
The Magic Leap Con - danso
https://gizmodo.com/the-magic-leap-con-1829716266
======
clickok
Originally I found the Magic Leap extremely exciting, because in contrast to
phones or tablets, whose touchscreens limit what sort of applications are
feasible, AR could allow for arbitrary interfaces. These interfaces could be
present alongside the real world, making them both more convenient and maybe
less of an attention-vortex.

This is (among other things) what Magic Leap pitched, and comparing the actual
product to their press releases is to note a vast discrepancy. Still, hope
springs eternal, so while I wasn't impressed, I know how hard AR is and I
wasn't inclined to judge too harshly-- maybe it will get better as technology
improves.

After having read the article, I find myself rooting for them to fail. This is
a company that has taken (and arguably squandered) _billions_ of dollars to
release a slightly cheaper HoloLens. Instead of feeling abashed, they continue
blithely on, even having the temerity to invite developers to their platform
because the rest of the world (and in particular, other platforms) has so much
"baggage" and "negativity".

As the article notes, this is a company that is propped up by oligarchs,
settles sex discrimination lawsuits, and is pursuing military contracts with
repressive regimes. Although to be fair, improving soldiers' lethality is the
only use case they've articulated that justifies the price. Now that the
missed expectations and general shadiness are starting to catch up with them,
they're moving to attract developers. Somehow, despite all the money, they
haven't been able to pay for an idea to justify the hype-- what else _could_
you call it but a con?

~~~
pg_bot
I generally agree with everything you've said except for the act of _settling_
a sex discrimination lawsuit being a negative signal. The existence of a sex
discrimination lawsuit is certainly not a positive signal for any prospective
employer, but it takes both parties to come to an agreement to settle.
Settlement is also the overwhelmingly likely outcome of most lawsuits (> 90%
chance).

The prospect of going to trial concentrates the mind wonderfully. A clarity
descends. Sometimes you learn things about your own case that you didn't know
before. (that it sucks - maybe) Trials can be unpredictable, better to come to
an agreement that both parties can live with than to roll the dice.

~~~
Paradigma11
The problem is that the harasser is most likely in a position of power and can
afford to live comfortably with quite a few such agreements.

~~~
titanomachy
Is discrimination the same thing as harassment?

~~~
DonHopkins
Would you consider this discrimination or harassment?

[https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/02/14/magic-leap-sex-
discriminat...](https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/02/14/magic-leap-sex-
discrimination.pdf)

>Euen Thompson, an IT Support Lead, on November 16, 2016, gave a tutorial to a
group of seven new hires, including two women, how to use Magic Leap’s IT
equipment and resources. One woman asked Thompson a question in front of the
group and Thompson responded, “Yeah, women always have trouble with
computers.” The women in the group, in apparent disbelief, asked Thompson to
repeat what he said and Thompson replied, “In IT we have a saying; stay away
from the Three Os: Orientals, Old People and Ovaries.”

~~~
stallmanite
Putting aside the rest of that trainwreck, asians (pardon me "orientals") are
bad at computers now? I missed the memo on that

------
sago
Here's why I am immediately skeptical.

People think games are easy. People think entertainment is a solution. That is
almost always a sign of someone in trouble.

In reality, entertainment is the reddest of red markets. It is incredibly
difficult to make a compelling experience. Even more difficult to sell it.
Include risk in the calculation and you are literally better off working for
minimum wage than writing a game.

It is absolutely no coincidence that this conference mostly showed off games.
And - by all reports - very crappy ones, with game play you would expect from
a game jam (albeit dressed up in million-dollar graphics). It is no
coincidence they haven't got a proven game studio on board: their flagship
game is created _under contract_ by a VFX company.

Games are not your Trojan horse use case. Figure out what your product is for.
Get it in consumers hands. And you can bet your ass game devs will exploit it
(iPhone anyone?). Otherwise you are a novel gaming peripheral. And you are
going to have to work _a lot harder_ to show games worth playing. Even VR is
struggling (and, I would say, failing) there.

So far, Google glass is still the most compelling AR tool I've seen.

~~~
tigershark
Google glass doesn’t even qualify as AR, it’s just a HUD. And it had a _huge_
amount of disadvantages, even hololens, for certain use-cases, was destroying
it for AR.

------
taytus
I'm not by any stretch an expert in VR/AR, but a couple of weeks ago I finally
tried Magic Leap.

My first reaction was: "What a piece of crap!! This is it?"

And yes... that it was. If you have never tried it, is 100X (and I'm being
generous) less impressive than the super fake demo video they posted.

~~~
Groxx
That was pretty much my experience with HoloLens. Uncomfortable headset,
awkward and inaccurate hand gestures, and like a postage-stamp-size viewport.
You couldn't see _anything_ functional in the least due to viewport alone, and
the low resolution killed any hope you may have had left. Tracking was mostly
alright about 95% of the time, in an office setting which is probably
borderline ideal (lots of high-contrast edges and corners all over), but even
while relatively still it made plenty of mistakes.

All of which I gather the Magic Leap is better on... by less than 50%. In two
years.

AR has unbelievably misleading advertising. To enough of a degree that I think
they should be fined rather significantly. Remember the HoloLens Minecraft
"demo" videos? Or the full 3D models on the user's desk, nearly the size of
the screen or keyboard? You couldn't even cover a coffee mug at that distance.

~~~
puranjay
The technology hype cycle over the last decade has been pretty disappointing.
I was promised by now, I'd be 3D printing my sneakers, spend my time killing
zombies in VR, and paying for DLC with crypto

Of these, only VR seems even remotely close to reaching its original promise

~~~
iliis
About those sneakers:
[https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:285404](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:285404)
;) But yeah, I agree that there's much too much hype around a lot of stuff...

~~~
DonHopkins
Space Invaders sneakers leave 3D printed footprints worth 01 point each!

[https://www.newarteditions.com/invader-sneakers-speed-
balls/](https://www.newarteditions.com/invader-sneakers-speed-balls/)

(Sorry, all sold out -- I mean GAME OVER!)

------
Apocryphon
> Magic Leap is almost entirely built on the visions of grown men wanting to
> immerse themselves in fantasy worlds. Its chief focus is entertainment,
> games, diversions—cinematic reality, sure; pushing the frontiers of
> computing? Not as much.

I’ll repeat my half-baked idea: the future of VR and AR is digital workplaces
for better teleconferencing. Make it truly seamless to talk to colleagues
while working remote. Disrupt office work as we know it and fix the
externalities of commuting and being tied to a physical workplace. Why escape
into fantasy worlds when you can make living in the real world more bearable?

~~~
papa_bear
I remember one of the first hololens trailers featured someone trying to fix
their own sink plumbing, and an expert skyping in and highlighting exactly
what to do.

Making AR even slightly accessible is going to drastically change all of the
trade skill industries. Any kind of simple job with something like plumbing,
electrician, or car problems, you could call up a remote expert (or
knowledgable friend/relative) and have them guide you through the job without
forcing them to drive to your house. This would probably lead to training AIs
to help with those same simple jobs, and eventually more complicated ones, but
probably not for a good many years(?).

Maybe it's a lot easier said than done, but I feel like there are tons of more
physical "remote work" opportunities that Magic Leap can open up, and they're
not focusing on them nearly enough. Microsoft is pushing hard with using the
hololens in industrial environments for training or collaborating, but even
for just personal use, I could see myself buying AR goggles if it made
learning basic handyman chores around the house easier to get started with,
and hopefully feel less like a chore.

~~~
zxcmx
I love this idea but I can't see a mass market for it.

Many people use youtube for this. My experience is, it works well for almost
any kind of repair or trade work you can think of.

You could "remote in" an expert, but now we're talking $10-$100 an hour as
opposed to free. If you're doing the work yourself I think it's safe to assume
you're not valuing your own time outside work at a high dollar value.

~~~
nmcfarl
I don't know about a mass market - but I live in rural Oregon, and booking an
appointment with a local tradesperson results in them showing up 4 to 6 months
out - there just aren't enough of them. Sometimes you can convince someone to
drive the 2-3 hours each way from one of the nearby cities - but most these
guys don't relish 6 hours driving to install a fan.

So I use YouTube A Lot, and boy would I like to be able to pay someone to walk
me through things. And I suspect there a a fair number of people in spots like
me (if not so extreme). And I suspect there are a lot of Urban DIYers that
occasionally get in over their heads and would use this service.

But quantifying this market would be hard.

I do think the ability to recreate the 3d environment, from the sensors on a
device in the house would be pretty critical to this working. And the ability
to show the customers in AR exactly what needs doing could be a difference
that matters.

Still I'm not quitting my day job.

------
TeMPOraL
I feel that if AR finally gets to work in form of glasses, it'll have a
bifurcated market - one will be entertainment for masses, the second one will
be support tool for things like manufacturing. Which is kind of sad, because
genpops will get toys, and the tools will go to corps. But I guess that's
supply and demand. I just hope the entertainment glasses will be open enough
to support a cottage industry of small software shops & open source coders
doing tools for individual productivity.

Now I hope one day we'll get AR contact lenses or some other form of
inconspicuous AR. I'd love to have the ability to switch it on and do some
compute at a whim, without fumbling with special glasses, and having to mind
the social situation in which I'm in.

As for Magic Leap - I get that AR is hard, but this level of hype is
inexcusable. They're burning through general interest in the field and trust
towards everyone working in it for sake of some quick buck. The sooner they
get forced to realign with reality, the better.

------
cubaia
Looks like that conference had two completely different audiences.

As a developer, I tend to look at things and wonder about the future: "what
can I build with this?"

I'm getting the realization that the equivalent for journalists is something
like: "what controversies can I write about this?"

~~~
kashprime
I don't get the hate; I played around with the Hololens for a bit and while
the FOV issues are hard to ignore, both devices are steps forward into an
interesting and likely THE interface for future computing.

One can hope that if MagicLeap fails at least someone will pick up the IP and
continue to develop it.

~~~
DonHopkins
Like the way Magic Leap picked up so many other people's literal designs and
IP in their patent applications?

[https://www.theverge.com/2015/1/30/7954611/magic-leap-
augmen...](https://www.theverge.com/2015/1/30/7954611/magic-leap-augmented-
reality-patent-art-copied-designers)

>Magic Leap's futuristic patent art was copied from other artists' designs

>When Google-backed augmented reality company Magic Leap quietly applied for a
patent, it did so with dozens of pages of futuristic (and slightly creepy)
scenarios: a social media charm bracelet, a gargoyle bursting out of a box in
a store, gamified cucumber chopping...

>Wait a second. That last one sounds familiar. Maybe that's because it's a
line drawing of a shot from "Sight," a Black Mirror-esque short film about an
augmented, sinister future. As it turns out, Magic Leap's patent art isn't so
much its vision of the future as one created by various students and
designers. Former Verge-r and current Gizmodo writer Sean Hollister was tipped
off to a set of side-by-side comparisons that leave no doubt we're looking at
copies.

>If patents are about originality, does this mean Magic Leap is hurting its
claims? Not really. A great deal of patent art just shows potential designs or
uses for something, in order to make the actual, more abstract claims clearer.
In this case, Magic Leap is patenting an optical system that has nothing to do
with the interfaces displayed here. Even bringing a copyright claim would be
hard and arguably pointless. "Images such as these are setting consumer
expectations of VR and AR today," the company told Gizmodo. "We wanted to use
the same images to demonstrate what our technology will enable."

>The designers themselves seem ambivalent of their images' rebirth as patent
art. Magic Leap appears to have neither contacted them nor credited them, but
at the same time, it's showing the world how this futuristic design fiction
could work. It's one thing to have someone rip off your art. It's another to
have them actually make it real — if Magic Leap can actually deliver on its
ambitious promises.

[https://gizmodo.com/magic-leap-ripped-off-those-awesome-
ui-c...](https://gizmodo.com/magic-leap-ripped-off-those-awesome-ui-
concepts-1682716916)

>Magic Leap Ripped Off Those Awesome UI Concepts

>Magic Leap is secretly building a headset that could blend computer graphics
with the real world. Recently, we lucked into a treasure trove of
illustrations from Magic Leap about what that future might hold. There's just
one problem: Magic Leap didn't actually create all those awesome UI concepts.
It copied them.

>The images speak for themselves. On the left of each of these comparision
shots, you'll see an illustration plucked directly from this Magic Leap patent
application. On the right, you'll find a screengrab from an awesome UI concept
invented by someone else.

>Remember Sight, the incredible student film where a man with bionic eyes
plays Fruit Ninja with a real cucumber that becomes part of his meal? Same
cucumber. Same everything:

>Or how about the Ringo Holographic Interface dreamt up by then-UI-design-
student Ivan Tihienko in 2008?

>Here's a augmented reality concept from interaction designer Joesph Juhnke
called "The Future of Firefighting":

>And below, one from designer Michaël Harboun and his team called The Aeon
Project. "What if you could travel to exotic, far-away destinations while
being stuck in traffic?"

>Lastly, two images from "Meditating Mediums - The Digital 3D," which was the
graduating thesis for Greg Tran at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He
now designs for Samsung.

>This might also look familiar: [...]

------
DonHopkins
>"You know that weird sensation when it feels like everyone around you is
participating in some mild mass hallucination, and you missed the dosing?"

Yeah, Stanislaw Lem wrote a book about that, which Ari Folman made into a
movie.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_\(2013_film\))

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMMI8HWhqEc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMMI8HWhqEc)

>An EPIC scene from "The Congress" (2014)

>A short but entirely mesmerizing drug come-down, reality dissolving scene
from the film "The Congress" (2014) based on the 1971 novel "The Futurological
Congress" by Stanisław Lem. All rights to the makers.

Such a great movie. Quite different than the book, but they both stand on
their own and deal with fascinating issues, and it's well worth reading and
watching both, like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Blade Runner.

>The Congress Official US Release Trailer (2014) - Robin Wright Fantasy Movie
HD

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkDyKWKNeaE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkDyKWKNeaE)

~~~
bsenftner
One of my favorte films of all time. Practically nobody has seen it, and for
many that do they fixate on trivial points. The film and book are monumental
intellectual works, and are being missed by many who would dearly love them.

~~~
DonHopkins
Speaking on fixating on trivial points -- ;) -- I really love the emotionally
stunning and deeply self referential scene at the crux of the movie, between
Robin Wright and Harvey Keitel, in Paul Debevec's Light Stage studio at USC's
Institute for Creative Technologies.

[http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/3d-bo...](http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/3d-body-
scan-and-emotion-capture-in-the-congress)

[http://gl.ict.usc.edu/LightStages/](http://gl.ict.usc.edu/LightStages/)

~~~
bsenftner
Great scene. Thanks for linking it. So many layers in this film...

------
sytelus
Key stats:

 _Caraeff says that 50,000 user accounts have been created there. He wouldn’t
tell me the number of times the software developer kit has actually been
downloaded, though he said it was fewer than that, or the number of Leap
headsets shipped, which was fewer still._

------
srrge
This iPhone analogy is full of crap. Apple delivered the fisrt iPhone with the
software it needed to be, in itself, very usefull! The app developers came
after, when a user base had already been created.

~~~
sytelus
It’s most misused analogy. If you have crappy product that no one is buying,
compare it to iPhone v1.

~~~
inawarminister
Well, the writer compared Magic Leap to Apple Newton, which was... too early
for the aims?

------
Reason077
Magic Leap reminds me a lot of the early days of Segway. There’s some cool
tech there somewhere, but the hype vastly exceeds the reality.

Build up expectations too high and you’re going to leave everyone
disappointed.

~~~
DonHopkins
And then South Park does an episode on "it".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OACjYGw6BkA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OACjYGw6BkA)

------
dorkwood
I can't help but feel the world jumped into "the future is here" mode way too
early. AI, AR, VR -- these have all promised sci-fi-esque experiences that
simply can't be delivered with current technology.

I suspect it's to do with the fact that innovation is slowing down across the
globe, yet the public expects it to continue at the same pace it's been
running for the past 50 years. The market wants the next computer, the next
internet, the next iPhone. What happens when it doesn't show up?

~~~
tokyodude
I've had amazing "sci-fi" experiences in VR.

Lone Echo on Oculus, Farpoint on PSVR, and others. So blown away that certain
geners of non-VR games are not completely non-compelling to me. Those 2 games,
while not the best games ever, gave me the feeling of "being there".

The difference between playing games on a monitor and games in VR, the good
ones, is like the difference between a picture of the grand canyon and being
and the grand canyon. The picture does no justice. Sure it might be pretty but
it gives no sense of the scale and presence. You don't feel that there's a
mile deep canyon that's 20 miles to the other side. You just see a pretty
picture. In VR though you do get that sense of scale. That volcano in the
distance in Farpoint actually feels 3 miles high with a 20 mile high plum of
ash. Hiding behind a piece of rock actually feels like hiding and not
"pressing the hide button".

------
zarriak
We are at the point where the most gripping experience is contextual browsing.
What if instead of just showing you the recipe it actually used ar to
demonstrate how to do each action of the thing it was showing. It seems absurd
that this kind of thing is the first thing you can think of but companies that
have billions of dollars invested in to them are unable to come up with any
compelling idea of what they have all the money in the world to throw at a
dartboard and still none of it even hits.

------
aj7
One note.

There were at least 10 startups that failed to produce LCD projector displays,
which are now ubiquitous and cheap.

There were at least 20 startups that failed at non-piercing blood glucose
measurement, which is now accessible and not outrageously expensive.

So something will come of this. But Magic Leap is going down.

------
mb_72
Billions of dollars and still charging a pretty penny for the hardware? Should
have put several million into making free headsets available to developers
vetted to some basic degree, and see what happens

------
dna_polymerase
What is AR supposed to be good for anyways? I see all those fancy demo videos
(which are of course fake) and still ask myself what problem AR could solve.
Magic Leap as well as the HoloLens require much computing power sitting next
to you under the table, so you are not mobile with those headsets. So what
real problem could this solve?

~~~
tokyodude
What is AR good for today? Almost nothing. What is it's potential? HUGE

Why do you need monitors if you have AR contact lens. Project as many monitors
as you want where ever you want them. Sit in cafe and make it appear as if you
have a 60 inch monitor on the table in front of you and a few tablets on the
table.

In a conference room show a 3D model of building, bridge, or physical project
and discuss it with the team pointing directly at parts of the model that
appear simulated in the shared projection. Basically imagine any hologram
scene in a Sci-fi movie like say showing the 2nd Death Star in Return of the
Jedi. Those scenes assume some kind of magic 3D projector. Maybe that will be
possible someday but it's nearly possible today if everyone is wearing AR
glasses or contacts

Project data about people at a conference next to each person. Just like
people at a conference wear badges except with AR badges they can be much
larger with more info.

Have the AR point out the person you're looking for by putting a marker over
their head or draw navigation prompts as you walk around.

Show virtual drawing surfaces allowing you to draw or annotate anything.

just a few ideas

~~~
tokyodude
A few links

Here's something you should be able to do with AR

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYhDu59UmSs#t=15m52s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYhDu59UmSs#t=15m52s)

And here's some actual work on it

[https://vimeo.com/232230096](https://vimeo.com/232230096)

------
edoo
The cell phone analogy is appropriate. This is first generation tech. Within
30 years it will be amazing and unobtrusive. Think eyeglasses or contact
lenses with photo realistic rendering. I think it will be as important as the
radio and TV was in shaping society both commercially and privately.

~~~
pg_bot
"Within 30 years... it will be as important as the radio and TV was in shaping
society both commercially and privately"

Care to make your prediction interesting? I'd be willing to take the opposite
side of that bet.

~~~
germinalphrase
[http://longbets.org](http://longbets.org)

~~~
pg_bot
I'd be willing to wager $500, if anyone wants to take the other side.

------
dwighttk
>You know that weird sensation when it feels like everyone around you is
participating in some mild mass hallucination, and you missed the dosing? ﻿

Google Glass was a different (but related) product and I remember going to one
of their "come try Glass" events and feeling the same way.

------
ArtWomb
You can watch the full conference keynote here:

Magic Leap L.E.A.P. Conference Keynote | Live from Los Angeles, October 10

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV8oGahOSgc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV8oGahOSgc)

------
joshsyn
This is what you get when CEOs are overly optimistic while the tech isn't just
there yet.

------
kolderman
_cough_ hydrogen one _cough_

------
dymk
This article confirms a lot of the suspicions I had about Magic Leap's
product, which is unfortunate. Had the company not overhyped the product and
shipped with expectations so high, perhaps they could have had something which
would actually impress the general public.

Unrelated, this weird aside is my least favorite part of the article:

> Magic Leap is almost entirely built on the visions of grown men wanting to
> immerse themselves in fantasy worlds ...

> It is telling that the most compelling glimpse of a possible future with
> Magic Leap was relayed to me by nonwhite, non-male product manager

There's this implication that the white male leadership is only interested in
the frilly escapist aspect of the product, and it's those in minority groups
who are actually going to be pushing the boundaries of tech. Why include this
in the article? Does the author honestly believe that's true? Do jabs at white
men get clicks and heads nodding.now?

~~~
ealexhudson
Interesting that you see that as a "jab against white men" \- I read it as a
jab against monoculture. That the company's monoculture is middle aged white
cis dudes is kind of beside the point.

A company this big needs to address most, if not all, people. The need for
escapist leisure activity is something only relatively privileged people have.
You only have to look at Google Glass to see what that limited appeal does to
a product. It's a valid commercial consideration.

~~~
derangedHorse
> It is telling that the most compelling glimpse of a possible future with
> Magic Leap was relayed to me by nonwhite, non-male product manager

Yeah but the language used here makes it seem like white male product managers
can't relay compelling visions for Magic Leap's future which isn't necessarily
a correct statement.

~~~
pjc50
They could have, but didn't.

The implication is that the PM in question was trying to advance their career
on meritocracy grounds, while the other PMs get by on connections. I'm
reminded of Theranos' extremely well-connected board.

I don't think there would be anything wrong with trying to market Leap as a
gaming peripheral, but that implies a much smaller valuation, so ...

------
novaleaf
> “Today, our world feels divided.” Rony Abovitz, CEO of the infamous mixed
> reality startup Magic Leap stood awkwardly on a circular stage

first sentence. holy negativity batman.

