Comment by bastawhiz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bastawhiz | Hacker News Reader

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The article, remarkably, has scant few details on the author's experience with the product. This quote sums up my skepticism:

>instead they were constructed to give visitors who pass through the facility under non-disclosure agreement, a chance to see the magic in action.

It's a controlled environment with purpose-built demos for folks under NDA.

There's no videos, renderings from actual hardware, or substantive critiques on the fidelity of the device's output. The only negative criticism is that it has a rectangular viewport which doesn't fill your field of view. I can't believe that's the only negative thing that could be said about this. Not a single comment on FPS, glitches, or any other problems.

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I could totally see this demo as being fudged. The computations could be happening off-device with video streamed over wifi. We've heard before that Magic Leap has struggled to miniaturize their hardware, with the last version looking like a proton pack...what better way to demo it than to fake the demo?

I want real evidence that the cute hockey puck has a real computer inside, not just anecdotes from an NDAed journalist in a lab environment.

> It's a controlled environment with purpose-built demos for folks under NDA

Magic Leap pulled a similar stunt with The Information around the same time last year [1]. Seems like they found a more pliant journalist in The Rolling Stone.

"In March of last year, it released a video online titled “Just Another Day in the Office at Magic Leap.” Shot from the perspective of one of its employees working at his desk, all appears normal until robots start falling from the ceiling and converging on the worker, who picks up a toy gun and starts blasting his enemies into tangled lumps of virtual metal. The video, viewed 3.4 million times on YouTube, was meant to demonstrate a game people were playing with Magic Leap’s headset. It had been used for more than a year to recruit employees to South Florida. 'This is a game we’re playing around the office right now,' Magic Leap wrote in the description of the video.

But no such game existed at the time, according to two former employees with direct knowledge. The video was not actually filmed using any Magic Leap technology. It was made by New Zealand-based special effects company Weta Workshop, which has worked on movies like 'Mad Max: Fury Road' and 'The Hobbit,' the employees said. One of them called it an 'aspirational conceptual' video. The employees said some at the company felt the video misled the public.

...

In addition to the bulky demo connected to a computer, Mr. Abovitz showed The Information a prototype of the compact device it intends to build. It looked as if somebody fastened electronics to every inch of a pair of wire-framed glasses. It had a multi-layered, flat lens. He would not turn the device on, but assured a reporter that it worked just as well as the larger, helmet-like device. Mr. Abovitz would not discuss details of the technology, repeatedly responding to probing questions with the phrase 'Squirrels and Sea Monkeys.'"

I think Magic Leap is another Theranos. A second, independently-developed HoloLens makes for a respectable incremental business. But that nugget of truth has been leveraged to a $6 billion hallucination. Maintaining that hallucination could have forced management to lie to investors, to the public and to their employees.

[1] https://www.theinformation.com/the-reality-behind-magic-leap

I pick you: you people are insane. they have raised based off of demos. vcs come in, get the demo, sign a check (because it's that fucking good). I know at least 4 people personally that have gotten demos and it's very real.

What is known, empirically true - it is possible for one group of people to scam other people and groups for many millions of dollars each. Given what is known about the mechanisms of high end confidence tricks, what is different about the operation of Magic Leap that indicates that it is not a confidence trick? Remember, the most detailed article written by a journalist who experienced the demo describes a literal scam.

So are you explicitly saying that the Rolling Stones journalist is lying? And the only supposed "proof" you bring is an article over an year old written when the miniaturised prototype didn't even exist?

"This is a game we’re playing around the office right now,' Magic Leap wrote in the description of the video."

"In addition to the bulky demo connected to a computer, Mr. Abovitz showed The Information a prototype of the compact device it intends to build. It looked as if somebody fastened electronics to every inch of a pair of wire-framed glasses. It had a multi-layered, flat lens. He would not turn the device on, but assured a reporter that it worked just as well as the larger, helmet-like device."

Your post agrees that one year ago, Magic Leap was lying about the technology they had. JumpCrisscross only asserts that given all publicly available information, Magic Leap is probably still lying.

This is absolutely false, the Rolling Stones journalist tested extensively the miniaturised prototype.

> one year ago, Magic Leap was lying about the technology they had

>> This is absolutely false

The Information documented Magic Leap lying about something unambiguous and untrue. That is absolutely true.

And if you're choosing who to trust between The Information and The Rolling Stone... well that's like choosing between a Bugatti Veyron and a Ford Pinto.

The article begins with the author describing several demos, only after which he is guided to a different room where he has, in his own words, "My first close look at the full Magic Leap hardware."

Rony Abovitz calls the chips supposedly powering his tech "Sea Monkeys."

"I noticed that when I moved or looked around, her eyes tracked mine. The cameras inside the Lightwear was feeding her data so she could maintain eye contact."

Yes. The machines used to render that demo were, in the author's own words, not the full Magic Leap hardware.

edit: Also, even if that demo was the advertised Magic Leap hardware, it still only responded to camera movement, and Miller said the demo had capabilities that he refused to actually display.

I think they're probably fudging their demos, but my hope is that they've just decided on a marketing basis to not show people on a flat screen the images. With VR headsets I think the best "selling point" is the experience - VR graphics aren't great - but once you put it on you get it (if its good).

This is the reason why I hate conspiracy theorist. You can't argue with them because they think to know everything despite the evidence of the contrary.

> despite the evidence of the contrary

You're on a bit of a roll across this thread [1] without anything more than the Rolling Stone article. People are expressing healthy skepticism towards a company that has been publicly caught in a material lie, has raised a lot of VC with little to show for it, and made an announcement with lots of CGI and a vague "2018" release date. Given whom this announcement is targeting, I think it's fair for people to have a balanced view before they commit their time or energy to this company.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=tigershark

Because I hate people that lie and spread misinformation. You are not expressing healthy skepticisim, you are outrightly affirming that the Rolling Stones journalist is lying and you are misinforming everyone with your false statements.

Ironically, he/she is causing people to post more information supporting the viewpoint he opposes.

I'm not asserting that I know anything to be true. I'm pointing out that until Magic Leap shows actual reasonable proof that their product works outside of a lab, I have no reason to believe that it works. I sincerely hope it does, because this is cool as heck. But for a company to be rapidly approaching their target ship date and have released nothing of substance showing the damn thing working, that's incredibly suspicious.

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