
Magic Leap reveals more details about its technology - jamsc
http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/20/magic-leap-wsjdlive/
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wesleyy
I'm still not convinced. AR through visual SLAM is not extremely difficult.
All the demos here are indoor and from the occlusion handling for the first
scene (0:13) you can see a slight shadow on the right of the table leg so I
assume it's using some kind of structured light to sense the depth (versus
multi camera/stereo systems). Outdoor tracking with this kind of approach is
very difficult because sunlight basically destroys all the information.

The difficult part is where the system portrays this information to the user,
which they have not shown yet. Their patents indicate some kind of projection
directly onto the eye but there are obvious problems with that, such as when
you move your eyeball. Also, running visual slam on a mobile device at real
time with a respectable framerate is another challenge.

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IshKebab
For the display they use a vibrating optic fibre. At least according to their
patents. The fibre spins vibrates in a spiral pattern and uses a modulated RGB
light to build up an image (like a CRT).

The latency on this demo looks pretty bad though.

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andyjohnson0
This patent?
[https://www.google.com/patents/US8950867](https://www.google.com/patents/US8950867)

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MichaelGG
"The OS has to control atoms, photons". Uh, every OS does this already. Unless
you mean directly in which case that sounds like some pretty amazing
software+hardware if you're instructing atoms and photons directly in the OS.

All these folks have to do is find someone trusted to go get a demo and put
everything to rest. A simple tweet from a well-known, non-celeb would do it:
"Tried it. Looks like demo."

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mikeyouse
Benedict Evans from A16Z did pretty much exactly that today;

[https://twitter.com/BenedictEvans/status/656678054064865280](https://twitter.com/BenedictEvans/status/656678054064865280)

He's not completely impartial (A16Z invested in Magic Leap) but Evans seems to
be pretty quick to call out underperforming companies even if they're an A16Z
investment.

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BatFastard
Not sure that is a ringing endorsement.

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rakoo
At first I thought it was the other leap
([https://www.leapmotion.com/](https://www.leapmotion.com/)), it looks like
the two can be a perfect combination.

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chrismbarr
I did as well until I read this comment, thank you! The names are similar, but
these are vastly different products.

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DanielBMarkham
"We're gearing up to ship millions of these things," Abovitz said. "We're not
announcing when we're shipping. But we're not far."

So this is a total SWAG, but I'm thinking that translates to "At least a year,
maybe two"

Looks incredibly cool. The technical challenges must be amazing! Can't wait to
see one in real life.

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xlm1717
Can't wait to see one, if it lives up to the hype.

Up till now, they have only revealed a tiny new part of their technology while
emphasizing all that they have revealed before. To me, it seems like they are
waiting until they need new funding to talk in public, and then only revealing
tiny details so they don't commit themselves to certain features.

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wildpeaks
What I find most interesting is that even the darker areas of the 3d model are
opaque.

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colinramsay

      > Abovitz describes the Magic Leap tech as unlike anything you can get today.
      > With virtual reality, you're basically strapping two screens to your head.
      > Magic Leap is something else entirely.
    

I find this intriguing. Oculus and Hololens are a bit of a nonsense to me as I
can't imagine a scenario in which I'd want to strap tech to my face in that
way. Even if it was shrunk to Google Glass size, I think the general reaction
to that shows that it might struggle to gain traction.

Can anyone think of a different form factor that might offer an alternative?

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tmikaeld
The patented technology that Magic Leap is using is optical, it projects the
image directly onto your eye.

So it will basically just be as small as an optic fiber directed at your eye.

Source:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UF9fJtZHAY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UF9fJtZHAY)

The US patent that use that technology shows that Magic Leap inverted the
"camera" to do the opposite.

Source:
[https://www.google.com/patents/US20140003762](https://www.google.com/patents/US20140003762)

My guess is that they will use it in both ways, as a camera to see the world
through "your" eyes and the projector to place the objects correctly in your
field of view.

The demo video shown here focuses the "eyes/camera" on the objects and they
respond correctly by going out of focus - this means it has to know how the
eyes behave.

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monk_e_boy
How do you think the system deals with your eyes moving around? So if you move
your head left and swivel your eyes right and focus in close... I don't think
I'm understanding how all that works together? They are detecting all
movements - head, eyes, lens focus?

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tmikaeld
Eye tracking have been around for quite a while and it seems that even normal
cameras can track the eyes and eye focus (Tobii being world leader).

If they use the technology mentioned here, it would be very high resolution
(4K mentioned in the demo video) at a short distance (mm's) at full focus.

But - just as you say, no one yet knows how Magic Leap reads the environment
to do proper mapping and focusing on an object in real life (rather than on a
screen like some VR headset do) should be very unpredictable.

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jordancj
I really like magic leap but I just don't understand how they make these
demos... They keep claiming it isn't manipulated but there's a change of depth
of view/it's inside/etc. I hope whatever it is it just comes out soon. I'm
tired of hoping it's real.

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the-dude
If the projection is into the eyes, how are these demos being recorded?

Or are these demos just being 'rendered' ?

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pavelrub
If you can project it into an eye, why wouldn't you be able to project it into
a camera?

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wesleyy
I'd imagine it'd be the same reasons as to why a TV or projected screen looks
great in real life but terrible when it's through a camera.

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dizzyviolet
So....it's basically a technology that duplicates the retinal projection in
Star Trek TNG's "The Game"?

Interesting if it works that well. I could see people using this far more than
the others coming out.

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tmikaeld
I have a feeling that they want to create their own "OS" just to avoid the
growing field of patents surround AR and VR right now.

