Magic Leap's Smaller, Lighter Second-Gen AR Glasses Are Now Available (engadget.com) 14
Magic Leap's second take on augmented reality eyewear is available. "The glasses are still aimed at developers and pros, but they include a number of design upgrades that make them considerably more practical -- and point to where AR might be headed," reports Engadget. From the report: The design is 50 percent smaller and 20 percent lighter than the original. It should be more comfortable to wear over long periods, then. Magic Leap also promises better visibility for AR in bright light (think a well-lit office) thanks to "dynamic dimming" that makes virtual content appear more solid. Lens optics supposedly deliver higher quality imagery with easier-to-read text, and the company touts a wider field of view (70 degrees diagonal) than comparable wearables.
You can expect decent power that includes a quad-core AMD Zen 2-based processor in the "compute pack," a 12.6MP camera (plus a host of cameras for depth, eye tracking and field-of-view) and 60FPS hand tracking for gestures. You'll only get 3.5 hours of non-stop use, but the 256GB of storage (the most in any dedicated AR device, Magic Leap claims) provides room for more sophisticated apps. The base model of the glasses costs $3,299, with the Enterprise model amounting to about $5,000.
You can expect decent power that includes a quad-core AMD Zen 2-based processor in the "compute pack," a 12.6MP camera (plus a host of cameras for depth, eye tracking and field-of-view) and 60FPS hand tracking for gestures. You'll only get 3.5 hours of non-stop use, but the 256GB of storage (the most in any dedicated AR device, Magic Leap claims) provides room for more sophisticated apps. The base model of the glasses costs $3,299, with the Enterprise model amounting to about $5,000.
Well worth the $2.6bn? (Score:3)
So, is it finally well worth the $2.6 billion it raised 5 years or so ago?
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The whole thing seems like one of those things that winds up in court.
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They seem to have raised $2.6 billion in 2 funding rounds. The "valuation" is a result of the share the funding partners get for the money they put in. E.g. it mentions a $4.5 billion valuation, that can occur if they raised $2.6 billion by giving a 58% share of the company. So it is not exactly what they say, it is what they agree with the suck^H^H^H^H investors that throw money at them.
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The big question is what are they going to be worth when Apple [apple.com] releases their AR glasses [lifewire.com]?
Magic Leap has had a few years head start, so I hope they put it to good use because they could completely tank if Apple's version is a hit -- and at the predicted $500 price point.
Re: Well worth the $2.6bn? (Score:2)
Long-term, Magic Leap can win by "losing", the same way Microsoft did with Windows Mobile vs Android & IOS. For *years*, Microsoft made more profit (in royalties) from the sale of an Android phone or IPhone than they *ever* did from the sale of a Windows Mobile phone.
It wasn't just due to FAT... WinMo was ugly, but at its core, it brought together all the foundational elements we now take for granted in a "smartphone". Microsoft did a huge amount of fundamental R&D, and reaped the benefits for years
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We're first to file now, so ...
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The "concept" AR might have been patented (and expired) long ago, but ML advanced a lot of fundamental "implementation" issues that aren't nearly as sexy, but are ultimately quite important.
The fact is, there are a lot of fundamental tasks related to AR that are conceptually semi-straightforward if you have a rack of i9 Xeons at your disposal... but are really damn hard to do in near-realtime if you're limited to the computing power of a high-end Android phone. Consider surface-mapping of a user's environme
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I will also point out that even if gen 1 Apple AR glasses suck and are overpriced, they will sell 10 times
Smaller and lighter (Score:2)
So... more like a Magic Step.
No point of switching (Score:2)
If they had a major breakthrough in resolution or image fidelity then I could see the point. Call me when they finally decide that 8 or 10K per eye is worth doing.
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What? Who said that? You literally don't know anything. I am strongly in favor of capitalism. I am against communism and statism. I've always been against government ownership of production. I don't like nationalism and Trumpism.