Magic Leap Ships First Set of Devices Under Tight Security Constraints | Hacker News Reader

Magic Leap Ships First Set of Devices Under Tight Security Constraints

bloomberg.com

141 pointsRossBencina103 comments

In case anyone is wondering, this really isn’t that unusual.

For the longest time you couldn’t get most console dev kits without a business address and very strict guidelines on a separate lockable space for the hardware.

I think there’s been some relaxation on that more recently (I know at least with Nintendo there has), but it’s not that odd that a supposedly earth shattering technology have those guidelines.

Yup! I remember getting some console dev kits early on that had a number of restrictions on them, like:

* Devices must be kept in an area with restricted access to those on the NDA; or * Devices must be kept in a locked office; or * Device must be chained to the desk; or * Device must be covered with a cardboard box at all times

Keeping AR glasses in a safe doesn’t seem too outlandish.

I'm curious, how did console manufacturers audit devs to make sure these procedures were being followed?

In our case they did not. But our management strictly forbidden us to talk to outsiders about devkits or sdk, or take photos of devkits.

I think that's enough in practice, and in our case an audit would be quite expensive because international flights.

It does however suggest that the early AR demos will be variations on a theme of "Escape from the safe".

Yup, I worked on a hardware project at Google that eventually became Android TV, and when we sent out hardware units they were hand-delivered by Google employees in GPS-tracked, locked Pelican cases. Upon receipt, devs had to keep it in a safe when they weren't working on it, and if I remember correctly, we gave them little decoy cardboard boxes to put over it to hide the case design from passers-by while it wasn't in the safe. Sending out devkits always feels very "briefcase handcuffed to a dude in a suit".

I had an internship at Google involving working on PS4 and xbox Dev kits. I wasted a month of three just getting proper documentation.

Sounds more like a gimmick to create hype, in Magic Leap's case

I can understand the case with videogames, for pre-release dev kits, but maybe it's too much as well.

I work in this industry, and every early devkit device we've received from the manufacturer has come with these kinds of constraints for us. I would have been much more shocked if Magic Leap didn't require these kinds of things of its early devkit recipients. And I'm a big ML skeptic.

The Hololens doesn't have such restrictions, and that's the closest device I can think of.

That's currently for sale, though. It's hard to tell me to keep it in a safe when you have a web page like this:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/hololens/buy

Other people commenting on this are spot on. This is standard operating procedure for new hardware with the sort of attention that Magic Leap has.

There were significant restrictions and weird PR "no go" topics with the Hololens as it was being developed. For a long time they didn't even allow photography of the physical hololens (as it was still in flux).

Why can't it be a legitimate concern, where they want to maximize the amount of development time before their competitors get their hands on them and start reverse engineering? This isn't a lightly modified PC meant to run games, this is whole new tech that could spawn a potentially huge new market if it turns out to be good. There's a lot at stake.

We have this amazing pin-drop blood testing device. But no releasing papers for peer review is too risky. It's too revolutionary! No, don't ask us how it works, we don't even reveal it to family it's that amazing.

- Theranos

Theranos was able to fool people by not allowing their system into 3rd party hands and doing all of the tests behind closed doors, mostly using 3rd party existing industry machines.

I don't see how that analogy applies here when the entire device is being given to actual companies and with restrictions merely because Magic Leap wants to control the full PR experience when the product launches.

That PR will come out in some fashion in the near future, and it won't require a whistleblower within the company to leak it and risk losing their jobs.

Extreme secrecy with NDAs-a-plenty also prevents massive failings from being broadcast to the public and harming your launch.

I've worked with quite a few console dev kits with serious restrictions, including needing to be in windowless rooms with locking doors. Usually that level of security was at the pre official public announcement stage though. It's a little unusual to have that level of security after the company has done a big PR push showing off pictures of the 'secret' hardware.

I know someone that works for magic leap and is very disillusioned with the company because they haven't released a viable product.

I wonder how long a company can continue without ever actually testing the market?

Exactly. One of the big concerns for me is the extent to which their work-in-isolation approach has baked in untested market and design hypotheses. By the time they test them in the real world, it could be too late to recover.

I think one of the superpowers a startup has is that early on nobody gives a fuck what you're doing, so you're free to iterate quickly and boldly. You find out which of your brilliant ideas are brilliant and which are big mistakes.

Magic Leap's hype/secrecy combo really cuts against that. Apple gets away with that because a) they have more money than God, and b) they mostly enter markets after other people have broken trail for them (e.g., iPod, iPhone, Apple Watch).

It's perfectly plausible that Magic Leap will come out with an interesting but fatally flawed product, like the Amazon Fire Phone or Google Glass. Amazon and Google can shrug and move on, but Magic Leap may not have the cash to recover.

Or, possibly worse, they come out with something like the Segway: really interesting tech that everybody is excited about, but with little practical use once we get past the gee-whiz phase. For a company that has already raised $2.3 billion, that could be fatal.

> like the Segway: really interesting tech that everybody is excited about, but with little practical use once we get past the gee-whiz phase.

I've never heard the Segway described like that. I'd describe it as "incredible hype over something enigmatic that completely evaporated the moment it was revealed".

I definitely remember it differently.

Dean Kamen is a very sharp inventor, and the origin of the Segway was in a radical wheelchair improvement that he designed. (It was a four-wheel design that would "stand up" on its two back wheels to give the user similar height to a standing person. It could even climb stairs! [1])

A lot of the hype came from luminaries who had seen or tried the Segway and were opining on it themselves. The technology was really neat, and is cool to use. At the time, it was plausible that it might change a lot. In practice, though, it turned out to be mainly a niche product, because we already had pretty good solutions for getting people from place to place.

And that last bit is important. It didn't completely evaporate. I often still see a flock of Segways for guided tours when I'm in Golden Gate Park. Segway still exists, and is still producing a variety of models.

But you're right that the hype got out of control, and the vast difference between expectation and reality harmed Segway's brand. That could definitely happen here.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yihwW4ywGqE

I thought the modern startup business model was about never actually making a profit but instead raising round after round of funding.

ps. It makes perfect sense nowadays. With the vast majority of all wealth concentrated in the investment portfolios/hedge funds etc. of a very small elite. If you can build enough hype to convince them to invest even a minuscule fraction, you are set.

...as long as you are paying yourself a hefty salary. Your equity dilutes quickly when you raise a lot of money, and liquidation preferences can leave you with nothing unless you actually make a wildly profitable company.

That's always the case nowadays, huh? I think the days of startups CEO earning engineer level salaries and flying coach are long gone - at least for VC funded companies.

Founders are no longer forced to wait for IPO before selling shares. And after you get an X0 million dollar check who cares if you own 1% of what's left.

This is news to me. Has it been reported anywhere?

It's called 'taking money off the table' and it's very common. EX: We knew that in Groupon's past two financing rounds, founders had taken money off the table. http://www.businessinsider.com/groupon-ipo-insider-selling-2...

Companies need to be huge before this before founders get's into the 10+ million dollar range, but even VC do this: http://avc.com/2018/01/taking-money-off-the-table/

Further, it's often encouraged as founders that take out enough money not to have significant financial concerns are more willing to aim for the fences.

ICOs seem to be an even better route nowadays

The ICO era has pretty much passed in the US. Once everyone started limiting it to accredited investors it lost any advantage over traditional fundraising.

Given how incredibly intuitive Apple products are, I find it hard to believe that they develop products without market testing. It might be a secret to the public but I am almost certain you can't nail UI so perfectly without undergoing some user testing. All the users/testers/vendors have all probably signed an NDA and value the partnership with Apple enough to not disclose anything.

You're confusing two different things. They do a ton of prototyping and user testing, which allows them to make a very polished product. But they don't just throw things out into the market and see what happens.

User testing has clear limits. The context of a user test is usually something like, "Assume that you have bought one of these, and assume that you're trying to do X. See if you can do X with this." If you're assuming those things, you can't test them.

This is in contrast with what startups do, which is just launching something to see if the market gives a shit. Apple is a good example of that, too. Look at their first product:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_I

This computer didn't have a keyboard, a monitor, a case, or a power supply. But it was a clear minimum viable product: people bought it and used it, while making it clear they wanted more. A year later, they launched the Apple II:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II

These days Apple would never launch something so rough and experimental as the Apple I. Instead, as with MP3 players, smartphones, and smart watches, they were content to let other people pioneer the space and then swoop in once the market was proven.

Magic Leap is trying to be as slick as 2010s Apple, but that cuts them off from acting like 1970s Apple. That could work if they're correct on all their key design and market hypotheses. But it's a giant gamble, and unlike 2010s Apple, a failure could kill them.

Apples UI is only 'intuitive' if you're used to it. People have the same problems when first using Apple products they have with every other product. It's a myth that Apple products are better in that regard that Apple loves to tell, nothing more.

> Given how incredibly intuitive Apple products are

This used to be the case and might still be compared to most other products, but that value keeps diminishing more and more.

I would certainly welcome an increased focus on "it just works" again as opposed to "it looks flashy". I enjoy using Apple products a lot for various reasons but it became hard to overlook some issues, especially when it comes to software.

As a sibling comment pointed out, Apple UIs being 'intuitive' is pretty subjective. As an android user whenever I do something on an iOS phone I have trouble going 'back' because there's no consistent back button.

I'd say Segways are practical, although I've never had the opportunity to try one. They still are produced. They are likely the best way I've seen to increase a human's range of travel in human-scale environments, both indoor and outdoor. I have seen them used by park rangers and tourists, mostly. The main barrier to adoption seems to be the high price.

It's still a niche market. Tourists use them because they are rare (so Segways are marketed as a tourist experience). This puts them in the realm of donkey rides and pedal boats as far as the tourist market is concerned.

Their practical use is limited to places where cheaper, simpler alternatives can't be used — this basically means places you wouldn't use a bicycle or electric scooter because of the collision risk or space constraints, like shopping malls. Even in large data centres and huge warehouses people would choose bicycles over Segways — a dedicated indoor bicycle is cheap and quite low maintenance.

In a way, Segways are really common nowadays – since the chinese "hoverboards" (which are basically just slight modifications of the segway concept) made them affordable, I’m seeing them everywhere

Yes, that's why I said "little practical use", rather than "no practical use".

I'm suspicious of your thesis that Segway price is the main problem. Electric bikes and Vespa scooters cost about the same, and I see far more of those around San Francisco than Segways. The only Segways I see outdoors in SF are people on a group Segway tour, which suggests that they are more valued for novelty than practical benefits.

Nobody believes me, but the real market test of MagicLeap, Hololens, and Oculus isn't coming until they release a device that's competing with smartphones.

Zuck didn't spend 2Billion on VR to play games, it was a bet that they could move from VR->AR->Thing that replaces smartphones.

Google didn't put 500million into ML because they seriously think that next year people are going to be walking around looking like Shaq here:

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--bmAwzL8...

The first iPhone was released just 10 years ago and it's now the dominant form factor for computing on the planet, but like every other technology it will come to an end.

Something more capable, more integrated into our lives, etc. will replace smartphones (just as every other technical innovation since the history of time has been improved upon and then replaced).

The right frame of reference to look at AR systems today is as very early prototypes for what that smartphone replacement tech might look like.

You're right that there is always a race to build a new hardware platform. You're wrong that one literally replaces another.

And I know a hundred reporters and a million lay people who complain that Google Glass went to market too fast.

It's easy to armchair quarterback. It's not like there's a formula for product success.

They exist solely because their product (if there is any) is not field tested. As soon as you give consumers a taste all of your hyper marketing clashes with reality and valuation evaporates.

I surely hope for them that we don't see a repeat of Segway. Millions and millions in funding to eventually end up being only used by Segway tours for tourists and the odd policeman.

Segway actually produced what they initially set out to produce. ML is a mass of bullshit patents and claims that eventually led to a Lite version of Holocens.

It does sound very much like good old waterfall, doesn’t it. So you would assume that the product must fail without proper market testing. But then again, Apple is never testing before releasing a product, so I don’t know. It could still if they have some product geniuses working for them

Right? Why oh why it feels soo much like another Theranos?

We have a world changing product that we won't show you, but trust us it will blow your mind when we release it at an unspecified date.

"Magic Leap Inc. has quietly begun sending its mysterious augmented reality headsets into the wild. A small group of software developers recently received devices at their offices, according to people familiar with the matter. But access to the gadget comes with an unusual caveat: They must commit to keeping them in locked safes."

Let me explain how this works as a marketing person. You create hype for your new thing any way you can, for example if you ask developers getting the device to put it in a safe, all of a sudden you keep yourself in the news, because its stupid. and the news media loves stupid and strange things, they get people to click on it and promote it on HN.

I am not saying this wont be a great device and im excited for this product honestly, but artificial hype like this needs to be seen for what it is. Let them prove their product through its actual technology, SDK's and consumer love, then we'll see.

I wish Magic Leap all the best!

Was the part about a developer turning it down because of the NDA part of the marketing too? Most likely this story came out because the press will print anything about magic leap if it fits the narrative of ML being in trouble. Highly unlikely this was a marketing stunt.

All these people crying, "marketing stunt," obviously have no idea the complex processes and efforts that go into writing business contracts. As if lawyers at Magic Leap have the heads of marketing on speed dial or something.

If anything it's the marketing dept who most want these controls. Controlling when information gets released is a big part of doing PR and marketing big ticket items like this.

Magic Leap has all the power in this situation, the press are nipping at their heels and will eat out of their hand. Magic Leap can control what gets released and when, and build it up to maximize output in big "exciting" blasts. Instead of raw information trickling out of 3rd party companies which they have no control over.

Choosing to take advantage of that power (which few companies have) is just basic common business sense.

And the arguments against it are as silly as "if you've got nothing to hide, than you have nothing to worry about", as if there are no inherent risks of not being in control of your own information, even when you're doing nothing wrong.

Are we going to get a version 2.0 of the hololens or oculus anytime soon to see what the next-generation lineup is going to be like? Is there already information out on them?

The Vive Pro is coming out quite soon with ~70% increased resolution over the original Vive/Oculus. Then there's the two Pimax iterations coming later which have even more.

Haven't heard anything specifically about the Hololens or Oculus, but there are a good number of Hololens-derived headsets (ie using the same inside-out tracking tech) in the wild under the Windows Mixed Reality marque, eg the Samsung Odyssey. The Odyssey has the same resolution as the upcoming Vive Pro (1440 x 1600 per eye).

Google and LG announced a partnership for 1440x1600 panels for an upcoming daydream viewer too. Seems to be the new standard.

The last rumor I saw was that Microsoft shelved Hololens v2 to spend more time working on v3 because no one (e.g. Magic Leap) was even close to releasing a competing product.

https://www.thurrott.com/hardware/90780/microsoft-accelerate...

> But access to the gadget comes with an usual caveat

Am I not right here, or is it supposed to be "a usual caveat"?

Edit: Or alternatively, "an unusual caveat."

Depends on how you pronounce beginning of "usual". If "y" sound then use "a" but if "oo" then "an". Just like words like "history" can be pronounced differently and thus can be "a" or "an" depending on location/accent of writer.

1. I'm pretty sure nobody says "oosual"

2. Every time I have heard "an historic", that person pronounced the "h". It might have been downplayed slightly, but it has always been there. They are using "an" because it's an (historical) idiom, even though it's grammatically incorrect.

> I'm pretty sure nobody says "oosual"

The cool / terrible thing about English (and other "international" languages) is that if there is a way to pronounce something someway, someone will pronounce it that way. Once we then define grammatical rules based on pronunciation of surrounding words, we then have to deal with the fallout of those rules. I have my opinions of pronunciation, but if the majority start pronouncing "usual" as "oosual" then I'll just shake my head and grumble a bit while accepting that the language has moved on. After all, Americans say "Aluminum" and there's nothing I can do about it!

That's a big "if", though. I'm still putting my bets on it being 0% of current use, when rounded to the nearest percent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorkshire_dialect

I've definitely heard "an 'istoric occasion" and "an 'ospital". Never heard "an usual" though.

Maybe while watching Thunderbirds?

I don't think that's correct.

I'm afraid it is. I had to relinquish my copies of Butcher's Copy Editing and the New Hart's Rules when I left my editorial job, but I've found the rule of indefinite articles preceding vowels referenced on the Chicago Manual of Style site[0].

[0] http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Us...

Typo -- the author thought this caveat is unusual. Amusingly, it's not, so they're grammatically incorrect but factually accurate when they intended to reverse those.

Yes, it should be "a usual caveat". Possibly even "the usual caveat", but probably not "an usual caveat".

Hey all, avaer is streaming hacking on the Magic Leap SDK, live now: https://www.twitch.tv/avaer (Streams pretty much daily.)

You can see past coding sessions here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbeboI7dMETmnUro91AxJZA

I was skeptical of Magic Leap too, but their SDK is very real. Maybe seeing it in action might dispel some of the concerns.

An SDK is of no use if the hardware doesn’t live up.

The Apple Newton had a really nice software stack too.

The Rolling Stone writer who tried it in December was impressed (of course that’s not to say he thought it was perfect either) and people at GDC who demoed it were also impressed. It’s looking less and less like this is the next theranos as everyone loves to say.

The Rolling Stone writer later wrote on Reddit they would not buy Magic Leap One and would wait for a larger FOV.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/7lj7sf/i_am_the_journ...

They wouldn't buy one for $2000.

Do we know what the likely price of the consumer models are? I can easily imagine dev kits staying around $2000 for a while, but that might be different to the consumer versions.

Very true. What caught my attention as a graphics dev is how legit their SDK design was: https://rawgit.com/shawwn/magic-leap-docs/master/v0.11.1/api...

i.e. If you imagine writing an SDK for a bag of hot air, it seems like it would turn out very different from what you see there.

It's also small and tasteful. That caught me too. I didn't expect a big company to put out something elegant, but they seem to know what they're doing.

You're right though -- it all comes down to the hardware. We'll found out later this year.

The SDK looks good, but I don’t see any big surprises: it looks quite similar to the Oculus and Microsoft Hololens frameworks. It seems like the kind of SDK a highly competent software team might develop just by extrapolating from competitors’ shipping hardware.

Hey Shawn, I just made my YC account thought I'd say Hi. and yes, it's a legitimate SDK nothing could be more real. I can't wait for the runtime. I wonder if it's anything like the framework you and Adrian have cooked up btw since I'm brand new to YC do you think you could maybe teach me how to mention someone on YC, or is it not something you can do? I'll see you in the morning on slack. :)

My first thought is that this business about keeping the unit in a locked safe is just another way to generate press around the early release of development units, something that most people might not find that exciting. Other hardware companies have had similar requirements but I don't remember that warranting an article on Bloomberg.

If other companies do it then why would they be doing it for press? I think it's more likely that this is getting an article because there's been such obscene amounts of hype around Magic Leap.

Is this any more unusual than what Apple did with the iPhone,iPad, and Apple Watch with regards to third party developers?

So, years after the Microsoft HoloLens, they come out with a clunkier version with roughly equivalent performance. So?

The HoloLens is quite good as a wearable device. I've tried one. It's much lighter than an HTC Vibe or Oculus Rift, despite being self-contained and wireless.

The mystery, the security and the obscurity are all part of the product.

What's the deal with the hype on this thing, isn't it just some iteration on the Hololens? Limited FOV, decent tracking, same old story...

It's quite obvious what the hype is about. Manhattan project style projects with massive funding and talent will always be interesting.

And just because Nokia had a smartphone before iPhone doesn't mean you could dismiss it just as a "touch screen phone with an operating system and apps".

I have the feeling the only thing white collar crocks get charged with these days is insider trading.

I wouldn't be surprised if those laws get more lax next.

Oops, this comment was for another post. Something odd is going on with the mobile app.

Which mobile app? I don't think HN have an official app, and I'd like to know if one of the 3rd party apps needs a hand with any issues. Not sure if I could help, but I do like hunting down random bugs :-)

I use materialistic on Android. https://github.com/hidroh/materialistic

I don't recall exactly how it happend but I think I was reading an article, then went back to the home screen and selected add comment from the dropdown of that article row. It may have also been user error.

Looks more of a marketing stunt than security.

Random HN poll: How many people here are actually considering buying Magic Leap's product when it becomes available?

If it is similar to the Hololens in capability and half the price I would think about it, but it is far in line behind "upgrade my stereo system" or "go skiing in Japan".

Nope. Not ever.

I think augmented reality is going to come from a very different direction, the medical-eyesight-healthcare world making products for old folks that can't see properly or remember stuff.

Not trendy companies making games for young people who can see perfectly and don't want to be seen with clumsy gadgets bolted to their heads.

The 'apps' could be quite simple, imagine any product barcode gets read and you can just look down to read the ingredients and what-not, using a few physical buttons on a watch to skip sections.

The payment for such a device could be on healthcare, glasses that magically make reading possible despite needing reading glasses. Maybe they tell you when to take your pills and keep track of your toilet visits too. Perhaps it is too obvious a product for the games crowd, a 'basic' set of AR glasses that just let people read stuff and get directions. That 'stuff' being real world, e.g. product in supermarket, or messages, e.g. that picture of the grandchild just posted to the family channel.

This question is not okay because it equates to asking if "people" would by a "random AR product" from a firm that "received a lot of funding".

We simply do not have the information to even consider, let alone form a conclusion.

Of course, if it works and has interesting software.

How can one even consider buying something if they don’t know what it is, what it does, or if and when it will even be available?

Read this to find out what it is and what it does: https://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/features/lightwear-intro...

Release is this year. Pricing will come at time of preorder.

Magic Leap is just another Theranos.

Theranos 2.0

Investors actually tried the hardware before investing in this case, so it's a bit different.

They tried hardware. Whether they tried a product that the company had no hope of ever making practical and portable is the question.

Yep, they're betting that there is a hope of that. They're not investing in blue chips here. I think it's a bit much to jump to the conclusion that ML knows they're on a fools errand and are defrauding investors, just because they're secretive and they pump out hype.

Exactly my reading. Hungry capital and irrational exuberance.

Why do you think so?

It’s impossible that they are shipping. Accordingly to a lot of HN users the device doesn’t exist. /s

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