Magic Leap Used Fake Tech Demos and Is 'Years' Behind Schedule (ibtimes.co.uk) 114
New submitter drunkdrone writes: Magic Leap's coveted mixed reality technology has been the subject of intense speculation since it broke ground in 2014. Having secured billions of dollars in funding from some of the world's biggest tech giants, the secretive start-up has managed to stay at the centre of the VR/AR conversation despite showing little of the so-called revolutionary technology it has in the works. Now, the Magic Leap hype bubble may be about to burst in spectacularly disappointing fashion. According to reports, the Florida-based start-up is years behind on its plans and may have used deceptive product demos in order to keep interest in its tech alive. The Verge, which quotes an exclusive article from The Information, reports that Magic Leap's mixed reality technology has long since been overtaken by other products already on the market such as Microsoft's HoloLens, which Magic Leap's technology is said to most closely resemble. Allegedly, Magic Leap has struggled to scale-down a bulky piece of laser projection equipment used within the headset's display. "The crux of the problem appears to be Magic Leap's gamble on a so-called fibre scanning display, which shines a laser through a fibre optic cable that moves rapidly back and forth to draw images out of light," reports the Verge.
Well, there's that old saying... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Also, "hardware is hard."
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I can't tell if you managed to intentionally meant to invoke the Liar Paradox or not. Good show!
Re: Well, there's that old saying... (Score:2)
Energy Catalyzer (Score:2)
I heard they alos solved the battery problem by using an energy catalyzer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
and they get haptic feed back from an EM drive thrust.
Company was just purchased (Score:2)
by Theranos
It feels as if it was just last month... (Score:2)
Oh wait, it was [slashdot.org]
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Dog whistle for dyslexic racists?
Ya don't say (Score:1)
Florida-based start-up
Wait, a scam in Florida? That's unpossible!
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Florida-based start-up
Wait, a scam in Florida? That's unpossible!
Yes, it turns out all the breathtakingly rendered 3D augmented-reality monsters in the demos were just the native fauna of Florida.
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come on, now. Uncle Billy ain't all that bad.
Re: Finally! (Score:1)
I hope they don't. When things fail like this I love it. This is capitalism at its finest. It's eating its own and leaving the stupid out to dry. I just wish it happened more. That's the only thing to be mad about here.
Y'all want this beast, you might as well fucking enjoy all of it. Don't cry when things go wrong and the market does what the market should.
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This is capitalism at its finest. It's eating its own
I think you mean cannibalism...
Re: Finally! (Score:4, Insightful)
Failing because you bet on the wrong tech? Fine. But faking tech demos to dupe investors? Go to jail. One of the stupidities of blind worship of capitalism is that capitalism only works if everybody has access to accurate information.
Re: Finally! (Score:1)
What do you think they actually did with the money? Burn it with lasers? Pew, pew!
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Remember back in the late nineties, when people (mostly stupid liberals) convinced Congress and Clinton to pass a "Luxury Tax" on things like ... yachts? Remember what happened to all those industries that were building those things? Do you remember the fanfare when they repealed that tax?
Yeah, nobody remembers shit like that.
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Informative)
Do you? This happened in the early 90s, actually. HW Bush implemented it, Clinton repealed it his first year in office.
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All of it didn't expire in the 90's. The automobile luxury tax didn't go away until 2002 courtesy of George W. Bush. Get off your high horse.
How would that affect American companies, anyway? They still don't know how to build a luxury car that doesn't feel like the inside of a plastic lunchbox.
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Clinton repealed it because by then it was obvious it was killing the industries it effected (e.g. yacht sales plummeted and boat
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Only private. And probably all faked well enough to fool investors.
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Until some physics breakthrough happens where we get cold fusion, not much will change.
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Read. 110010001000 is a troll, but this statement:
no more large leaps like we have had for the previous 40 years.
Does not mean:
there will be no more large leaps in 40 years
as you bitch about.
The statement means that we will have no more (ever, within your lifetime, whatever) large leaps like the large leaps we've had throughout the PAST 40 years.
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The reality is that the tech industry has reached a dead end with the death of Moore's Law.
Are you implying that raw processing speed is the only possible avenue of innovation? Really? There are no other possible ways that technology can improve?
Re:Common (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as software goes, isn't processing speed the only thing that matters? Adding more RAM, doing parallel computing, etc are just other ways of increasing the processing speed too.
On the contrary, software could go a long way to utilize the parallelism better. Heck, most consumer software if re-written carefully would achieve speedups well beyond a couple Moore's Law generations.
Doing that re-writing properly would probably also cost more, which is why people have been happy to follow the hardware route for so long.
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if re-written carefully would achieve speedups well beyond a couple Moore's Law generations
Yes, immediately offset by bugs and other wonders that result from thinking you have a better way.
You are right, software has a lot of room for further optimisation. But as much as we like to heap crap onto lazy software engineers who do nothing but copy and paste or implement standard high level libraries without advanced use of languages, it's also how bugs are avoided from re-implementation.
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As far as software goes, isn't processing speed the only thing that matters? Adding more RAM, doing parallel computing, etc are just other ways of increasing the processing speed too.
For the lazy programmers, yes. Outside of embedded systems nobody has cared about optimization for decades now because they can always just up the hardware specs and throw faster hardware at their inefficient code.
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Getting off Spinning disks and onto SSDs has increased computing performance much more than processor speeds has. And it isn't even close. We've just been stuck on Spinning drives for so long, that we thought increasing processor speed would solve our problems, when that wasn't the issue at all.
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The reality is that the tech industry has reached a dead end with the death of Moore's Law.
Is the problem really processing power, though? For a system like this, it seems like there are other problems bound to creep up:
* AFAIK, we still don't have good enough AI to figure out a spacial 3D world from visual input. I know it's still being worked on and there's been progress, but being able to place objects in the real world in this kind of augmented reality requires that the computer can figure out the layout of 3D objects within the real world.
* Even if you can render the graphics and place t
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You haven't used a Hololens obviously. All of your points are adequately addressed - real time room mapping over multiple rooms, instantly understandable UI all controlled by (essentially) two gestures and voice. My mind was blown when someone walked between me and the 'hologram' I was playing with and the image was properly occluded to mask the person.Works incredibly well now and will get better. We have the flops, the hardware and the code to do it all now - you are out of touch!
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You haven't used a Hololens obviously. All of your points are adequately addressed
Pure unadulterated bullshit. I've used the Hololens and it is nowhere near as advanced as you claim.
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Perhaps not in terms of actual speed/# of transistors, but there's plenty of room for improvement elsewhere in the hardware. Additionally, I think we're only really just seeing the catching-up of software to the fact that things have multiple cores (and many specialised cores too).
Moreover, we're now in an age where computers are becoming totally ubiquitous and embedded in the very fabric of our day to day lives, so enhancements in software and connectivity will drive new advancements. 'Virtual assistants
Moore's Law = incremental change (Score:5, Informative)
The reality is that the tech industry has reached a dead end with the death of Moore's Law.
It's absolutely adorable that you think all progress in the tech industry is rooted in Moore's Law and that nothing more can be accomplished if we see a slowing in the rate at which we pack transistors into a given area on a chip.
You will see incremental progress from here on out, but no more large leaps like we have had for the previous 40 years.
All progress is incremental and Moore's Law is nothing if not incremental. If you didn't know that then you didn't understand what was going on. Moore's Law was just a observation of the fast but incremental development of semiconductor manufacturing. However it isn't the end-all-be-all of tech. It's not some fundamental law of nature, just an empirical observation of incremental change.
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Just because we're running in to issues throwing transistors at the problem doesn't mean there isn't room for advancement.
We're coming along quite well making those transistor faster, and learning to better use them. More importantly we're getting VERY good at making data move in and out faster - Which for decades has been the real bottleneck.
Since the late 90s desktops and consumer devices have had fast CPUs starved for data.
The march has always been slow and incremental. Revolutionary products are usually
Better Algorithms Moore's Law (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a good argument for better software design being more important than Moore's Law when it comes to complex breakthroughs in computing. It can be hard to quantify how algorithm improvements compare to hardware improvements, but the field of numerical algorithms [wordpress.com] gives some insight.
In the field of numerical algorithms, however, the improvement can be quantified. Here is just one example, provided by Professor Martin Grötschel of Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum für Informationstechnik Berlin. Grötschel, an expert in optimization, observes that a benchmark production planning model solved using linear programming would have taken 82 years to solve in 1988, using the computers and the linear programming algorithms of the day. Fifteen years later – in 2003 – this same model could be solved in roughly 1 minute, an improvement by a factor of roughly 43 million. Of this, a factor of roughly 1,000 was due to increased processor speed, whereas a factor of roughly 43,000 was due to improvements in algorithms! Grötschel also cites an algorithmic improvement of roughly 30,000 for mixed integer programming between 1991 and 2008.
My guess is we have plenty of room for improvement as we find ways to live within the confines of physics. Even if we don't find a better alternative to silicon based computing, advances in computer science has the potential to improve our computational ability by a factor of millions without needing Moore's law.
Re:Better Algorithms Moore's Law (Score:5, Interesting)
I saw this first hand when I purchased an HP 49G calculator.
Many operations that would hang the 48G for seconds were instant.
If memory serves, they had the same processor, but the 49G had been optimized. When reading that it seemed like BS, but when using it, it was a shocking increase in speed.
Theranos II ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Note to VCs and other money-types.
When a candidate talks about 'revolutionary technology' make sure you see it actually working before you give them mountains of bucks. Oh, and make sure you get it independently tested, too.
Tech has already changed the meaning of 'innovative' to 'same as last year's model minus an interface port' now they're turning revolutionary into some ironic hipster term.
Re:Theranos II ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree but these guys typically just say something like "this is proprietary and integral to the success of the company so we can't let people outside the company see how it actually works, you can just look at the results".
Then greedy investors, not wanting to miss out on the next Apple, Microsoft , Google or Facebook let their emotions get the best of them. The urge to not miss out mixed with the plausible narrative of high tech secrets along with other idiot investors plowing in millions in at the same time (can all of these people be dumb? is the thought).
The reality is that even professional investors get taken for a ride by their emotions and let all sorts of biases into the decision making process. Hardly anyone anymore is analytical and fact based, despite claims to that they are. It is all about the narrative, the "who" is involved and who else has supposedly done due diligence and it becomes a self fulfilling circle jerk of supposedly competent people all investing in the same thing mostly because they all think the other person has done more research and more diligence than them.
Oftentimes this can actually work and the billions of dollars can produce the currently non-existent technology. Other times it doesn't work.
At the end of the day though the real problem is with greedy INVESTORS who are more than willing to let people get away with not sharing information because they think they will miss out on the opportunity.
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Isn't it the goal to get in early, to get a good ROI, and if it fails, just write it off?
Maybe I'm missing something here, but other than the opportunity to invest in another venture, what did the investors lose?
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Note to VCs and other money-types.
When a candidate talks about 'revolutionary technology' make sure you see it actually working before you give them mountains of bucks. Oh, and make sure you get it independently tested, too.
Tech has already changed the meaning of 'innovative' to 'same as last year's model minus an interface port' now they're turning revolutionary into some ironic hipster term.
My experience (in a totally unrelated industry) is that there seems to be a large amount of money out there in private equity looking for something to do. Many of the people doing such work do their due diligence (since they will immediately gut and then flip the company), but suckers are born every minute. In other cases, it seems that the investor/investee relationship is protracted battle between con artists.
But I'm just an engineer, some big shot will probably just jump in here and tell me that I w
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Real news about a post-truth demo.
"Years" (Score:5, Funny)
Pretty impressive to be "years" behind schedule, 2 years after you founded the company. They should declare "time bankruptcy" and start from scratch.
Re:"Years" (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty impressive to be "years" behind schedule, 2 years after you founded the company. They should declare "time bankruptcy" and start from scratch.
Not that I'm defending them, but Magic leap gave their first technology demo in 2011, so it wasn't just 2 years ago the started...
It was 2 years ago they closed their "A" round of financing ($50M) which was technically when they started their "clock"
Google lead their "B" round of financing ($542M)
And earlier this year, Alibaba lead their "C" round of financing (~$800M at a $4.5B valuation),
So they've raised ~$1.4B to date, but I'm guessing the"C" round financiers are shortly about to take a bath...
FWIW, Magic Leap doesn't seem to be organized like a tech venture, but more like a entertainment studio. From all reports, the tech that they seem like they are developing is adapted from medical tech: a single fiber scanning endoscope technology worked on at University of Washington by Eric Seibel. The chief technical officer of Magic Leap is Brian Schowengerdt who was Mr. Seibel's research partner. Apparently, the idea is to reverse the endoscope from being a camera to being a projector. Of course there are issues involved in adapting any technology, so it's not unexpected that they have run into a boat load of trouble and are years behind. Such is the nature of high tech.
mixed reality technology - new type of vapourware (Score:2)
It sounds like those investors had a very mixed reality already.
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Pension funds are in the VC business, so you're wrong.
Managing Expectations (Score:5, Interesting)
People will over-believe what they see. I learned this many years ago, preparing animations on a SGI workstation for use in courtrooms. If a lawyer showed up with an animation of an accident, the jury took it as real and would rule for his client.
It's a two edged sword for tech. Can't get any money unless I show a mockup or prototype. However, once a customer sees a mockup or prototype, they think it's mere inches away from production even though I tell them it's miles. I've even been told I just wanted extra money to "do science projects" instead of heading straight for production when I've tried to warn people how immature the tech was.
Re:Managing Expectations (Score:5, Interesting)
Early in my career, I led a small team to create a product to monitor operations of a physical system. This system was geographically situated in a such a way that different locations were located on a map. The top-level view of the system might refer to different geographic locations (e.g. "First St node" and "Highway 3 node").
This was during the time that Google Earth was New! Exciting! AJAX?! For a prototype, we lifted *the customer's own marketing map graphic* and overlaid a colored disk at each location representing current status.
Two side effects of the prototype demo: first, the sheer wonderment of "how did you get that?! Is it a satellite?! IS IT GOOGLE EARTH?!" Second: "How does it know the status?" "Holy crap! Maple Ave node IS RED ZOMG CALL SOMEONE WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!"
The best part: explaining it was (1) a simple
Seeing is, indeed, believing.
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For a prototype, we lifted *the customer's own marketing map graphic* and overlaid a colored disk at each location representing current status.
I had similar experiences years ago. This is because most people don't understand the difference between a model and "the real thing" if they can't "see" an obvious difference. Example: A canal lock system. You can build a fully functional model and (almost) no one will mistake that for the finished canal with locks. But a screen on a computer monitor showing a map with blinking dots (and whatever else) looks the same as what the finished application will. All the code "behind" the screen is invisible to th
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Yet, look at VR now and the software available for it, after half a decade. It still hasn't moved on from simple tech demos.
The latest Resident Evil is available in VR. Reviews are, um, good, I guess [penny-arcade.com].
Coleco Chameleon (Score:2)
Sounds as bad as Coleco Chameleon [vice.com]
Hype is a two-edged sword (Score:5, Interesting)
Years ago my boss worked for a software company that sold layout and design software (desktop publishing essentially) to newspapers. They were quite successful and had a lot of clients across the world. They had a few ideas of some cool new features that they would like to build into their next release, and the boss thought it would be neat to demonstrate these future features at a major trade show, to get the clients excited. So they mocked up a convincing demo of how the product *would* work, complete with scripted mistakes (undo) and everything. They did this all live with a guy pretending to interact with the software. But it was all faked.
Well, they were right about the clients and potential clients. They were pretty excited. Very excited as a matter of fact. So excited that all of the companies that had signed on to buy their current version of the software immediately canceled their orders in anticipation of this new version. The problem was of course that it didn't exist and wouldn't for years if ever. Unfortunately that little demo completely killed the company. Their real product just couldn't compete with the hype of their imaginary product. Had they been honest about it up front, they would probably done fine and eventually implement many of those cool features.
Re:Hype is a two-edged sword (Score:5, Informative)
There's actually a name for that: the Osborne effect [wikipedia.org].
FUD? Did anyone read the Articles? (Score:5, Informative)
--sigh ----
So reporter Kevin Kelly - went to magic leap, put on the prototype and says:
Magic Leap’s solution is an optical system that creates the illusion of depth in such a way that your eyes focus far for far things, and near for near, and will converge or diverge at the correct distances. In trying out Magic Leap’s prototype, I found that it worked amazingly well close up, within arm’s reach, which was not true of many of the other mixed- and virtual-reality systems I used. I also found that the transition back to the real world while removing the Magic Leap’s optics was effortless, as comfortable as slipping off sunglasses, which I also did not experience in other systems. It felt natural.
Is he a shill? Like folks have said here. . it's really hard to deliver. . if it wasn't, every nerd with an idea would be making a billion bucks selling us our dream come true. But this article is painfully missing facts, and sloppy with f, u, and d.
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Rebuttal (Score:2)
Here's an interesting rebuttal [linkedin.com] to the idea that it is "another Theranos".
Some key points:
- the product that was the source of this report "was not the Magic Leap's latest prototype"
- the investors that bought into Theranos were "rich individuals whose life sciences experience began and ended with high school biology", but the Magic Leap ones were âoesending their brilliant professors from all the top schools to try and shoot us down.â
I want Magic Leap to be real because it sounds cool. I'm disappo
Hololens also uses fake demos (Score:2)
Magic Leap's mixed reality technology has long since been overtaken by other products already on the market such as Microsoft's HoloLens
HoloLens has almost exclusively used fake demos from the very beginning. People who have actually used HoloLens report poor field of view and semi-transparent graphics, yet the demos all show perfect wide-angle non-transparent graphics that have clearly just been composited over the video signal. Magic leap tried a similar trick for their first demo (with the steam punk ray guns) but all the subsequent videos did appear to be shot directly through their device. Of course, we never actually saw the device,
Adblocker (Score:5, Informative)
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Entirely disabling javascript from ibtimes.co.uk works nicely as well. That's always step-1 when a site is complaining about your ad blocker. Meta redirects may need to be disabled on other sites, as well. Only rarely does it help to disable style sheets on a site.
well we can always fall back on old memes (Score:2)
MS bought their tech, and did the ol' embrace, extend, rig their demo, extinguish.
Hmmm, there should be a Profit! in there, somewhere...