Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft, but not on Hololens. All opinions my own,
etc.

~~~
RangerScience
At Daqri we called this "remote expert", and it was always one of the
potential products with the highest demand.

My favorite use-case is that in nuclear power plants, they have two people do
everything - one to do, one to watch (not in a big brother sense, but more in
like a pair programming sense), but this means two people in an irradiated
environment. With the AR tech, the second person can be in another room.

(Although you run into other issues, like no wifi (or power!) inside reactors;
although apparently leaky coax is a really effective solution to the first)

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acidburnNSA
Were you working with any human factors or related teams in the nuclear
industry?

~~~
RangerScience
A couple of times, although I don't remember / know if it was "human factors"
or otherwise. Both cases were primarily about letting someone see something
where it was dangerous to be, although the first was about the head-mounted
cameras and the second about the head-mounted displays.

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rococode
I spent 3 months working on an AR project on the Magic Leap (the best funded
AR startup, I think?). My conclusion was that the hardware just isn't there
yet.

VR tech feels impressive because the hardware works well. AR tech, on the
other hand, still feels _very_ much like a prototype, and far from real
production use. Some of the main deal-breaker issues are heat, discomfort,
dizziness, and software instability (I wrote more about the specific issues I
encountered with the Magic Leap in a past thread [1]). To me it felt
significantly worse than the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 (the second public
release of a VR device back in 2014). Back then when I got that version
because I was super hyped for VR, I thought "Woah, clearly needs more work but
this is amazing". With AR, my experience thus far has sadly been "Oh, this is
it?".

A lot of it is presumably because AR is much harder to do well. A very
simplified way of thinking of VR is basically it's a screen close to your face
that can track its own pitch/yaw/roll/small amounts of movement and redraw
accordingly. This is tricky, but totally doable (and thus, it was done).
Smartphones have basically been able to do most of this for years (not so much
the movement, but that's also a pretty new thing in VR).

AR actually has to interact with the real world. If you have a virtual image
anchored to, say, a pendulum, that's fairly non-trivial computation-wise to
recalculate without prior knowledge of the pendulum's movements. It's
basically object detection which ML models can do fairly well, but they do it
with latency. And when the latency is in something your brain is trying to
process as the real world, it's nauseating. Add on the fact that it takes a
lot of energy to do inference, and that AR devices need to be standalone
devices that can be taken anywhere by themselves, and you also have a serious
heat problem where the compute needed to constantly analyze the real world
means you just have a hot brick on your head or in your pocket.

I think it's going to take a lot more time to get it right. It feels like a
hard enough problem that I think the first truly production-grade AR device
will have to come from one of the big companies, possibly Microsoft with
HoloLens.

Of course, I write all this with the definition of AR as "something you wear
on your head that overlays your full field-of-view with virtual graphics".
Other forms of AR like Snapchat filters or camera overlays are probably less
challenging.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20253177](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20253177)

~~~
Gene_Parmesan
I managed to try out Microsoft's HoloLens 2 at MS Build this year in Seattle.
My impressions were that it's a very cool, very impressive prototype. FOV is
still quite low, although I hear it's significantly improved from v1.
Framerate felt too low for real-world stuff; as you were alluding to, our
brains are used to screens operating at 60fps, but there's something about
putting the screen right up next to your eyeballs and adding tracking (whether
VR or AR) that kills that illusion and mandates at least 90fps, and very
smooth. I'm not surprised by the reports of people getting motion sick.

Having said that, the fundamental interactions are very cool. I had slight
difficulty figuring out where the tracking was actually registering (e.g., how
far do I have to move my finger to 'tap' a button), but once I figured that
out it worked just like you expected it to.

~~~
Darkphibre
I tried out the original. My impression was that the small FoV _helped_ with
motion sickness & immersion. I could see the objects in the room (table, wall,
etc.) with infinite frame rate, and when I looked directly at them the
augmentation (poster/tv on wall, something on the table) was where I expected
it.

I always felt the small FoV was a complaint by those that couldn't see the
bigger picture (haha)... at least, for the current-gen tech that has built-in
latency, and how the smaller FoV might actually be a benefit.

Anyways, my own thoughts and ramblings (I work at MS, but not on Hololens).

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Abishek_Muthian
The most widespread, successful use case AR which I can see currently is AR
Filter i.e. snapchat filters and those who copied it.

The reason IMO, is most of the users who use snapchat filters wouldn't even
know what Augmented Reality is. It is that intuitive use case which can make
high-tech get widespread consumer adoption.

Looking at the rate at which limited attention, instant gratification apps are
conquering market, the demand for AR filters aren't going to decline anytime
soon and those who offer AR as a service would have enough buyers in the form
of the copy cat apps wanting AR filters.

In fact, snapchat itself supposedly acquired the AR filter tech from a
Ukranian company called Looskery in 2015.

~~~
michaelbuckbee
This isn't a disagreement, but I was thinking the other day that the most
widespread practical (non entertainment) AR app has got to be backup cameras
and displays in cars.

Modern ones show both the actual live view + a composited on graphic of where
your current backup line will take you based on the tire angle, etc.

~~~
misterprime
I wouldn't have categorized this as AR, but perhaps you're right. Would this
instead be called a "heads up display"? I guess not, since it's not something
that's shown on the windows you're looking through.

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pathartl
I'd say it's more of a HUD. If there was a 3D render of where walls might be
or bumps might be, then I'd consider that AR.

~~~
myself248
But it's the literal opposite of heads-up; you lower your view and stare at
the radio to see the camera. If you were looking at the mirror and it was
adding to the normal reflection you're already seeing, that would be heads-up.

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nnq
AR seems like one of those things that needs to be executed "perfectly" to
work. VR can benefit a bit from suspension of disbelief etc. ...but with AR
the real world is harsh :)

 _But I bet we 'll have "the iPhone" of AR doing it right and popping open the
market! Someone will sure get lucky betting on it!_

~~~
prongletown
Apple has the resources, the install base, and (crucially) the data to make it
happen.

The "iPhone of AR" is probably going to be an iPhone.

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pradeep_m
It always seems like incumbents have it all (resources, distribution, talent,
etc) until they don't. For ex, the "iPhone" theoretically should have come
from Nokia by that logic. AR particularly requires truly novel innovations for
it to work in mass-market. There might be niche-cases that work for AR
(studio/arcade games, sports tech) before the mass market use-cases.

~~~
prongletown
Apple is well documented (for it being a secret project) as throwing tons of
resources into compelling AR products.

I'm not saying they're going to succeed, but they're certainly trying - unlike
Nokia, who was in the middle of a massive internal war over Symbian when the
first iPhone hit.

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AndrewKemendo
It's really important to understand that funding for AR startups cooled off
when Apple and Google decided to go hard into it in 2017.

Almost across the board every major VC got spooked, then when Magic Leap
turned out to be a turd the bottom fell out.

I firmly believe that Apple and Google successfully took the entirely of the
market opportunity for a startup to win the AR game long term.

You could argue why this is good or whatever, but at the end of the day AR
isn't going to be the platform a startup could knock FAANG off of their perch,
and one or all of them will own the next hardware platform.

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Robotbeat
Can someone explain to me why sufficiently good VR can't function as AR?

Just to lay out my point: AR has to have extremely good detail, framerate, and
even depth of field to work well. It has to track everything perfectly and
blend the two lightfields seemlessly or the immersion is broken and you risk
nausea or at least annoyance.

But if you have high framerate, ability to simulate depth of field, high
knowledge of the environment (enough to overlay seemlessly), etc, then
couldn't you just... operate purely in VR with reality streamed in via
lightfield cameras? That would allow you to do things that are impossible in
AR, like display darker overlays on lighter surfaces, and everything would be
at the same framerate so it'd be easier to seemlessly integrate everything.

So what does really, really good AR get you that really, really good VR with
reality overlay does not? Seems like you can avoid a lot of super hard to
effectively impossible hardware optics problems by just doing things with an
opaque visor...

I'm not an expert in this field, so I'm probably using terminology
incorrectly.

~~~
meheleventyone
With sufficiently good cameras you can already pass through video. Setting up
boundaries in the Oculus Quest has you do so doing exactly that.

The current issues are:

* A limited field of view. AR headsets are more limited but don’t interfere as much with normal vision.

* Latency of video display causing a noticeable mismatch to head movement.

* Shutting the rest of the world out. No one can see your face properly so it’s much more invasive than AR might be.

~~~
findthewords
I would like to note that the shortcomings mentioned above can be fixed:

\- a vr passthrough can achieve a much wider FOV than any ar headset.

\- latency isssues are debatable, I would say it's a non-issue

\- eye-tracking and front-facing displays solve gaze opaqueness. we already
have cut-out camera holes in consumer grade displays

I would say that THE current issues with passthrough vr is solving the
convergence issue. varifocal lenses are not consumer level technology yet.

~~~
meheleventyone
VR pass through can get a wider FOV than an AR display but it still is a lot
less wide than natural vision. Which was my point.

Latency issues might be subjective but there are clearly going to be
population trends. I imagine these will be very similar to latency trends with
VR and as such latency will be a significant issue.

Front facing displays are even weirder than someone with a headset on. I’m
confused that anyone thinks sticking a view of someone’s eyes on a flat screen
is going to be anything other than weird. It’s diving head first into the
uncanny valley.

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magashna
Part of the magic of VR is the immersion. AR doesn't appeal to me, it seems
more of a gimmick.

~~~
superfrank
Personally, I feel the exact opposite.

I don't see VR providing a whole lot outside the area of entertainment. How
often do you want to be completely removed from the physical world on a
regular basis. Even when you do want immersion a good story or a game with
good mechanics is far more important in entertainment than the medium it's
delivered though. This is the reason people still read books, why retro video
games are still played, and why 3D continually fails. A high tech medium,
doesn't improve bad entertainment, but great entertainment can be delivered
though a low tech medium. I'm not saying VR has no value, but I don't see it
being some giant revolution.

On the flip side, AR doesn't provide immersion, but rather enhances the world
around you. AR allows pretty much any information you get from your phone or
computer currently to be instantly hands free and always available. If I told
you I had a pill that allowed you to remember 20% more than you currently do,
I can't think of many industries that wouldn't be improved by giving that to
every employee. Once headsets become light enough and cheap enough, that's
what AR provides. Instant access to relevant information without diverting
focus.

VR seems to me like an extension of 3D technology, AR seems like an extension
of the smartphone.

~~~
thecupisblue
I'd love it. If I could go to a space where I'm immersed in code, data, paint
or sound and could interact with it to create, I'd be all sold on VR. It would
provide me with a whole new medium to transfer my thoughts in. But AR? What
can I get with it that I can't with a phone? The information speed is near
instant to what I need as a human. And what can I get with it that won't be
ads?

~~~
superfrank
> If I could go to a space where I'm immersed in code, data, paint or sound
> and could interact with it to create, I'd be all sold on VR.

I'm not saying that wouldn't be cool, but using coding as an example, how much
more immersed are you going to be coding in VR as opposed to going into a
quite room where no one will disturb you with multiple monitors. The extra
immersion is cool, but I don't being slightly more immersed in the way VR
provides will lead to any sort of technological revolution.

> But AR? What can I get with it that I can't with a phone?

It's not about getting new information, it's about not needing the phone to
provide that information. Think about a surgeon having the parts of heart
overlaid on the body while doing surgery. Think about firefighters having the
blueprints of the building they are entering in front of their eyes.

The value of AR isn't providing new information, it provides an alternative to
relying on memory for that information.

~~~
jackbrookes
> The extra immersion is cool, but I don't being slightly more immersed in the
> way VR provides will lead to any sort of technological revolution.

Well, having access to as many monitors of any size you want without taking up
any space in your home or office is a good enough reason for many.

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neogodless
I'm suddenly feeling super behind on the news. While I believe I've heard
rumors about Apple working on augmented reality, I can't think of any such
product announcements coming down the pipeline.

> While Apple and Microsoft strain to sell augmented reality as the next major
> computing platform,

Is that accurate? Is Apple putting a lot of effort into selling AR?

~~~
FussyZeus
Well you have the references to some kind of Glass-esque product in Xcode, and
ARKit has been a part of iPhones since the X. It's interesting stuff but Apple
doesn't seem to be interested in the fully immersive headsets so many other
companies are. Microsoft seems to be doing a bit of both? But they aren't
super focused on it.

Frankly I think the use of the word "strain" in that quote is a strain itself.
They're definitely working on it, and it's there, but I wouldn't call it a
feature they expect to shift units.

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tus88
Industrial VR/AR is above the only place it makes sense, and its failing there
already. Imagine what thr future holds then for the far less compelling home
use situation.

Like many other I would like to be able to keep an eye on my kids and kiss my
wife while I watch tv.

I know, how disgustingly human of me, right?

------
vertis
Brief mention of Meta in that article. I had missed that they shut down,
though I can't say I am surprised. Their first headset was uncomfortable and
lacked the field of view or functionality of the Hololens. It was a cabled
only experience.

They were secretive and lacked decent SDK support.

When we tried to buy the second one it was delayed again and again by an
insistence on US manufacturing and an inability to scale.

When they finally announced that our preorder was available 18 months later
they wanted me to create a completely new order since my credit card was no
longer valid (I decided not to waste my time or money).

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bbmario
Magic Leap next?

~~~
monkeydust
What have they achieved, has anyone been blown away by them? For me just
getting into VR thanks to Oculus Quest which I have to say is an amazing
product for the price.

~~~
emef
I tried their demo at CVPR a few months ago. It was super immersive and crisp.
You interact with an AI "guide" who shows you how to look around, pick things
up, stick them on the wall, etc. It was surprisingly unnerving to look the AI
in the eyes and have her react to my gestures. Beyond a sweet demo, not sure
what the value in the product would be for a general consumer option, but cool
technology for sure.

~~~
woah
They have a demo now???

~~~
emef
Had to wait forever to get a time slot. They do 10-15 minute demos in a
temporary room they put up on the expo floor.

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peter303
Solution looking for a problem to solve? I have seen VR demos at SIGGRAPGH and
film festivals the past 20 years without seeing the 'killer app' yet.

~~~
defterGoose
Shhh! There are still fools with too much money looking to invest!

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babyslothzoo
Is AR this generations VR? Full of promises and fantasy, but all of which is
far from being usable or practical at any mainstream level.

~~~
Robotbeat
Less practical than VR. VR has a niche.

~~~
Animats
It's a very small niche, and it peaked around the 2017 holiday season. The VR
game thing didn't sell. Except for Beat Saber.

John Carmack, in a recent talk, doesn't seem to consider VR as a way to visit
a virtual environment any more. It's just a way to get a wider field of view
of screen space in a mobile-sized package. Watching Netflix with VR goggles
emulating a wide screen, for people who don't have enough space for a wide
screen, is seen as a primary use.

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szczepano
Innovation has always had many victims.

