
Magic Leap goes to Finland in pursuit of VR and AR talent - SkarredGhost
https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/magic-leap-goes-to-finland-in-pursuit-of-nordic-vr-and-ar-talent/?ncid=rss
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existencebox
So here's my concern with Magic Leap. (And I say this with friends working
there, so I WANT them to succeed more than anything, but I can't help but look
askew at some of the secrecy)

If their technology is _so critically secret_ that everything needs to be
under more NDA/IP protection than I've seen in almost any other consumer
product, one would think that implies it's readily duplicatable if someone
just had the secret sauce? But in that case, one would expect to see more
results after how long they've been in dev. I've heard in many cases
founders/VCs laugh at the concept of "keeping your million dollar idea secret"
because of the concern that someone will steal it, let alone a concept so
complex that a group of some of the better specialists in this area
(AR/VR/robotics/wearables/vision) have taken this long to bring a product to
market.

So is the concern just about entities like Google/MSR who would show up out of
the blue willing to throw essentially endless money at the problem? Because
off the top of my head they have not shown a great track record of even
executing on _their own_ ideas with a compelling end product on a fast enough
time-scale to be competitive against someone with a multi year lead. I'm just
not sure I follow the benefit of this level of secrecy compared to the amount
of skepticism it naturally generates in someone who would love to be an early
adopter.

~~~
onion2k
It's wholly possible that taking the idea from a concept to a working product
is _just so hard_ that they don't want to show it off before it's 'ready'.

Demonstrating an innovative product before it's in a state where people can
really understand it is risky - getting written down by tech pundits would
seriously increase the time it'd take to get the public to buy in. Arguably
that's what happened with Google Glass; early adopters bought in but couldn't
realise the potential of their investment, so there was something of a
backlash. That limited Google's options for a bigger launch because people
wouldn't have bought in. They apparently kept going but in secret. Magic Leap
are doing the same thing but without the mistake of launching too early.

~~~
cocktailpeanuts
Google Glass failed not because it wasn't ready. It WAS ready product-wise AND
technology-wise. It failed because it was just a bad product. Nobody likes to
be video recorded without knowing, and nobody likes to make other people
uncomfortable.

If Google Glass had instead launched WITHOUT the live streaming and all the
features that violate people's privacy, it may still be around, no matter how
bad it looked.

What excited people about Google Glass was NOT being able to record others
without them knowing, but how it could potentially provide value by augmenting
reality.

Likewise, I'm sure Magic Leap should be "ready" at this point. If they are
not, it means they still haven't found their MVP, which is a bad sign. I have
never seen a piece of technology that succeeded by launching 100% refined. All
successful technology launch as something that's not quite perfect but even
with the limited performance provides value to small set of audience. And this
includes even Apple.

~~~
abritinthebay
> _It WAS ready product-wise AND technology-wise._

Having regularly used one at work - this is either _very much_ not true or the
"ready" product was just a bad product.

It was a barely useful product that managed to underwhelm at everything it
did.

It was an _extremely_ cool idea, but they should have never tried to promote
it as a sellable product.

~~~
cocktailpeanuts
> Having regularly used one at work - this is either very much not true or the
> "ready" product was just a bad product.

Maybe you didn't read the part where I said "it was just a bad product".

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6stringmerc
Okay, I'm probably not the first or only person to have this sneaking
suspicion, but here it goes anyway:

This run-up to Magic Leap is giving me déjà vu of the Segway.

~~~
xt00
was totally thinking the same thing... 100% whatever they release unless it
cures cancer and does AR and VR and uses displays that are like 1 million PPI,
I think people are gonna be disappointed.. they are doing themselves a huge
disservice by keeping it so hyped and so quiet.. same thing with the segway,
people thought by the time it would launch that it would be like a legit
hoverboard that shot beams of antigravity out the bottom.. then they launch
and show people riding on two wheels with kids helmets and kneepads and elbow
pads on.. I was like... um, no...

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davesque
I fear magic leap is riding the hype train more than is healthy. They're
setting their potential future customers up for disappointment. It seems
unlikely to me that whatever they're working on is _so_ revolutionary that
we're all going to agree that the secrecy was necessary.

I'd be interested to know if there's any precedent for this kind of strategy
working to increase profits. The only examples I can think of (e.g. Segway)
are ones in which the hype actually worked against adoption of the product
when it was released.

At the end of the day, I really do hope they succeed. It will be great when
someone comes up with the analogue of the first iPhone except for AR.

~~~
supermatt
Most people (including the technical) that I've mentioned the name to, don't
recognise it or know what it does. Maybe its just us hyping it up amongst
ourselves?

~~~
vikascoder
Suffice to say the tech that Magic Leap has is so much leaps and bounds better
than Hololens that it will derail Microsoft's AR train completely once its
launched. The hype is very real and so is the tech.

~~~
efnx
And how do you know this?

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Jommi
Anybody want to actually discussed the news specifically, rather than just
generally discussing magicleap yet again.

Or maybe the analysis was just So spot on? Not sure.

~~~
josephpmay
The article is seeping with misinformation. Not sure why it reached the front
page vs. the other Magic Leap pieces that have come out this week.

~~~
Jommi
Hey thanks for responding! What parts are misinformation?

~~~
josephpmay
Off the top of my head:

-Magic Leap is located in Hollywood/Plantation/Fort Lauderdale which is nowhere near Orlando

-For now, Magic Leap is not in the VR space, rather they are augmented/mixed reality

-Magic Leap is very much a hardware play, not a software one. From what I've heard (and this could be incorrect), their headset runs a heavily-modified version of Android, not a new operating system developed from scratch.

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bane
At last, a VR/AR version of the classic game, "My Summer Car"

[http://www.amistech.com/msc/](http://www.amistech.com/msc/)

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bpicolo
> While Magic Leap is clearly going after talent in locations that have
> established themselves in fields integral to VR/AR. Florida – where the
> company is headquartered – is a burgeoning gaming and graphics hub with
> Orlando as one of the biggest video game development communities in the US.

Except they're in Ft. Lauderdale?

Still pretty skeptical of Magic Leap given time-to-market(public demo, etc). I
do hope they do well, though - I grew up in the area, cool to see some
interesting tech there.

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koolba
Curious how this is #8 on the front page with 3 points[1].

Even more curious what the actual product of this company is going to be. A VR
dev kit? Their website is devoid of anything but videos of people going "
_Ooohh!_ " at special effects.

[1]: [http://archive.is/AwjrF](http://archive.is/AwjrF)

 _EDIT: Added link to snapshot._

~~~
cma
Supposedly AR glasses with multiple focal planes and with localized occlusion
(blacking out the world; don't know if this part is being done at the
different focal planes, I'm more skeptical of it than any of the other parts,
because all of their through-glasses views have been in very dim rooms).

~~~
mojomark
> Supposedly AR glasses with multiple focal planes and with localized
> occlusion (blacking out the world;

I recommend being more specific when referring to occlusion with respect to AR
systems. There are two primary forms: (1) "Real Occlusion" in which selected
wavefronts are blocked (occluded) such that a transparent near-eye display is
capable of displaying black, (2) "Virtual Occlusion" in which real objects are
actively scanned/tracked to permit virtual objects to appear occluded being
real objects.

ML system claims both capabilities, and I agree with you that Real Occlusion
is several orders of magnitude more difficult. I think real occlusion is
valuable, because in addition to displaying black it enables images to appear
solid vice translucent. However, I don't feel it's an absolutely necessary
feature for a quality AR systems. After all, ultra bright projection displays
present perfectly fine images without displaying true black. They simply
exploit the properties of human eye perception with respect to brightness
contrast of adjacent pixels. An AR system can do the same.

Personally, I would prefer to have a quality AR system with unlimited FOV
constraints and virtual occlusion capability sooner rather than wait for real
occlusion to be perfected.

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mark_kalvelage
Does anyone have any advice on how to start doing VR/AR development? What
tools are used and knowledge is required?

~~~
doublerebel
Microsoft has a series of tutorials using Unity for Hololens. Udacity just
launched a new VR course using Unity as well.

However, performance can be a critical factor depending on the app, and C++
may be the only solution. For that you need low-level knowledge of
shader+texture+render techniques, which for Hololens is generally all in
DirectX.

There are _very few_ business-oriented frameworks for any of the devices,
almost everything is designed for gaming (short scripts and machine-oriented
code organization). Implementing most of what we normally imagine being part
of an 'app' has to be done from scratch.

Source: I am doing a Hololens startup.

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skc
I've been binging on Black Mirror episodes. So all this secrecy about whatever
they are building is giving me the creeps.

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mrfusion
I feel like we've been waiting for this product for almost ten years now. When
is it coming?

~~~
efnx
I agree. I've been waiting since the Burger King vr boy.

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zump
Why Finland and not Australia?

What's the Silicon Valley insiders attitude towards Australia?

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sagivo
I like the facet that they don't follow the hype and actually open offices
where they can find the best talent for their company. they did the same by
opening an office in Israel as well where they can find a lot of VR/AR
experience.

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pawanpe
#4 now [http://archive.is/82Q85](http://archive.is/82Q85)

