
Magic Leap Ships First Set of Devices Under Tight Security Constraints - RossBencina
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-30/magic-leap-ships-first-set-of-devices-under-tight-security-constraints
======
BoorishBears
In case anyone is wondering, this really isn’t that unusual.

For the longest time you couldn’t get most console dev kits without a business
address and very strict guidelines on a separate lockable space for the
hardware.

I think there’s been some relaxation on that more recently (I know at least
with Nintendo there has), but it’s not that odd that a supposedly earth
shattering technology have those guidelines.

~~~
raverbashing
Sounds more like a gimmick to create hype, in Magic Leap's case

I can understand the case with videogames, for pre-release dev kits, but maybe
it's too much as well.

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
I work in this industry, and every early devkit device we've received from the
manufacturer has come with these kinds of constraints for us. I would have
been much more shocked if Magic Leap didn't require these kinds of things of
its early devkit recipients. And I'm a big ML skeptic.

~~~
IshKebab
The Hololens doesn't have such restrictions, and that's the closest device I
can think of.

~~~
sulam
That's currently for sale, though. It's hard to tell me to keep it in a safe
when you have a web page like this:

[https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/hololens/buy](https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/hololens/buy)

Other people commenting on this are spot on. This is standard operating
procedure for new hardware with the sort of attention that Magic Leap has.

------
was_boring
I know someone that works for magic leap and is very disillusioned with the
company because they haven't released a viable product.

I wonder how long a company can continue without ever actually testing the
market?

~~~
wpietri
Exactly. One of the big concerns for me is the extent to which their work-in-
isolation approach has baked in untested market and design hypotheses. By the
time they test them in the real world, it could be too late to recover.

I think one of the superpowers a startup has is that early on nobody gives a
fuck what you're doing, so you're free to iterate quickly and boldly. You find
out which of your brilliant ideas are brilliant and which are big mistakes.

Magic Leap's hype/secrecy combo really cuts against that. Apple gets away with
that because a) they have more money than God, and b) they mostly enter
markets after other people have broken trail for them (e.g., iPod, iPhone,
Apple Watch).

It's perfectly plausible that Magic Leap will come out with an interesting but
fatally flawed product, like the Amazon Fire Phone or Google Glass. Amazon and
Google can shrug and move on, but Magic Leap may not have the cash to recover.

Or, possibly worse, they come out with something like the Segway: really
interesting tech that everybody is excited about, but with little practical
use once we get past the gee-whiz phase. For a company that has already raised
$2.3 billion, that could be fatal.

~~~
tixocloud
Given how incredibly intuitive Apple products are, I find it hard to believe
that they develop products without market testing. It might be a secret to the
public but I am almost certain you can't nail UI so perfectly without
undergoing some user testing. All the users/testers/vendors have all probably
signed an NDA and value the partnership with Apple enough to not disclose
anything.

~~~
wpietri
You're confusing two different things. They do a ton of prototyping and user
testing, which allows them to make a very polished product. But they don't
just throw things out into the market and see what happens.

User testing has clear limits. The context of a user test is usually something
like, "Assume that you have bought one of these, and assume that you're trying
to do X. See if you can do X with this." If you're assuming those things, you
can't test them.

This is in contrast with what startups do, which is just launching something
to see if the market gives a shit. Apple is a good example of that, too. Look
at their first product:

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

This computer didn't have a keyboard, a monitor, a case, or a power supply.
But it was a clear minimum viable product: people bought it and used it, while
making it clear they wanted more. A year later, they launched the Apple II:

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

These days Apple would never launch something so rough and experimental as the
Apple I. Instead, as with MP3 players, smartphones, and smart watches, they
were content to let other people pioneer the space and then swoop in once the
market was proven.

Magic Leap is trying to be as slick as 2010s Apple, but that cuts them off
from acting like 1970s Apple. That could work if they're correct on all their
key design and market hypotheses. But it's a giant gamble, and unlike 2010s
Apple, a failure could kill them.

------
LyalinDotCom
"Magic Leap Inc. has quietly begun sending its mysterious augmented reality
headsets into the wild. A small group of software developers recently received
devices at their offices, according to people familiar with the matter. But
access to the gadget comes with an unusual caveat: They must commit to keeping
them in locked safes."

Let me explain how this works as a marketing person. You create hype for your
new thing any way you can, for example if you ask developers getting the
device to put it in a safe, all of a sudden you keep yourself in the news,
because its stupid. and the news media loves stupid and strange things, they
get people to click on it and promote it on HN.

I am not saying this wont be a great device and im excited for this product
honestly, but artificial hype like this needs to be seen for what it is. Let
them prove their product through its actual technology, SDK's and consumer
love, then we'll see.

I wish Magic Leap all the best!

~~~
Holomakerbot
Was the part about a developer turning it down because of the NDA part of the
marketing too? Most likely this story came out because the press will print
anything about magic leap if it fits the narrative of ML being in trouble.
Highly unlikely this was a marketing stunt.

------
coryfklein
All these people crying, "marketing stunt," obviously have no idea the complex
processes and efforts that go into writing business contracts. As if lawyers
at Magic Leap have the heads of marketing on speed dial or something.

~~~
dmix
If anything it's the marketing dept who most want these controls. Controlling
when information gets released is a big part of doing PR and marketing big
ticket items like this.

Magic Leap has all the power in this situation, the press are nipping at their
heels and will eat out of their hand. Magic Leap can control what gets
released and when, and build it up to maximize output in big "exciting"
blasts. Instead of raw information trickling out of 3rd party companies which
they have no control over.

Choosing to take advantage of that power (which few companies have) is just
basic common business sense.

And the arguments against it are as silly as "if you've got nothing to hide,
than you have nothing to worry about", as if there are no inherent risks of
not being in control of your own information, even when you're doing nothing
wrong.

------
asafira
Are we going to get a version 2.0 of the hololens or oculus anytime soon to
see what the next-generation lineup is going to be like? Is there already
information out on them?

~~~
Tossrock
The Vive Pro is coming out quite soon with ~70% increased resolution over the
original Vive/Oculus. Then there's the two Pimax iterations coming later which
have even more.

Haven't heard anything specifically about the Hololens or Oculus, but there
are a good number of Hololens-derived headsets (ie using the same inside-out
tracking tech) in the wild under the Windows Mixed Reality marque, eg the
Samsung Odyssey. The Odyssey has the same resolution as the upcoming Vive Pro
(1440 x 1600 per eye).

~~~
notatoad
Google and LG announced a partnership for 1440x1600 panels for an upcoming
daydream viewer too. Seems to be the new standard.

------
Mononokay
> But access to the gadget comes with an usual caveat

Am I not right here, or is it supposed to be "a usual caveat"?

Edit: Or alternatively, "an unusual caveat."

~~~
83457
Depends on how you pronounce beginning of "usual". If "y" sound then use "a"
but if "oo" then "an". Just like words like "history" can be pronounced
differently and thus can be "a" or "an" depending on location/accent of
writer.

~~~
Dylan16807
1\. I'm pretty sure nobody says "oosual"

2\. Every time I have heard "an historic", that person pronounced the "h". It
might have been downplayed slightly, but it has always been there. They are
using "an" because it's an (historical) idiom, even though it's grammatically
incorrect.

~~~
Intermernet
> I'm pretty sure nobody says "oosual"

The cool / terrible thing about English (and other "international" languages)
is that if there is a way to pronounce something someway, someone will
pronounce it that way. Once we then define grammatical rules based on
pronunciation of surrounding words, we then have to deal with the fallout of
those rules. I have my opinions of pronunciation, but if the majority start
pronouncing "usual" as "oosual" then I'll just shake my head and grumble a bit
while accepting that the language has moved on. After all, Americans say
"Aluminum" and there's nothing I can do about it!

~~~
Dylan16807
That's a big "if", though. I'm still putting my bets on it being 0% of current
use, when rounded to the nearest percent.

------
shawn
Hey all, avaer is streaming hacking on the Magic Leap SDK, live now:
[https://www.twitch.tv/avaer](https://www.twitch.tv/avaer) (Streams pretty
much daily.)

You can see past coding sessions here:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbeboI7dMETmnUro91AxJZA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbeboI7dMETmnUro91AxJZA)

I was skeptical of Magic Leap too, but their SDK is very real. Maybe seeing it
in action might dispel some of the concerns.

~~~
pavlov
An SDK is of no use if the hardware doesn’t live up.

The Apple Newton had a really nice software stack too.

~~~
shawn
Very true. What caught my attention as a graphics dev is how legit their SDK
design was: [https://rawgit.com/shawwn/magic-leap-
docs/master/v0.11.1/api...](https://rawgit.com/shawwn/magic-leap-
docs/master/v0.11.1/api/html/modules.html)

i.e. If you imagine writing an SDK for a bag of hot air, it seems like it
would turn out very different from what you see there.

It's also small and tasteful. That caught me too. I didn't expect a big
company to put out something elegant, but they seem to know what they're
doing.

You're right though -- it all comes down to the hardware. We'll found out
later this year.

~~~
pavlov
The SDK looks good, but I don’t see any big surprises: it looks quite similar
to the Oculus and Microsoft Hololens frameworks. It seems like the kind of SDK
a highly competent software team might develop just by extrapolating from
competitors’ shipping hardware.

------
cmiles74
My first thought is that this business about keeping the unit in a locked safe
is just another way to generate press around the early release of development
units, something that most people might not find that exciting. Other hardware
companies have had similar requirements but I don't remember that warranting
an article on Bloomberg.

~~~
obmelvin
If other companies do it then why would they be doing it for press? I think
it's more likely that this is getting an article because there's been such
obscene amounts of hype around Magic Leap.

------
cromwellian
Is this any more unusual than what Apple did with the iPhone,iPad, and Apple
Watch with regards to third party developers?

------
Animats
So, years after the Microsoft HoloLens, they come out with a clunkier version
with roughly equivalent performance. So?

The HoloLens is quite good as a wearable device. I've tried one. It's much
lighter than an HTC Vibe or Oculus Rift, despite being self-contained and
wireless.

------
firefoxd
The mystery, the security and the obscurity are all part of the product.

------
saudioger
What's the deal with the hype on this thing, isn't it just some iteration on
the Hololens? Limited FOV, decent tracking, same old story...

~~~
dmix
It's quite obvious what the hype is about. Manhattan project style projects
with massive funding and talent will always be interesting.

And just because Nokia had a smartphone before iPhone doesn't mean you could
dismiss it just as a "touch screen phone with an operating system and apps".

------
sschueller
I have the feeling the only thing white collar crocks get charged with these
days is insider trading.

I wouldn't be surprised if those laws get more lax next.

~~~
sschueller
Oops, this comment was for another post. Something odd is going on with the
mobile app.

~~~
Intermernet
Which mobile app? I don't think HN have an official app, and I'd like to know
if one of the 3rd party apps needs a hand with any issues. Not sure if I could
help, but I do like hunting down random bugs :-)

~~~
sschueller
I use materialistic on Android.
[https://github.com/hidroh/materialistic](https://github.com/hidroh/materialistic)

I don't recall exactly how it happend but I think I was reading an article,
then went back to the home screen and selected add comment from the dropdown
of that article row. It may have also been user error.

------
katebrooks
Looks more of a marketing stunt than security.

------
bsbechtel
Random HN poll: How many people here are actually considering buying Magic
Leap's product when it becomes available?

~~~
ryandrake
How can one even consider buying something if they don’t know what it is, what
it does, or if and when it will even be available?

~~~
Holomakerbot
Read this to find out what it is and what it does:
[https://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/features/lightwear-
intro...](https://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/features/lightwear-introducing-
magic-leaps-mixed-reality-goggles-w514479)

Release is this year. Pricing will come at time of preorder.

------
dantetwc
Magic Leap is just another Theranos.

------
cm2012
Theranos 2.0

~~~
ericd
Investors actually tried the hardware before investing in this case, so it's a
bit different.

~~~
foobiekr
They tried hardware. Whether they tried a product that the company had no hope
of _ever_ making practical and portable is the question.

~~~
ericd
Yep, they're betting that there is a hope of that. They're not investing in
blue chips here. I think it's a bit much to jump to the conclusion that ML
knows they're on a fools errand and are defrauding investors, just because
they're secretive and they pump out hype.

------
tigershark
It’s impossible that they are shipping. Accordingly to a lot of HN users the
device doesn’t exist. /s

