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Magic Leap AR Headset Will 'Cease To Function' In 2025 (uploadvr.com) 32

Posted by BeauHD from the risks-of-early-adopting dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from UploadVR: Magic Leap 1 AR headsets will 'cease to function' from December 31, 2024, the company announced. Magic Leap 1 launched in mid 2018 as the first transparent AR headset marketed and sold to consumers. The headset is powered by a tethered waist-mounted compute pack and came with a single tracked controller, though it got hand tracking support too. Content for the device included avatar chat, a floating web browser, a Wayfair app for seeing how furniture might look in your room, two games made by Insomniac Games, and a Spotify background app.

But Magic Leap 1's eye-watering $2300 price and the limitations of transparent optics (even today) meant it reportedly fell significantly short of sales expectations. Transparent AR currently provides a much smaller field of view than the opaque display systems of VR-style headsets, despite costing significantly more. And Magic Leap 1's form factor wasn't suitable for outdoor use, so it didn't provide the out-of-home functionality AR glasses promise to one day like on-foot navigation, translation, and contextual information. The Information reported that Magic Leap's founder, the CEO at the time, originally expected it to sell over one million units in the first year. In reality it reportedly sold just 6000 units in the first six months.
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Magic Leap AR Headset Will 'Cease To Function' In 2025 More

Magic Leap AR Headset Will 'Cease To Function' In 2025

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  • Murder should be on the table (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @07:11PM (#63813567)

    I get "end of updates". I get "end of support". But why in the hell should the apps have to cease functioning?

    In theory, if I still had my C=64 running around I could stick a floppy in my 1541 and type in 'load "$",8,1' and get to playing a classic game.

    This "Internet connection required" shit has to become unacceptable to consumers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Yep. Enforced obsolescence.

    • Re:Murder should be on the table (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Phylter ( 816181 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @07:21PM (#63813581)

      They've basically confirmed to everybody that didn't buy it that they were right. I'm not sure how they can do this and then expect the Magic Leap 2 to sell any better. Oh, and the Magic Leap 2 is nearing release if what I read was right.

    • Sue them until they are broke then shoot them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jwhyche ( 6192 )

        My option is that any device that any company that can't or won't support a device they sold for at least 10 years should lose all IP related to that device. All patents become void, all source code, and documents become public domain. That way any community that exists around it can support it or a rival can take up your customers.

    • 'load "$",8,1'

      Well, that would get you the disk directory. But if you wanted to play the game, you probably would want to go with LOAD "*",8,1

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jamesjw ( 213986 )

        If I wanted to be really pedantic, LOAD "$",8,1 would not work as you would expect.

        LOAD "$",8 would load the directory catalog(ue) correctly.

        and IIRC LOAD "*",8,1 will load the first Program it finds, if you have multiple programs on the one disk then either the loader would need to be first or you would have to be more specific, e.g. LOAD "PACMAN",8,1

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by flink ( 18449 )

          Luxury. I just stuck a tape in my VIC-20 and hit "L_" and crossed my fingers.

      • Not even that. 'load "$",8' if you add the ,1 it relocates the data which you don't want.
    • Because it never functioned in the first place? At this point I need proof that any of them even existed.

    • I get "end of updates". I get "end of support". But why in the hell should the apps have to cease functioning?

      In theory, if I still had my C=64 running around I could stick a floppy in my 1541 and type in 'load "$",8,1' and get to playing a classic game.

      This "Internet connection required" shit has to become unacceptable to consumers.

      Preach it Brother!

    • I get "end of updates". I get "end of support". But why in the hell should the apps have to cease functioning?

      In theory, if I still had my C=64 running around I could stick a floppy in my 1541 and type in 'load "$",8,1' and get to playing a classic game.

      This "Internet connection required" shit has to become unacceptable to consumers.

      I can kinda understand this happening when the company shuts down, but when they're still operating and releasing a new version?!?

      Cloud Services: On December 31, 2024, cloud services for Magic Leap 1 will no longer be available, core functionality will reach end-of-life and the Magic Leap 1 device and apps will cease to function.

      How much money can that cloud server possibly cost that they're willing to piss off their entire existing customer base?

      In fact, I wouldn't be shocked if their entire existing cust

      • Amazon did that with their Amazon Glow. That said, they at least refunded the cost of it. (I was still out the cost of the tablet I bought my mom for the sole purpose of using with the Glow.)

    • But why in the hell should the apps have to cease functioning?

      Most tech these days is expected to continue making revenue after the point of sale. If they don't, they are considered a financial liability, even if they don't actually lose any money or have any support costs. So, they get killed off completely.

      Simpler explanation: because assholes.

    • Because we don't prosecute these companies or the people who work at them for their acts of mass vandalism/fraudulent "selling". Which is because we live in a capitalist society, so the police, courts and government work primarily for capitalists.

    • Re:Murder should be on the table (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Åke Malmgren ( 3402337 ) on Friday September 01, 2023 @05:10AM (#63814263)
      It should be illegal to EOL electronics without first open-sourcing it.

  • Classic case of Patent Portfolio fraud (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hashish16 ( 1817982 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @07:30PM (#63813599)
    Just like Theranos (and many others) Magic Leap got a patent for their projection tech even though they never developed a prototype. They created a portfolio from that initial patent and shopped it to get billions in investments. After bilking investors, they realized that they couldn't make a legit prototype and here we are.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      What are you talking about? Magic Leap has a prototype and then a product, Magic Leap still has a product. They massively underperformed hopes, but every investor involved understood it wasn't going to be a sure bet. There's no real comparison to a product that was 98% fraud, like Theranos.

    • Are you sure this is true? While the details are pretty opaque, my understanding is that they were trying to develop a digital holography system - i.e. a sort of light field generator. This would allow them to do some pretty neat stuff in the AR world. But it just looks like they could not get the technology working and pivoted to a more traditional AR/VR headset system.

      I have a friend who visited their offices and demoed an early unit. He said it was this big machine that you had to walk up to and look thr

  • Those were sold at Wal-Mart back in the day. Unlimited VOIP(?) long distance over dialup internet, but I think there may have been a subscription fee. How are those devices holding up nowadays?

    • Your post made me curious, so off to Google I went. It turns out that they're still selling the Magic Jack and yes, there is a subscription fee ($43/year or $109/3 years).

      Other than connecting to an old style phone, it doesn't seem to do anything that Google Voice does for free, so I have no clue how the product is still alive and being sold

  • Just needed to make one small correction: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by oshkrozz ( 1051896 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @09:32PM (#63813759)
    The Summary needed to correct one small line so this story makes sense:
    "first transparent AR headset marketed and sold to consumers"
    Should be changed to:
    ... headset marketed and rented to customers ...

  • Sci-fi never gets this part right (Score:3)

    by jovius ( 974690 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @09:40PM (#63813769)

    The ways to fuck the consumers are always as ingenious as the tech.

  • "Transparent AR currently provides a much smaller field of view than the opaque display systems of VR-style headsets, despite costing significantly more."

    While this is true [and the resolution didn't compare] the FOV isn't dysfunctional and the experience of seeing a room that looks like it is being viewed through glasses/goggles is vastly different vs through a camera.

  • I saw all the online hype videos for the original ML and thought they would be amazing, but unfortunately unaffordable for most.

    Recently I got to demo the new version and all I can say is that it was a massive let down. Colors were washed out, the wireless system was buggy, and it felt very unresponsive. And this was a personal demo with their sales lead, product lead, and several engineers.

    To be honest, while the field of view was larger I was less impressed by the new ML than the original Microsoft Holo

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