
Magic Leap Secures $542M Led by Google - ghosh
http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/21/magic-leap-tech/
======
jclarkcom
Looking through their most recently filed patents, it looks like their main
innovation is a HMD device that uses a combination of a high speed digital
zone plate, a masking device, and a traditional imaging device.

For each eye, there is an imaging device (720p/1080p resolution for example)
that displays an image. In front of the imaging devices there are high speed
mask device (LCD?) that blocks off portions of the image that are not at the
current focal depth. The focal depth cycles quickly between 12 different
values and easily driven by the z-buffer values from the renders. The light
not blocked by the mask is partially collimated and guided towards the eye via
optics and then a high resolution high speed digital zone plate is used to
refocus the light at different depth levels using diffraction. The mask and
zone plate update together at 12X (360Hz-720Hz) the rate of the image device
(30-60Hz). The result is that pixels that should be at different depths are
actually focused near that depth and the eye blends the 12 partial frames
together to form one image that has a range of depth in it.

I expect they are using off the shelf parts for the imaging device (and maybe
mask LCD) but manufacturing their own digital zone plates since they need
super high resolution and high speed for those (at least 360hz) but only on-
off values not color or grayscale. This is probably where a bit of their money
is going.

If it works, you could get high resolution images per eye, and also see 12
buckets of depth so your eye would refocus to see things close up versus far
away. This could potentially create a pretty good impression of something
existing close to you, compared to existing AR where all objects are focused
at a single fixed depth and there is a conflict between accommodation and
stereopis cues.

Of course this is one of the patents filed, it could be just an idea they
decided to file on, not what they are actually building.

~~~
bentcorner
> In front of the imaging devices there are high speed mask device (LCD?) that
> blocks off portions of the image that are not at the current focal depth.

It would be interesting to see how this works in practice. The eye can't focus
on something that close. For an example, imagine a speck of dirt on your
glasses - it shows up as a blob in your vision, not as a dot.

~~~
srlake
The eye is not focusing on that depth. The light coming out of the lens or LCD
would be collimated / diffracted to form an image on the retina that appears
to originate from a specific distance (or in this case, many different
distances, multiplexed together).

Just like with Google Glass, where the image appears to be at a distance and
your eyes do not focus on the actual screen.

------
LogicX
For me, the biggest headline out of this not being mentioned is that half a
billion in VC was just raised in Hollywood, FL.

I'm building a startup community in Myrtle Beach, SC and Paul Reynolds is one
of the founders of Startup.SC with me. Paul is involved in Magic Leap as a
director, and after working remotely, just moved there last month. It's very
exciting to see unfold!

It drives home the fact that a startup can make such headlines not only
outside Silicon Valley, but even outside other well known northeast tech
metros. It's the sort of news I feed on to explain scalable startup growth
potential: Magic Leap has done a spectacular job attracting talent from all
over the country. There are worse places to be than the Fort Lauderdale, FL
area.

I watched the revival of the Boston startup scene while involved with
TechStars, DogPatch labs, etc. from 2009-2012 and although we certainly don't
have the same resources, I'm doing my best to apply those principles to the
Myrtle Beach market. I hope to one day have a startup come through Startup.SC
which can also demonstrate the ability to attract talent and investment
dollars to a coastal city not known for tech, and demonstrate that a company
can thrive!

Edit: And not going unnoticed in Miami:
[http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article2942814.html](http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article2942814.html)

~~~
boynamedsue
That single $542mm investment in Florida almost exactly doubles all VC
investments made in the state year-to-date. [1]

Here's how I would read this if you're not located in a major tech hub where
VCs readily fund companies and have offices:

1\. Attracting a $500mm investment from Google or any other institutional
investor is an outlier case regardless of where you're located.

2\. You need to have groundbreaking, path forging technology and an amazing
team to get on the radar when you're far outside of a major tech hub.

[1]
[http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/10/17/interactive-m...](http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/10/17/interactive-
map-where-the-venture-capital-dollars-are-going/)

~~~
dkrich
I think #2 is the salient point there and displaces #1.

Creating a "groudbreaking, path forging technology and an amazing team" is the
outlier, not raising a half a billion in funding. If you can achieve the
former, then your odds of the latter go up by many orders of magnitude.

------
reduce
> It’s rare that a company can stay relatively secretive while raising a huge
> amount of funding, but Florida’s Magic Leap has managed that.

Only rare because journalists are extremely lazy by default, and need their
stories pre-drafted and handed to them on a silver platter, which companies
tend to do. Avoiding press is very easy, just don't do the journalists' job
for them. :)

~~~
jonnathanson
_" journalists are extremely lazy by default, and need their stories pre-
drafted and handed to them"_

This seems to be a consensus opinion on HN. I have no idea if it's a majority
opinion, but it's fairly typical. The "journalists are lazy/stupid/inept"
argument generally misunderstands what journalists do, how they work, and how
they pick (or, as is more often the case, how they're assigned) their
coverage. If anything, it gives some journalists _too much_ credit, and for
the wrong things.

I'm not a professional journalist, though I've written frequently for some
major and minor publications. My typical process looks like this:

1\. Pitch a bunch of story ideas to my editor.

2\. Have 99% of those ideas rejected for various reasons: too narrow; too
wonky; not enough meat on the bone [1]; not timely enough [2].

3\. Settle on a topic that is somehow deemed acceptably timely, broad,
approachable to general audiences, and well substantiated by some degree of
data or prior coverage.

The astute reader will start to see how objections [1] and [2] come into
direct conflict. By definition, breaking something _new_ means covering ground
that hasn't been covered before (or at least not often, or not in depth). But
having prior substantiation often means being able to point to pre-existing
coverage, as proof that your topic is of some interest to the public. [3]
Also, you have to sort this all out on a deadline: anything from the end of
the day to the end of the week, per story. (As an exercise: try investigating,
substantiating, and beautifully composing an in-depth story in a single
working day).

[3] The public, as typically defined, is a _very_ broad swath of readers. Even
major tech sites, like TechCrunch, now have a very broad readership -- with
highly varying degrees of technical sophistication, subject-matter expertise,
and topical interests.

On the flip side, look at any of the blogs or publications that HN readers
respect. Chances are, they write in greater depth. They are not afraid to get
into the wonky, technical details of their coverage. They don't just give you
charts and infographics; they give you their statistical reasoning. Niche
publications can do this.

Broad publications theoretically can, but often choose not to, out of the
belief that the effort/payoff ratio just isn't there. It's a lot of effort
that will appeal to only a sliver of their readerships. Deep coverage, or
investigative coverage, or breaking new ground, requires a shitload of hard
work. It is _extremely_ tough on a standard deadline. It often requires a
dedicated budget, and a broadly extended deadline, just to ensure that the
writer(s) can afford to develop it.

Bottom line: I don't disagree with you. Most tech journalism sucks. That said,
I don't blame the writers _per se_. They are the proximate end of a very long
chain. Maybe some of them are capable of writing the stories we'd want to
read. Maybe not. But they don't get the chance in the first place.

Before we impugn the entire field of journalism, let's be clear which
publications, and which branches of journalism, we're impugning. It's silly to
paint the whole field with one brush. I'm not saying the ratio of wheat to
chaff is a good one, in the aggregate. But there is definitely wheat to be
found. For every two dozen tossed-out, deadline-harried stories you find, I
can point you to one or two amazing pieces of long-form writing. Sometimes the
former and the latter are produced by the same writer. It all depends on the
publication, its business objectives, and its beliefs about the demands of its
average audience. The stuff you read in TechCrunch, for example, is meant to
be consumed and immediately understood by almost everyone: you, your non-
technical friend, and even your Baby Boomer parents. There's a certain type of
material that fits that broad audience's tastes. Chances are, it's not the
type of material that moves readers like us.

~~~
VonGuard
Journalist here. This man speaks truth. Pitching is 99% of the job, and I've
lost count of the number of major stories my editors turned down, even when I
had those stories as much as 3 years before major outlets. This is exactly how
it works.

------
tsenkov
Definitely got my attention.

:) Funny thing I noticed, going through the job descriptions - Physical
Requirements for HR Generalist[1]:

> While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required
> to sit;use hands to finger, handle, or feel and talk or hear. The employee
> is frequently required to reach with hands and arms. The employee is
> occasionally required to stand;walk;climb or balance;stoop, kneel, crouch,
> or crawl and taste or smell.

> The employee must regularly lift and/or move up to 10 pounds, frequently
> lift and/or move up to 25 pounds and occasionally lift and/or move up to 50
> pounds.

> Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision,
> distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception and
> ability to adjust focus.

[1]
[http://www.magicleap.com/#/jobDescription/administration/l7&...](http://www.magicleap.com/#/jobDescription/administration/l7&post_id=1)

~~~
kens
I did a web search on those sentences and they appear thousands of times in
job descriptions, e.g. 133,000 results for the "Specific vision...focus"
sentence. The "taste and smell" seems to appear mostly in food service jobs,
where it makes sense.

These seem to be some sort of standard conditions that many jobs cut-and-paste
from somewhere. I wonder what the original source is. But they seem very out
of place for an HR position.

~~~
pmorici
Those sentences probably have to do with the Americans with Disabilities(ADA)
act. They are defining so called "essential job functions".

[http://www.natlawreview.com/article/importance-job-
descripti...](http://www.natlawreview.com/article/importance-job-descriptions)

------
Ragnarork
It's a bit strange how the CEO claims it's not AR while it looks completely
like it.

> since it goes well beyond that and provides truly integrated, 3D digital
> objects that looks as though they were physical objects, alongside the real
> world

That's exactly the goal of augmented reality IMO.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
I'm sure this is easier to explain than "we _actually_ do AR, everyone else is
using the word wrong". (See also: "hacker".)

~~~
maaaats
Who is using the AR word wrong?

~~~
JoachimSchipper
The Ingress game is perhaps the most famous example of a company using
"Augmented Reality" to mean something substantially more limited than Magic
Leap intends.

Also, most of [http://mashable.com/category/augmented-
reality/](http://mashable.com/category/augmented-reality/).

~~~
wodenokoto
I'd say AR with limited functionality is still AR. This pool tables is also
rightly called AR even though it doesn't even feature a screen.

------
nl
As I said when there was speculation into an investment this size by Google,
etc into Magic Leap:

An investment this size isn't designed to get "VC-size" (10x) returns. It is
designed to block competitors getting access to the technology before Google.

~~~
ig1
The 10x factor generally only applies to early stage investments, VCs making
later stage investments tend to need smaller returns because there's less risk
involved.

------
brotchie
[http://www.magicleap.com/#/wizards-
wanted](http://www.magicleap.com/#/wizards-wanted)

Looks like they're heavily recruiting across the board.

    
    
        - FPGA / ASIC engineers;
        - Android developers;
        - Unity developers;
        - Raft of machine vision PhDs (eye tracking, iris recognition, 3D object tracking);
        - Deep learning experts;
        - Rapid prototyping experts;
    

I guess they have a super compelling prototype that needs a bunch of polishing
before commercial release?

Exciting stuff.

~~~
Iftheshoefits
I hope they're OK with remote work, and that they're open to paying more than
the typical IT wage in Florida, because I can't imagine their talent pool will
be substantial otherwise, being in Hollywood, and all.

~~~
fidotron
This struck me too. The secrecy probably excludes remote work, so . . .
they're going to have to pay massively to get the experience they apparently
need down there. This is a rare case where relocating to SV may actually be a
cost reduction measure.

~~~
jusben1369
I don't know. I can see it going both ways. Honestly, how many places sound
this interesting to work at? Feels like Steve Jobs famous line about you can
keep on making sugar water or you can change the world with us. It's hard for
SV people to leave the Kool Aid but it wouldn't be too hard to pull anyone
from a cold part of the US and/or already on the East Coast.

~~~
Iftheshoefits
This company isn't targeting the SV "Kool Aid" crowd for engineering on the
main product. Perhaps their web/mobile apps or other secondary products might
target that crowd, but their core product is one that requires hardware and
software teams working together, with the software teams implementing systems
(applications or even lower level) programming, not fad driven JS-client-on-
Ruby-backend web/mobile "apps".

There just isn't enough such talent especially in Hollywood for them to
attract it locally. By the same token, the tech industry there in general
isn't strong enough to be attractive to someone coming from a tech-rich area
like the Bay (or even Chicago or New York). I would not move to Florida for
work without some significant salary and stability guarantees, because in the
event the company goes belly up, relocates to a place I couldn't/wouldn't
follow, or terminates my employment the quality of the "fallback" jobs is
atrocious (especially in comparison to the work apparently being done at this
place).

~~~
jusben1369
"SV Kool Aid" crowd are people who will never leave the Bay Area because they
believe it's the only place to be. They wouldn't move anywhere else - even a
major secondary hub on the West or East Coast.

I also understand that you personally wouldn't take the risk and move. I just
think that's a small sample size.

------
achr2
Their technology trademark is 'Dynamic Digitized Lightfield Signal'. A
lightfield camera has multiple lenses to record multiple focal points
simultaneously. Have they found a way to reverse this concept, 'project' to a
wearable an eye refocusable image? Their list of job openings leads to a lot
of possibilities.

~~~
XorNot
There's no theoretical reason this wouldn't be possible - there's been a lot
of very cool work on lightfield technology. The best I remember was a display
where by adding multiple LCD layers (3 I think) and calculating a high
frequency distortion signal, you could achieve wide-field of view 3D TV,
glasses-free, with pre-rendered images.

There's other work to do the same thing to the retina - throw a lightfield at
it which simulates the proper wavefronts to focus a 3D image at a short
distance.

Of course this is all kind of begging the question of what this company is
actually doing: for example, the big problem not answered is where they get
the portable processing power to make this work, and what the actual
resolution is? The Oculus Rift already tells us 1080p is not enough and even
1440p will be imperfect.

Of course you could try to end run around the problem: I've been curious what
you could do with 3-color lasers shone through an interferometer setup mounted
on piezoelectrics, so you could add or subtract interference peaks by
advancing the mirrors a few nanometers and then scanning the output over the
eye (or, as one company is doing - using a DLP mirror chip). Focus that laser
beam small enough, and you'd be addressing individual rod and cone receptors
in the retina, granting infinite focus to any projected image.

EDIT: Looking at that jobs page, a laser and fiber optic engineer being top
position seems very intriguing.

~~~
nawitus
But the Rift has a very high FOV compared to what many AR applications
require. If you only need to draw a relatively small AR object instead of
drawing the whole FOV, 1080p goes a long way.

Kinda like the 1080p laptop screen in front of me is cleary enough, but
stretching that to the whole FOV decreases the pixel density too much.

------
throwaway5752
Very interesting, I looked up the CEO to see if he had a Disney/Imagineering
background, and was surprised to see I was familiar with his previous work,
which was founding former public company MAKO Surgical (which ended up being
acquired by Stryker). MAKO's product used a robot/surgeon hybrid + software
for visualizing/planning surgeries for implanting joint replacements.
Interesting career twist (edit: but one that makes a lot of sense)

edit: @glxc, completely agree, I just didn't know a lot about his background
prior to seeing this news. Interesting guy.

~~~
glxc
He's not a roboticist or a film producer, he's a technologist

------
m52go
I'll go ahead and be that guy...

It's absurd that a company is raising a half-billion dollars in _venture
capital_.

So much opportunistic capital tied up in one place makes zero sense,
regardless of how good this venture may be.

~~~
knowaveragejoe
As others have pointed out, it's unlikely that the company needs the money and
this is more about denying competitors the technology before Google gets their
hands on it.

~~~
m52go
Right, I get that. That's why the company _wants_ the capital. It's impossible
for any young company to _need_ this sum of money at once. But it doesn't
justify the market giving it to them.

The ultimate effect is the entire market got denied a substantial amount of
capital (not just ML's competitors) in order for a single entity to gamble it.

That's irresponsible of everyone, founders and investors included. Either
acquire, go public, or JV to secure an opportunity. Why sap such a huge swathe
of capital from the opportunistic ecosystem?

~~~
knowaveragejoe
These are very intelligent folks we're talking about, I'm sure there is a
rational explanation.

~~~
m52go
I hope there is. Intelligent folks also run Wall Street and Washington but
both of those systems are undeniably terrible. Perhaps this is different.

~~~
knowaveragejoe
I don't think that's a good example. For all the angst around them online,
they both have their redeeming qualities if you actually interact with either.

~~~
m52go
I know people who work on Wall Street and I know people who work in the White
House. They are some of the most brilliant people I know.

That doesn't make the systems they collectively run any less corrupt or
terrible than they are.

You originally said:

> These are very intelligent folks we're talking about, I'm sure there is a
> rational explanation.

If the examples I mentioned aren't good, then logically, _there may not be_ a
rational explanation.

But in any case, I think all 3 situations are quite similar. VCs are probably
just as smart as the top people in finance and politics, yet they often appear
stupid from the outside. It's actually quite intriguing. If I were a
researcher, I'd definitely want to investigate this further...

------
serg_chernata
There's a neat discussion on Oculus Rift forums about this company and
speculation that it may be based on light field displays.

[https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1...](https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=10449)

------
netcan
" _artificial, but extremely realistic images .. projected directly onto a
user’s retina_ " launching without predecessors as a commercial product
"fairly soon" would be quite a surprise.

------
spyder
See my previous comment about what their technology might be:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8452013](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8452013)

------
ilaksh
Why didn't they give $500 million to Meta? Seems cooler to me:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJNnX3OaCTY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJNnX3OaCTY)

This is the one I found from a few years ago for Magic Leap:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOW3b7YmeKk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOW3b7YmeKk)
Maybe they have googles now or improved it somehow.

~~~
funkyy
Seems cooler? Magic Leap didnt even properly presented their technology, so
how can you know?

If they gave $500 million to this company it must mean it is either better or
have better perspective. As simple as that.

------
dr_
They have an app on the App Store called Hour Blue, which they had run as a
demo at Comic Con a few years back, in conjunction with string labs. It
doesn't seem to work for me in the iPhone 6 though. You watch a video of the
demo if you search on YouTube however. The demo was a basic augmented reality
example. I'm assuming, with an investment of this size, they have achieved
something far more substantial.

------
higherpurpose
AR is okay, but it will probably be gimmicky for a long time before it's
useful. VR is the closest thing we have to the Holodeck, and it's almost here.
I thought Google loved Star Trek. It shouldn't be ignoring VR.

~~~
Ragnarork
It's already useful. See [http://augmentedev.com/](http://augmentedev.com/)
(Well, it's not a really funny application of AR, but I wouldn't call it
gimmicky)

------
hauschi
Really love that they actually try to sell a vision and pull through with it.

------
codydabest
Did anybody notice the typo on the company page? "It is biomimetic, meaning it
respects how we are function naturally as humans (we are humans after all, not
machines)."

~~~
fidotron
I was more struck that it misrepresented what biomimetics is.

There are interesting biomimetic things in display tech derived from butterly
wings, which the wikipedia page conveniently mentions
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomimetics#Display_technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomimetics#Display_technology)

------
philippnagel
Was anyone else's antivirus software triggered by their website? Avast thinks
http//www.magicleap.com/js/app.js is malware.

~~~
dmix
It's just an angular app. False positive.

------
theklub
Interesting that disney didn't invest, seems like they are right in their
backyard and the potential to use this in a theme park....

------
rip747
read the article, visited their website, watched their video.

still haven't a clue of what they are doing. maybe i'm a moron. can someone
shed some light on what _exactly_ they are getting $542M for?

~~~
drosit776
I'll take a guess and say that the hidden killer app is porn.

~~~
marjuk
haha!

------
Speckled
Why didn't Google just buy Meta?

------
nrser
i only half read the article but i'm still gonna call color

