back to article Magic Leap blows our mind with its incredible technology... that still doesn't f**king exist

It has kept everyone waiting but Magic Leap has finally revealed that… there are still publications stupid enough to keep printing its bullshit. This time around it is the desperate-to-please tech arm of Rolling Stone, Glixel. Glixel shuttered its San Francisco office earlier this year: a loss for tech journalism but a golden …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A simple explanation

    That "processor unit" looks far more like some kind of storage flask. So that's not a cable connecting it to the headpiece, but instead a tube. And the headpiece is really all about the wide side-pieces, which conceal hundreds of microscopic needles that painlessly pierce the thin skin on the sides of the head to deliver a steady stream of Magic Lethe™, a genetically-engineered psychotropic visual stimulant. No wonder it all looks so realistic to the wearer.

    1. TheVogon

      Re: A simple explanation

      Ooops:

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/12/21/google-backed-magic-leap-reveals-1500-mixed-reality-goggles/

    2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: A simple explanation

      Magic Lethe

      I thought I told you to forget about that..

  2. Kaltern

    I believe it does have 6 sensors, high-definition optics and amazing depth perception, coupled with the best CPU around right now, with at least 6 cores.

    Your head.

    1. Rich 11

      Your head.

      I must have the latest model, since mine contains eight (arguably nine) sensors to evaluate external conditions and many, many more to measure internal inputs.

      1. Craig McGill 1

        How many?

        Two eyes, two nostrils, two ears, skin, tongue - so what's the ninth? Unless you are counting the different taste receptors in your mouth...

        1. MonkeyNuts.Com

          Re: How many?

          Hair on your head

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: How many?

            Ears are both sound and balance sensors. The skin is a temperature sensor.

  3. David Webb

    Or.....

    If I were them (and I'm not), I'd simply get a Windows Mixed Reality device, rebrand it, plug it into a cheap Chinese Windows tablet and go "here it is!".

    I use the Dell Mixed Reality Device, the mixed reality being uhh, umm, just VR, but it's bloody awesome (and this is from someone who thought VR was a bit meh), obviously won't say it's better than the Vive/Rift because thems fightin words but it's pretty nice and would probably make an interesting article on The Reg, MS's first foray into the VR world with a pretty compelling product that isn't vapourware or hideously expensive and runs on lower end hardware.

    1. cb7

      Re: Or.....

      "MS's first foray into the VR world with a pretty compelling product that isn't vapourware or hideously expensive and runs on lower end hardware."

      Really? Are we talking about the same beast? I tried running MS' Mixed Reality app that appeared on my Win10 machines recently.

      It failed to run on both the desktop (i7-6700K, 32GB RAM & AMD 7850 Gfx) and the laptop (i5-7200U, 12GB RAM),citing inadequate gfx.

      1. Baldrickk

        Re: Or.....

        windows-mixed-reality-minimum-pc-hardware-compatibility-guidelines

        Graphics Card:

        Windows Mixed Reality Ultra PCs

        NVIDIA GTX 960/1050 (or greater) DX12-capable discrete GPU

        AMD RX 460/560 (or greater) DX12-capable discrete GPU

        GPU must be hosted in a PCIe 3.0 x4+ Link slot Integrated Intel® HD Graphics 620 (or greater)

        Windows Mixed Reality PCs

        DX12-capable integrated GPU (check if your model is greater)

        NVIDIA MX150/965M (or greater) DX12-capable discrete GPU

        Where does the spec say that your 7850 should be capable of running this?

        It doesn't meet the requirements for an "ultra" Pc, and your entire manufaturer isn't listed for the non-ultra option.

        This is a comparison of your card, the (high)mid-range card from 2010 I recently gave away for free, and my current (compatiable) card.

        The 7850 is underpowered and not compatiable, and almost 6 years old, predating the occulus rift kickstarter. Note that it only supports DirectX 11.2

        Sorry to burst your bubble, but it was never going to be enough for VR, as VR needs more grunt.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Or.....

        Wait... You are complaining about Microsoft, because their app wouldn't run on your system? The fault is entirely your own.

        Even the most cursory of online searches would have told you an AMD 7850 and an integrated graphics in a laptop are nowhere near the minimum requirements for VR or Mixed Reality.

        AMD recommend at least a Radeon RX470 for VR/MR/AR. That's a 2016 card. Why would you expect a card from Jan 2012 to run VR?

        Seriously... do you always go around blaming companies as being crap when it is clearly not them that are the problem?

      3. Sil

        Re: Or.....

        What did you expect with a 7850?

        https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/mixed-reality/enthusiast-guide/windows-mixed-reality-minimum-pc-hardware-compatibility-guidelines

        There's an app you can use to check compatibility before purchasing a headset:

        https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/windows-mixed-reality-pc-check/9nzvl19n7cnc

        1. tiggity Silver badge

          Re: Or.....

          Going off on a tangent, I expect with these goggles that use PC / GPU to do the grunt work, that there will be risk of quiting bare minimumn specs - much as used to happen with PC games back in the day, where game claimed to run on your kit that (just) hit the spec ()having been massively over spec a year previous.., but when you tried it, the chunky graphics and slow frame rate made it worthless.

          I hope headset people learn and recommend "minimum spec" taht will actually cope with what teh game devs will throw at it.

          .. Long sonce switched to console gaming as not forever playing hardware catchup to run new releases that way.

    2. MonkeyCee

      Re: Or.....

      Just to add to cb7s comment, exactly what is the minimum spec GPU for a MRD?

      I rent out one of my mining workstations to a local company whenever they have a demo*. That's got a pair of 1080tis, which is clearly overkill, and they have a 1070 in their office for day to day use.

      Neither of those would really count as "lower end" and even the next tier down (1060 or a 580) is still over 200 a piece. Even a 1050ti with 4Gb is about 150.

      * architect firm, virtual tours using a holo lens

      1. Tom Browett
        Joke

        Re: Or.....

        "mining workstations"... I hold you personally responsible for the exorbitant cost of this mid-range+ GPU.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Headmaster

    Any of these seem to work in this situation...

    "A fool and his money are soon parted"

    "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." -Abraham Lincoln

    "There's a sucker born every minute." -misattributed to P.T. Barnum

    1. Lars Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Any of these seem to work in this situation...

      @ Marketing Hack

      If you write "-misattributed" then the same probably goes for Lincoln too, not that it matters at all.

      Some interesting stuff about it here:

      http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/161924

      Some good marketing stuff but also a claim "Its earliest use was in French in 1684 in Traité de la Vérité de la Religion Chrétienne,a work of apologetics by Jacques Abbadie, a French Protestant.

      My theory, a work in progress, is that it was first used by a angry camel buyer in a used camel shop some three thousand years ago in the Middle East, something he got from a Chinaman but forgot about.

      1. nichomach

        Re: Any of these seem to work in this situation...

        Reminds me of...

    2. VulcanV5
      Happy

      Re: Any of these seem to work in this situation...

      @ ""You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." -Abraham Lincoln."

      How profound. As indeed is that other famous observation of his:

      "Just because you read it on the Internet doesn't mean it's true."

  5. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Coat

    TL:DR. BS technology company continues to peddle BS technology which is

    Bu***hit.

    The good new for ML (not to be confused with Machine Learning, although that can be difficult at times) is there are a near infinite number of "tech" website or bloggers who are keen (or desperate) enough for an "exclusive" they can recyle this routine ad nausiem

    Any bets on "Next Big Future"?

    1. TReko

      Re: TL:DR. BS technology company continues to peddle BS technology which is

      The need to ad some sort of crypto-currency spin on this to reach peak hype.

      Perhaps the VR will allow you to see your stacks of crypto-gold and swim in them like Scrooge McDuck.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: TL:DR. BS technology company continues to peddle BS technology which is

        For peak hype (and even more favourable coverage) here at El Reg, surely it needs a DevoPS angle?

        Are we not men?

        We are DevoPS.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: TL:DR. BS technology company continues to peddle BS technology which is

          Yes, and throw in Machine Learning, AI and 'Big Data' then all your buzzwords are there. Oh and maybe a mention 'Advanced Persistent Threats'... because why not?

          1. Jason 24

            Re: TL:DR. BS technology company continues to peddle BS technology which is

            Can I fight the Advanced Persistent Threats with this head set?

            That would make firewall configuration much more interesting.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: TL:DR. BS technology company continues to peddle BS technology which is

            And be sure to "surface" the USP while "reaching out" for more info.

    2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      "not to be confused with Machine Learning,"

      Or "Self tuning multi layer neural networks*," which is AFAIK what all of them have turned out to be.

      But that doesn't sound nearly so magical as machines learning does it?

      But for real cleverness let's have some machine understanding of WTF they are "learning."

  6. ecofeco Silver badge
    Facepalm

    What's in a name?

    Has nobody ever taken a moment to think about their name?

    They are NEVER going to deliver. It's an investor scam. A pump and dump.

    Vaporware.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sitting on the fence

    Come on El Reg, tell us what you really think. The article seemed somewhat ambivalent.

    1. IR

      Re: Sitting on the fence

      The article could have been replaced by a single sentence.

      "Ze goggles do nothing."

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's not just Abovitz who's too far in......

    Some of the investor managers will hang for this as well, which means they'll stay stum and pray it turns around.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A few weeks ago Ortoz from Gadget Show was having fun messing around with some VR stuff in a trade show - conclusion was it's getting better and cheaper each time but still needs that killer app. No need for any MagicLeap

    1. David Webb

      Gadget Show? They never got around to changing the name to "the show where if we have a comparison of any item, anything Apple wins"? Sure, name isn't as catchy but it's a bit more accurate.

      As for the killer app for VR, does it really need one? It's an entertainment device used to enhance entertainment. Playing Elite Dangerous makes the world feel more alive and realistic, with the actual ship feeling life sized rather than a little box on a monitor. Did VCR or DVD or Blu-Ray have killer apps? No, they enhanced entertainment by allowing the consumption of entertainment, so if you put a VR headset into the same frame as other playback devices, it doesn't need a killer app, just needs to keep having gentle iterations until the headset is as thin as a pair of large glasses with wide FOV and massive resolution at a respectable price.

      Anyone journalist who thinks a media playback device requires a killer app should remember the last "killer app" that a media playback device had, 3D, that was killer... of 3D in TV's.

      1. JohnFen

        "As for the killer app for VR, does it really need one?"

        If it's to be anything other than a specialty gaming peripheral, then yes, it needs a killer app. That is, it needs a use case for the ordinary person that is strong enough to overcome the inconveniences that it brings.

        Right now, there is no such use case that I'm aware of. It's pretty much why I am completely uninterested in VR -- it's really cool, yes, and if I were a gamer, I might be excited about it. But I'm not, so it has no actual use for me aside from being a cool tech demo.

      2. GruntyMcPugh Silver badge

        Gadget Show Apple bias,....

        ... I am blocked from the Gadget Show Facebook page. How did I earn this ban, you may well ask. Word counting their articles. Simply, I went through a bunch of reviews they had published about Samsung phones, and counted the number of times they used the word 'Samsung' and 'Apple'. In every review I checked, they used the word 'Apple' more times than 'Samsung'. Clearly they are promoting the Apple brand, and when called out on it, banned me.

        Although one correction to your post, when the Gadget Show first reviewed the iPhone, they put it in a head to head with the Nokia N95, and the Nokia won. In a fit of revisionism, they later said they were wrong, and hadn't seen the future or some BS. No, TGS, the first iPhone was crap. You can't look at an iPhone 4 (about the time of their retraction), and say that it's features now meant the first iPhone was better than it actually was.

        1. Craig McGill 1

          Re: Gadget Show Apple bias,....

          Purely as a side-step, the N95 was a great phone but man did Nokia screw the pooch with the follow-up...

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Gadget Show Apple bias,....

          As a phone the N95 was a much better device for sure. I didn’t go iPhone till the 5.

      3. Tony Paulazzo

        ...until the headset is as thin as a pair of large glasses with wide FOV and massive resolution at a respectable price.

        And I cannot fucking wait! Happy Christmas El Reg - keep up the balanced reporting <3

        The killer app for VR is porn, it's always been porn :) The internet wouldn't be what it is today if it weren't for jiggly bits.

        1. Simon Rockman

          The problem with Magic Leap and Hololens is restricted field of view, and for porn you want the experience to be properly immersive.

      4. Charles 9

        "Did VCR or DVD or Blu-Ray have killer apps?"

        VCR let you record shows, meaning you weren't a slave to the schedule.

        DVD didn't need lengthy hit-and-miss seeking plus took up less space.

        Blu-ray was designed for and dovetailed nicely with HDTVs.

      5. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Did VCR or DVD or Blu-Ray have killer apps?

        Time-shifting was a "killer" application of VCRs. That radically changed how many people consumed television. It dramatically altered television programming and advertising. Anyone who watched television programming even in moderation in the pre- and post-VCR eras ought to know that; anyone who didn't (and hasn't studied the history) probably shouldn't be commenting on it.

        The "killer" application of DVDs was the shift of commercial film releases from VCR tapes to DVDs, which drove DVD-player sales - though those already had a toehold due to video-game consoles.

        There has yet to be a killer application of Blu-Ray, which is just more DVD. It's popular with consumers who want that, and ignored by those who don't.

        Frankly, I don't see a killer application for VR/AR, except in some specific industrial domains. I first saw a working VR implementation at SIGGRAPH 1989. I thought it was a gimmick then, and none of the subsequent demos, applications, or speculative pieces I've seen have changed my mind. Even if Magic Leap produces a product that does everything they claim, it won't change how I use computers.

  10. Chad H.

    Despite all of that, you still think they're going to deliver a product? Interesting.

    1. JohnFen

      I think they'll deliver a product, if only because they want to avoid the tidal wave of lawsuits if they don't. I also think that product will likely be terrible. Almost certainly not as good as the other VR gear yo can buy right now.

      1. J. Cook Silver badge
        Holmes

        Easy answer for lawsuits...

        ... declare bankruptcy and fold the company. If it's done right, the CEO scam artist walks away with the boodle and rides off into the sunset on some island with non-existent extradition laws.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hololens with lightfield simulation

    If they can manage to deliver a simulated lightfield in real time using current GPU technology, it'll be better than Hololens and well worth using. That's a big IF for the real time simulated lightfield which would have to be generated and change with and also be composited with a real-time sampled, dynamically changing real environment. To make it less of a mess of huge, horrible 3d pixels/voxels bouncing about and not adjusting fast enough, they'd need to create a f*ckoff gaming pc of truly staggering graphics capability which would also have to fit into a very small fannypack. Sure it can happen sometime in the future, question is whether it's possible now. Maybe a solution which includes a huge bunch of custom cuda cores? nVidia do seem to be delivering 1080-like performance in a tiny form factor for laptops, so this isn't beyond the realms of possibility in terms of technology. That being said who's going to pay 10k to be an early adopter? Given the guy's previous 1.2 billion dollar robotic arm for surgeons track history (company sale price), This Magic Eye isn't pie in the sky and the Reg's take on this is too cynical.

    1. Blank Reg

      Re: Hololens with lightfield simulation

      Hololens is already far too expensive for the masses, and this looks to be even more expensive. That's not a recipe for mass adoption, it would end up a niche product like HoloLens.

      And this thing looks even dorkier than the snapchat classes, an no one wanted to be seen wearing those.

      1. Agamemnon
        Alien

        Re: Hololens with lightfield simulation

        Riddick goes Virtual.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Hololens with lightfield simulation

        "Hololens is already far too expensive for the masses,"

        Hololens V1 was never meant for the masses. Watch this space...

    2. Schultz
      Boffin

      Re: Hololens with lightfield simulation

      I spot a little problem with your 'simulated lightfield': if it is simulated than it is not real and nobody will see it. Better go with real light. That one interfaces really well with those light sensors in the human head.

    3. erikscott

      Re: Hololens with lightfield simulation

      This doesn't sound impossible, but definitely hard. It's fundamentally a lightfield camera in reverse - COTS from Lytro, but making an image is harder than recording one in this case. There's a three-way tradeoff between cost, planar resolution, and depth resolution. I'm curious what they've chosen to optimize for. Also, I thought I remembered, and Wikipedia quasi-confirmed, a mash up of a lightfield camera and a lightfield illuminator on a microscope. So the illumination part has been done, albeit I'm pretty sure with a glacial framerate, maybe measured in something other than seconds. The backpack might contain a computer, or it might be something like gigabit ethernet over 60GHz microwave to a killer machine and graphics card(s), or a board full of FPGAs, or who knows what. It'll be interesting to see the price point they hit, and if they have to subsidize the first ones while they continue to design out some cost. This is just tantalizingly plausible enough...

  12. barbara.hudson
    Facepalm

    About that first prediction ...

    "Magic Leap will finally produce a product in 2018 – but many months later than it says."

    Shirley you jest ...

  13. Oh Homer
    Alien

    Magic Leap of Bullshit

    Is this the same company that invented the left-handed screwdriver, by any chance?

    The fact that such con-artists exist is not surprising. The bit that blows my mind is the fact that they somehow managed to con rubes out of two beeelion smakeroonies.

    1. Chris G

      Re: Magic Leap of Bullshit

      I am lefthanded and I use a screwdriver in my left hand, all screwdrivers are potentially lefthanded and left handed threads(anti clockwise to do them up) are useful.

      Change of analogy necessary.

      But I agree with you, I bet they could sell 'How to con $2billion smackeroonies' as a PDF for $10 and make a mint.

  14. Timo

    Hyperbole aplenty

    The last time I recall getting this amount of hype and superlatives was with the Segway. It was going to revolutionize walking or something, and be bigger than the Internet. And it too was delayed, to heighten the hype and drama.

    And didn't it have some nickname too that played on the magicalness of it all, wasn't it Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers type of "secret hype code name"?

    1. kierenmccarthy

      Re: Hyperbole aplenty

      Ah yes, the Segway and Project Ginger.

      It also set off our BS alarms, as evidenced by:

      https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/01/14/ginger_nuts_told_to_back/

      https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/01/12/we_know_what_ginger/

      https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/01/15/okay_okay_this_is_what/

    2. DrXym

      Re: Hyperbole aplenty

      Project Natal, aka Kinect was another one.

      Microsoft released a load of demos ranging from plausible all the way up to outright bullshit lies. The worst was "Milo", a virtual boy who you could talk to through Kinect. It merely implied that Kinect had natural language processing, facial recognition, mood recognition and AI.

      None of which was true. Turns out it was all faked. Even many of the "live" demos were choreographed and turned out to be fake.

      When Kinect eventually turned up it did so in an emasculated form that could barely register exagerated arm flailing motions with any accuracy. Unsurprisingly it sold well from the built-up hype and then sank like a stone.

      1. JohnFen

        Re: Hyperbole aplenty

        All tech demos are faked. The only thing that varies is how much fakery is involved.

        1. Pedigree-Pete
          Holmes

          Re: Hyperbole aplenty

          @ JohnFen. Any tech demo that isn't faked is called an installation. PP

  15. Schultz

    come on, be fair...

    They created a great virtual product. It's so good that thousands of investors think it's real! Then there is the money, 6 G$, that surely is real. Enough to warp space time and bend people's minds. Awesome!

    1. VeganVegan
      Facepalm

      Re: come on, be fair...

      I'm with you, they already have an amazing virtual reality product, not involving hardware at all, just look at how many people already bought it! Even us sceptics have been persuaded to chime in.

  16. Nick Ryan Silver badge
    Joke

    Pah!

    All you crazy nonbelievers here. Of course this will work. Of course it will change the way that we use the Internet.

    Just like Project Ginger changed the way transport works.

  17. Chris G

    Trip to Paris?

    The level he's working at, Abovitz is up there with Victor Lustig, he sold the Eiffel Tower. Twice!

    Lustig also sold a 'Money printing machine' clearly Abovitz has one.

  18. Mage Silver badge

    Fawning Tech journalisim

    All the mainstream media and most so called tech sites / blogs (excepting here) are fawning PR publishers. Look at all the articles on every new Apple iteration. Only the 7, 8 & X have had a hint of honesty and questioning.

    They all want to believe SF writers are publishing blueprints for future tech. They are telling stories for fun & money, not futurologists. Most SF future tech is simply for texture or a maguffin. Often the 1% that's feasible actually already exists but just isn't economic. Amazingly some tech businesses seem to fall for this too, if they believe their own hype.

    There are even entertainment sites and magazines pretending to be tech / science news.

    I am sceptical of ANY tech, health or science amazing claim in the media (based on my own science, programming and engineering background). I can't remember one where I know the stuff well that was correct.

    Even here a lot of nonsense is posted as news about LTE, 5G and mobile. A domain that I designed and evaluated stuff in for many years. It's lovely to see the growing realisation that AI, Machine Learning, Neural Networks, Deep Learning etc are nothing clever at all, just human curated data fed to human written programs that are as fragile as ever. "The Diamond Age" is flawed, but a good story about the illusions of AI.

  19. Tom Servo

    Magic Leap One my arse.

    I recognize a pair of Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses when I see them.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Lotaresco

      Re: Magic Leap One my arse.

      "I recognize a pair of Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses when I see them."

      I wonder which moron downvoted that? Have an upvote to compensate.

      Some people round here really need a slap.

  20. defiler

    I can help with that $6Bn

    I wouldn't even be greedy about it. $100k would suit me down to the ground. They wouldn't even notice, right?

    1. redpawn

      Re: I can help with that $6Bn

      They would notice $100k. It would look like fraud. You would need to take $100m not to be noticed.

      Edit: I am not the downvote.

  21. Wyrdness

    mini-computer?

    "The attached mini-computer will be much bigger than shown"

    So PDP-11 sized, or maybe even VAX?

    Showing my age here ;)

    1. Patched Out

      Re: mini-computer?

      That's the magic! The main-framed sized computer to run this is located in a parallel universe so you don't have to carry it around with you.

    2. 080

      Re: mini-computer?

      "So PDP-11 sized, or maybe even VAX?"

      Nah, Fox 2/10 size

  22. James 36

    FFS

    have we learned nothing since Moller ?

    I want a flying car but this guy was a fraud

    https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/comp17987.htm

    now we have more snake oil in the form of magic leap

    s

    1. Lotaresco

      Re: FFS

      "have we learned nothing since Moller ?"

      It's been going on much longer than Moller. The astonishing thing is how the marks lap up this rubbish and even defend the scamsters to the hilt. If you're really determined to scam you can, after creating a money pit of a company, get into the House of Lords and then spend your time repeating drivel that the politicians lap up. Naming no names.

  23. DrXym

    Also doesn't answer the question - WHY

    What is it that AR does that justifies walking around like a dork wearing this headset and colostomy bag?

  24. Bucky 2

    I weep for the lost art of journalism

    I have little expertise in anything apart from technology. I have to assume that technology reporting is indicative of the accuracy of the rest of a publication's reporting.

    I'd have thought that the "fake news" meme being spewed by The Incarnation Of Satan On Earth would have stung more publications into being more precise.

    Guess not.

  25. This post has been deleted by its author

  26. Haku
    WTF?

    So a company that's set up to make artificial reality is making artificial adverts for its artificial product?

    Not sure if they're succeeding or failing at providing artificial reality, does an artificial double negative clause come into play here?

  27. sloshnmosh

    Cicret

    This has been done before: https://www.itbusiness.ca/news/the-cicret-is-out-this-futuristic-bracelet-doesnt-exist/52677

  28. I3N
    Coat

    Waited for it ...

    And when Wired was referenced ... grabbed my coat!

  29. Shadow Systems

    I got a call from a vendor...

    They were trying to sell me their new AR/VR/MR/whatever system & gushed on & on & on about all it could do, all I'd be able to do with it, & "you won't believe your eyes!"

    I asked him how that would be possible "given I'm totally blind?"

    He swore at me & hung up.

    I'm still waiting for an answer. =-D

  30. Lotaresco

    Sixty-nine comments

    So I need to add another one to remove this innuendo from my computer screen.

    As to the article, hopeless vapourware company sells vapourware to morons. Is this news? No it's largely business as usual. Many years ago I worked with some colleagues and we bought out the company we worked for and worked with investors to raise the capital and make a success of the business. It went well. But the competitive bidding process opened our eyes to the presence of the sharks in the technology sector who have nothing to offer but make a good pitch for money on the back of nothing. We saw Theranos style companies with plausible but deeply flawed medical science and technology companies with unrealistic designs that, if you probed beneath the skin, needed some unobtainium to delivery what was promised.

    So we had a bright idea, we understood tech *and* finance since we had succeeded in both fields. We could rent out our expertise to investors so that they could improve their hit rate and make decent profits and avoid throwing money away. Our mistake. No one cares.

    What the investors want is a vehicle to increase their capital. It doesn't matter if that business works or not or if it has a future. As long as they know when to get out and can keep a lid on the bad news until they have sold up, that's all that they want.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sixty-nine comments

      If I could upvote you 100 times, I would. I've worked with investors who know perfectly well that the business is fundamentally useless - but keep it quiet until they can get their money out, selling it on to the next mug.

  31. VulcanV5

    April 8, 2016. Honestly.

    Look up the video which Magic Leap caused to be placed on YouTube in June, 2016:

    "Magic Leap Virtual Reality -- Behold The Future"

    and this statement appears at 1:55 of the video's 2:35 duration:

    "Shot directly through Magic Leap technology on April 8, 2016. No special effects or compositing were used in the creation of this video (except for this text.)"

    The wording is explicit. What appears in the video are not simulations contrived "with" Magic Leap technology but an augmented reality viewed "through" that technology.

    As the "technology" referred to is the Magic Leap goggles, then on April 8, 2016, a wearer of that device would have seen "through" the goggles' lenses exactly that which is chronicled in the video.

    All that was required for that individual's visual experience to be widely shared was a camera to shoot "through" those goggles.

    As that was the state-of-play on April 8, 2016, and as the company was so unambiguous in its use of language, one can only wonder why the goggles are still not on sale -- and why, if many thousands of people can see what an individual wearer would've seen all those months ago, there's any need for secrecy (and Non Disclosure Agreements) now?

    Pictures of the product exist. Pictures of a wearer exist. That non-enhanced, non-manipulated video exists. The truth is out there. Honestly.

    I guess.

    1. Charles 9

      Re: April 8, 2016. Honestly.

      Put it this way. If everything you say were true, where's the independent verification of those facts? Heck, SOMEONE would've likely cammed the demonstration camera wearing the supposed stuff if so. Plus, if it already existed, why hasn't anyone bought it? Given its hype value, SOMEONE'S bound to have presented a blank check (or some other "offer you can't refuse") for that first prototype, meaning it would've leaked out eventually. At least we know Hololens is a work in progress. Where's Magic Leap's answer?

  32. Jonnyp

    I’ve been thinking this for ages

    But the other big thing no-one seems to be noticing is that it looks like it’s only additive light. Like how a projector works, or making a photoshop layer set to screen, it can only add extra light to the scene. It can’t make any pixels darker. That’s why that demo on the telegraph is shot in a badly lit room.

    And it’s why you can tell those previous demo videos were lies. Because they did create extra black. How would that possibly work? You can’t make things seem real or make virtual screens if you can’t make dark colours. You can’t use it outside. You can only use it in a dim room. So you may as well just get VR. Or VR with some cameras to make AR.

  33. Weltschmerz

    Tax tax tax

    I assumed Magic Leap was just a tax write off for everyone from the Google, Bain Capital and Horowitz camps...

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Time passes

    “Time passes. Look. Time passes.

    Come closer now.

    Only you can see the houses sleeping in the streets in the slow deep salt and silent black, bandaged night.”

    Oh hang on, didn't Magic Leap have a problem with scenes with black in them? Or wa that one of the others? Anyway...

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/29/magic_leap_ceo_rony_abovitz_steps_down/

    "The controversial CEO of money-burning virtual reality startup Magic Leap has announced he’;s leaving the job.

    Rony Abovitz posted the news on Thursday, recounting how the since the company “pivoted to focus on delivering a spatial computing platform for enterprise” he and the board have “agreed that now is the time to bring in a new CEO who can help us to commercialize our focused plan”.

    Abovitz founded the company in 2011 and helped it to raise $2.6bn of investment, plenty of it won with breathtaking “demos” of the company’s VR tech that were actually just special effects videos.

    [...]"

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