Magic Leap One now available for $2295 | Hacker News Reader

Magic Leap One now available for $2295

magicleap.com

106 pointspbnjay131 comments

It's interesting reading startup literature regarding MVPs and iterating quickly and notice that almost none of it applies to the AR/VR space. Between Magic Leap and Ubiquty6 it seems like the most interesting players in AR are more notable for their funding rounds than for anything else. Magic Leap is rolling out their own hardware so it's more understandable but its really hard to justify spending $2K on a first generation AR device.

If I had to put money on it I think Magic Leap will go the way of General Magic, lots of cool tech and ideas in a product that was ultimately too expensive and too late to drive the company forward but will be looked upon as a great innovator once another company uses their inventions and packages it in a low cost, user friendly interface.

> ultimately too expensive and too late

Their only (admittedly public) rival in the space is Microsoft, and adoption of HoloLens even as a developer platform hasn't exactly been groundbreaking.

There are still many laps left 'til the finish line.

Or we remember it like we remember 3D TVs.

There are more rivals than Microsoft e.g.-

https://www.osterhoutgroup.com/home

https://www.vuzix.com

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/805968217/mix-the-small...

https://www.epson.co.uk/products/see-through-mobile-viewer/m...

Startup literature about MVPs is mostly relevant to software products, which are inexpensive to develop compared to almost anything else.

Oculus started out as an MVP. It was a kickstarter project.

It's new tech. It's not for you to keep in your closet. It's for hotels and arcades and parties and other such rental use cases.

I'd be skeptical you get sufficient volume with just specialty uses.

Magic Leap only needs to sell (roughly) 17% as many Ones as Oculus Rifts, to have equivalent sales ($2.3k vs $400 device).

And while their current hardware is expensive, I would bet that their longterm plan isn't to sell devices that cost more than $2000.

Equivalent sales is a nonsensical metric between the two. I doubt their profit margin is 5x per device compared to the rift.

I remain sceptical and feel reminded on the 3D-Displays in the late 90ies from 4D-Vision, later x3d and then opticality. 3D without glasses but no content (except some plugins for 3D-SW) to drive adoption.

It's called the "creator edition". I'd dare to say this release is targeted at devs/creators.

I know they barely count, but there was a whole slough of little cardboard boxes you could like... slide your phone into and "experience a 360 VR environment" that seemed like MVPs to me.

AR is an order of magnitude harder than VR because of overlaying visuals on top of a view instead replacing/blocking it.

On flip side you need 60-120 fps for VR to make it look real. 30 fps and you get sick.

Where as on AR you can tolerate even 15fps without getting sick.

It’s less than a top of the line UHD TV.

Are they planning a sort of technical deep dive/developer Q&A? The page reeks of marketing and is extremely lax on any kind of substantial details that would make me want to purchase one of these things.

I've enjoyed my vive and rift since they both came out, and I'd love to try this gadget out. It doesn't appear to be worth the cost at face value though.

I'm shocked, I say shocked, that something from Magic Leap could possibly be said to reek of marketing.

You should spend the next six minutes and seventeen seconds of your life watching this amazing piece of public relations magic that transparently unveils the deep truth of what Magic Leap is really all about:

The synthesis of imagination: Rony Abovitz and Magic Leap at TEDxSarasota

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY

I suppose we have to suffer this type of non-content in order to enable those who ultimately deliver the goods!

Just like the way we had to suffer through the developer slave auctions at the infamous Microsoft "Pax Romana" toga party in Spartan Arena they rented along with real live lions for the DirectX II launch party, which decades later eventually led to the Hololens. The ends always justify the means.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.games.programmer...

https://books.google.nl/books?id=1wEAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT115&lpg=P...

>If somebody entered a tournament and won, they got money and gifts from the sponsors. If they lost, centurions would march them off at spear point and confine them to the slave pit to be auctioned to the audience or fed to the lions. There were two live lions at the party, but only one actually escaped during the event.

(I witnessed the event. The lions were real, and Microsoft was handing out as much free Silly String to drunken developers as they could carry. The article accurately goes on to describe the Roman orgy, slave girls in brightly colored robes and slave men in loin cloths and sandals, and slaves hand feeding grapes to the party's corporate sponsors wearing robes, and fanning them with palms, and the slave auction. But I digress...)

When you mentioned DX II I immediately thought of Alex st john and thought "surely that's a coincidence". Amusingly, I was wrong.

Even his own daughter thinks his 'vile' opinions he expressed in his 'horrific toddler meltdown' are 'sexist' and 'wrong' and 'revolting'.

https://www.polygon.com/2016/4/21/11479710/alex-st-johns-dau...

Love the top comment

"Probably the best example I have ever seen of a company that desperately needs a marketing director..."

I don't understand how Magic Leap thought this was worthwhile. Nor do I understand how TEDx thought it was an idea worth spreading.

Can anyone explain the logic behind it on both sides?

For the TED(x) talk part, anyone can give a TEDx talk. There are lots of local events, and the videos are published on their website.

TEDx are independently run events riding on the TED brand (with permission). Basically what Forbes Online is to Forbes.

Oh... that's not even their piece de resistance. Watch this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM0T6hLH15k

These folks lied straight on face of everyone like there was no tomorrow.

What did I just watch?!

Not many technical details from Magic Leap themselves, unfortunately. I'd recommend you check out the [Tested review][1] and [iFixit teardown][2].

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrq2akzdFq8

[2]: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Magic+Leap+One+Teardown/1122...

It isn't even good marketing - these demo pages are terrible!

What happened to Magic Leap's advanced photonic lightfield chip? I thought the thing that made Magic Leap special was their light field tech, but this just appears to be stacked wave guides, which other than having 2 focal planes seems to be the same tech as Hololens.

The chip plus nano machines that enter your eyes cortex are coming in the next round of funding.

I think it's in there in the "waveguide" tech. iFixit has a pretty good write on on their tear down and they mention this.

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Magic+Leap+One+Teardown/1122...

Also...

https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/23/teardown-of-magic-leap-one...

It never existed and was never going to exist, except as marketing and investor hype. Same with their fiber-scanning display, and everything else that doesn’t add up to, “like a Hololens, but with a much dimmer view of the real world and more useless patents.”

https://www.kguttag.com/2018/08/27/palmer-luckey-founder-of-...

Quote from Palmer Luckey in that blog: “The ML1 is a not a “lightfield projector” or display by any broadly accepted definition, and as a Bi-Focal Display, only solves vergence-accommodation conflict in contrived demos that put all UI and environmental elements at one of two focus planes. Mismatch occurs at all other depths. In much the same way, a broken clock displays the correct time twice a day.“

Downvotes aside, are there any actual counterpoints to be offered to this critique? It is like a Hololens, it does have a dimmer view, it doesn’t match their many promises and early patents, it is slightly cheaper and has a slightly better FOV than HL, but it’s also wired to their Lightpack. All in all I’d say the investors should be carrying pitchforks and torches.

I don't think that's fair to say at this point. Everything points to it being vaporware right now, but nobody outside of their R&D is sure, and Palmer Luckey merely analyzed their current product just like everyone else (but perhaps with a bit more bias).

It (what they advertised) looks like it's vaporware, but when they release something else I'll keep an eye on it just in case it isn't.

What’s unfair about it? They’ve spent years making claims that turned out to be patently false, and their patents tell the story of a company that pursued something better minds have failed at, and then shows them pivoting to the boring “Hololens 1.1” we see today. Other than an incredible facility with both deceptive marketing and fundraising I see no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt at this point. They’re still blathering about “photonic lightfield chips” when they’re selling run-of-the-mill waveguides.

I don’t see vapor ware, there is a product, it’s just technically unimpressive and at odds with years of marketing. If they release something else there is no indication that they’re capable of producing more than incremental modifications of existing tech. Do you see some other indication outside of their marketing and fundraising to indicate otherwise? Investors were sold on visions of something completely at odds with their actual product, how is that not a huge red flag?

Magic Leap raised boatloads of money, which game me the impression that they are really building something mass market that can be useful for most people in this world. I am not into gaming and have kids, so cannot wear AR glasses in my home and walk around. Are there use cases for Magic Leap that support non gamers ? Or is it mostly a niche product like an Oculus ?

Is an Oculus niche? I brought my Go on a family vacation last month, and after trying it on, both my sisters wanted one. Neither are people I would say have ever gamed much before, but after they experienced it, they were sold.

Did they end up buying their own VR gear then? My sister said she loved Star Wars after watching episode III in theaters, but still hasn't seen any of the others.

They both put it on their gift lists for the rest of the family to chip in on around the holidays. =)

They are, this is a developer device. They want apps and games to be available first. (Friend)

>Are there use cases for Magic Leap that support non gamers ? Or is it mostly a niche product like an Oculus ?

AR will definitely be the way forward for all computing. This brief awkward period of 50ish years using analog inputs and physical screens which we are currently living through will be seen as a blip in the history of human-computer interaction hundreds of years from now. However the only use case for this iteration of the technology is for developers to begin working on new interaction paradigms and app ideas for AR in general. We're still years away from true consumer tech but I can admit as someone very familiar with VR/AR hardware that the Magic Leap One is a solid evolutionary step forward from what we've seen so far. I'm not impressed enough to buy one yet, but at least the company has shown they aren't total vaporware at this point and hopefully they can keep improving.

The problem is people don't want stuff on their face.

They tolerate glasses because they are a necessity for most wearers. But if you hang outside the LensCrafters store and ask people, nearly all would tell you they generally dislike wearing them[0].

[0] Yeah, I know, there are people who wear them for "fashion".

I love my glasses. They help me see better. They are so light I don't even remember that I am wearing them. They also provide rudimentary physical and UV radiation protection for my eyes. They transition to a darker color outdoors and reduce glare. They also look nice on me. Would be fun to see a poll on whether people in general like or dislike glasses.

I think a better pool would be to see if people would replace their laptop or smartphone with a pair of glasses because after all this is what the smartglass manufacturers aim to do.

I definitely would.

Hell, these days I find myself dreaming of AR contact lenses, so I could peruse some discreet computing in situations where I'm otherwise unoccupied, but the social context demands me not fiddling with a phone.

Of course people will tolerate glasses(more or less smart) if the experience is worth it.

I don't think people ever enjoyed carrying things around(laptops, tablets, smartphones etc) but they do. They don't really like big loudspeakers or TVs or tv setup boxes either still they buy them.

I would replace both my laptop and my smartphone with a pair of glasses anytime(if it would be possible).

Why does this technology have to replace laptops and smartphones?

Smartphones and tablets didn't replace keyboards. They are good at somethings and laptops/desktops are good at others.

Smartphones and tablets replaced laptops and PCs entirely for many people and partially for the rest. You have a limited amount of time and budget, that's why it has to replace a current device(smartphone, laptop, tv). These devices already got all our time.

I am a big VR/AR fan, but I am interacting with this forum sitting in a chair moving my hands max 2 inches there and back. That's comfortable. That's something I can do for hours and hours. It's quite possible that VR/AR will augment, not replace.

The real trick is going to come from the new interaction models that are invented ... I'm not just talking about the generic point, touch, and gesture UX that we have today in the AR/VR space; I'm talking about entirely new categories of tasks and abilities that are simply not possible using the inputs of today. We're already starting to see some really innovative art being created by "physically" being in the space (as in Tilt Brush) ... I wonder when we'll start seeing more 3d content creation tools being VR-native. Or CAD tools where you can lay out changes to a structure in real time ... that one is especially interesting given that you can (in theory) make a real-time map of your environment using some of the "inside out" positioning sensors that are already on headsets today.

On the timescale OP is talking about there is a decent chance users won’t have to move their hands/fingers at all.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/19/facebook-brain-interface/

AR would replace the display, not all input mechanisms.

What if I don't trust facebook with my brainstate? (Or google or literally any other company.)

Total replacement won't come until things are completely seamless, but it's definitely happening. Especially in cars. It will just become completely seamless for you to ask your car to display directions from Google maps as an AR projection on all the vehicle windows. Once these headsets get down to a normal pair of glasses with full FOV, people will just wear them all day every day. At that point the lines between reality and virtual will blur and AR will be the default interaction.

Hmmm, this reads like those old predictions that we will type all of our text via voice dictation in the future.

Turns out keyboards work great and are way less frustrating and more precise and the voice to text is only used in special use cases such as driving and for simple queries.

There are masses of people out there who don't type SMS out anymore, and let the errors fall where they may. I know a few people like that, some have written whole essays using speech to text.

In terms of throwing ideas into text using as little effort as possible, Google has definitely nailed it with their transcription offering. Its incredibly accurate and free for consumers to use. Hopefully Sphinx and Mozilla's DeepSpeech will improve rapidly, otherwise this will remain Google's domain.

I'm cautiously optimistic about using this for data visualizations in AR. I've messed around with genomic models using Hololense and have found that AR works better then VR in a lab or collaborative environment where there is benefit to seeing others while looking at the same augmented reality. I'm curious if this will be better for medical imaging and other biological sequence visualizations (then Holo lense). Better in this case would translate to more accurate tracking of my eyes, interaction with the built environment, and higher quality resolution. I still am yearning for a AR experience that let's me walk through my databases and interact a la Minority Report or my personal favorite movie-reference to VR "Disclosure" featuring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore https://youtu.be/dJcakDNtHDA

I have one of these and a Hololens. Basically the ML1 is incremental improvement. There are still no mainstream consumer use cases that are plausible.

Curious--how is the font rendering/text quality? Example, working with digital cards with a title, short description, maybe numbers (currency/stats etc), reading them quickly and organizing them. I'm familiar with Oculus, so maybe in general and compared to the Rift?

Hard to say. The experience is quite a bit different than VR headsets. I can imagine that with its small FoV that it ought to be a bit better but I don't have an easy way to compare them.

How about...How big does text need to be in order for you to be able to comfortably read it?

(Compare using a quarter or other common object a certain distance away from you.)

For example on the rift, text is readable when it's the size of a quarter ~3 feet away from me.

Incremental improvement and $700 cheaper.

Over a 2+ year old product that is about to release a next version. At this stage, price is not a big deal. It's not close to consumer targeting. At least Microsoft gives some out to developers.

Its important for developer adoption but I expect at least at least 10 years of iterations of the tech getting better and cheaper.

Really seems like a money furnace for the investors here.

Well if you are privileged to invest in Magic Leap One, they probably aren't hurting...no sympathy from me when their plans to buy a yacht is ruined :/

It is backed by Google so there is probably plans to improve the hardware which as it stands is not impressive OR knowing Google they could pull the plug just as easily.

In fact, Magic Leap One, is looking to be a major major flop, shortly after somebody released a review on the limited focal view and some annoying hardware designs I knew it was fucked.

It's not all about the investors dude. Money misallocated means companies, solutions, and inventions that could have been built aren't since the money wasn't there.

We all lose when that happens.

This is a developer device. We'll see when they release the consumer one if it flops, but that'll probably be if no one makes the apps or games it needs to be successful.

These all seem a guaranteed flop at the consumer level.

Limited FOV is going to kill it for almost everyone. I think they would sell more at double the price, if they doubled the FOV.

Agreed. I'm sure they're aware of that. But they needed to get a device to developers given that they've "built a whole new operating system" (As Lucky explained, just built stuff on Android).

Also from Palmer Lucky: They need to fix the controller. Either compromise on it or make something custom that works. Commercial applications will bring a lot of funding here and a wonky controller, when others exist which are not, will hamper that.

They have the chicken, now they need developers to make eggs. Day One of a consumer Magic Leap device needs that for anyone to say "wow, I need to have one of those in my life."

These investors are using pension fund and university endowment money to make these bets. A lot of it is the public's money that is being lost.

do you have source that supports this?

Cool to see tech like this moving forward. Still think we're 5-10 years off from folks really adopting this stuff heavily (especially with a higher price point like this), but man, it's going to get wild. $50 says one day Alexa will just be sitting on your couch, taking on whatever form you'd like (e.g., Bill Murray, snacking on Fig Newtons waiting for commands).

Does anyone know what would be a good way to start dabbling in developing environments/experiences for these and other AR devices?

unity has a pretty beginner-friendly toolset for windows mixed reality, I would check that out for sure. In terms of getting an AR capable device, I think some of the screen only (not holograms but camera-based to display) MR devices are relatively cheap, somewhere in the $200-500 USD range. It's a pretty fun experience, maybe you'll have an interesting use case :)

Site purchasing does not work. Leads to a page "oops" that has one button "return to magic"

Maybe a fake CTA to measure interest..

I remember the first articles about this super secretive start up from not the Silicon Valley, that did some super amazing stuff, loads of VC-cash and all that.

This thing now looks really underwhelming. The pages full of marketing talk to present basically another (better, maybe) HoloLens.

What's wrong with being a better Hololens?

Nothing wrong, but given all the buzz I expected something incredible. This right now has already be done, by Microsoft, so I don't really see how they could possibly compete in this market.

And Microsoft managed to ship Hololens without settling any sexual discrimination lawsuits. (Obviously they have better lawyers!)

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/14/magic-lea...

https://mic.com/articles/168619/the-most-damning-allegations...

https://www.wired.com/2017/05/magic-leap-bias-suit-sexism-si...

>Thanks to Campbell's lawsuit, a whole new host of questions have arisen, as well as a sinking suspicion that the company is even more dysfunctional than previously thought. Excessive hype is one sign of a company possibly foundering due to mismanagement. Misogyny of the kind alleged by Campbell suggests dysfunction on a whole other level. As incidents of sexism in tech pile up, it's becoming clear that misogyny in the industry is both a moral travesty and a potential warning sign that a business is in trouble.

The fact they should've called it the Minor Leap One!

All jokes aside, it was shrouded in mystery and there was some marketing material that showed, as another poster described it, modern console level graphics, when in reality the product's graphics kind of look like the 1996 N64 to 2000 PS2, so far.

Plus there was excitement about certain features, like many three or even six focal planes. Instead there's two. Or the really immersion breaking feature in the clipping mask, it's less than a metre or so away. Anything outside of it just isn't rendered, while the world behind it of course is visible, so your 3d models just get cut off.

Everything in the lead-up indicated there might be a leap, but the reality is it's an incremental change. That's nice, but not what people hoped for.

>That's nice, but not what people hoped for.

People hoped for what they were promised in the fictional hype.

The funny thing is, that was once the Segway.... which was something of a huge costly joke when it was finally unveiled.

Fast forward 5-10 years (I guess cheaper batteries helped?) and it seems that these fancy electric single wheel with a fancy active control system to balance on one axis are actually starting to do pretty well...

Doing so well, that one of the companies faced by a lawsuit from Segway just bought them (Xiaomi now owns Segway).

Sadly not available for my area, but I was happy to see the note about prescriptions. Thats probably one of my biggest complaints about the Rift and others is that it gets pretty uncomfortable with glasses on.

You can't buy them yet, which made the system barely usable for me. It comes with an empty frame that accommodates round lenses. I popped the lenses out of an old pair of glasses and ground them to the right size and shape with a belt sander, and it works OK. You can eyeball the size accurately enough to fit snugly in the rubber frame.

You can get the Oculus Go with prescription lenses.

I had to buy a pair of glasses specifically to fit under my rift, I bought the smallest kids glasses I could find that I could get with my prescription. They look ridiculous, but that's ok. It was much cheaper than buying prescription inserts, I would have to special order them since my prescription is fairly high.

I was very pleasantly surprised to find Hololens able to accommodate my glasses. Agreed wrt Rift.

> We created a new kind of computer so we built a whole new operating system. One that gets the most out of our spatial computing system by working in tandem with digital lightfields and the brain. Lumin OS is fully optimized for environment recognition, persistent digital content and the performance to power high-fidelity visual experiences that turns your wildest imagination into even wilder realities.

Super curious if it's built from the ground up or a mod of an existing OS.

These days "OS" is basically marketing speak for SDK on top of a Linux kernel.

If that! I've seen company claim to be the "OS of banks" meaning they're a commonly used application for people doing something in a bank.

So true.

It's Linux.

"Magic Leap is best known for its hardware, but the roughly 1,500-person company has a large software team as well, and the Magic Leap One has a functional operating system and starting app suite. Its Linux-based Lumen OS…"[1]

"There's also information on the Magic Leap's Lumin OS, a custom-built operating system based on open source/Linux tools."[2]

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/8/17662040/magic-leap-one-cr... [2] https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/19/magic-leap-first-set-ar-...

"Magic Leap says they have “built a whole new operating system” called LuminOS to take advantage of their “spatial computing system“. It is actually just Android with custom stuff on top, the same approach most people take when they want to claim they have built a whole operating system... I hope Magic Leap does cool stuff in the future, but the current UI is basically an Android Wear watch menu that floats in front of you."

http://palmerluckey.com/magic-leap-is-a-tragic-heap/

Wait, they used the magnet-based tracking system?? Those DO NOT WORK, and has been proved over and over again - having a tube-light in the same room will make them not work.

This is a great read. Thanks for posting!my favorite quote, "The ML1 is a not a “lightfield projector” or display by any broadly accepted definition, and as a Bi-Focal Display, only solves vergence-accommodation conflict in contrived demos that put all UI and environmental elements at one of two focus planes. Mismatch occurs at all other depths. In much the same way, a broken clock displays the correct time twice a day."

Palmer Luckey's review said it was just a wrapper over Android.

http://palmerluckey.com/magic-leap-is-a-tragic-heap/

Chiming in on the questions regarding use cases etc.:

Aside from letting artists and engineers paint/sculpt/model more intuitively in 3D space, I still believe that the killer app for VR on the consumer side would be virtual tourism.

Coming full circle to the View-Master [0], except this time people could practically live in their favorite fantasy or sci-fi locations.

Imagine being part of the crew on the USS Enterprise, or idling the hours away smoking the halflings' leaf in the Shire..

Right now though, VR is just a fancy display tech, but with lower [apparent] resolution than many existing 2D displays and comparatively poor, often fatigue-inducing interactivity in almost all cases, apart from the aforementioned placement of 3D objects.

Why has nobody dared to drop the pretenses yet, and actually take VR to the level it professes to be: supplanting reality?

Make it more than just a display.

Invent some kind of cabin with climate control and aromatic components, that lets your other senses and your entire body feel like you're someplace else. Feel the tropical wind on your face without leaving the concrete jungle of your megacity.

Of course at first such tech would be too expense to have in most people's homes. So you might also usher in a renaissance of public arcades; VRcades? :)

People could start going there as an alternative to expensive vacations.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View-Master

I guess you answered your own question. There is a cart/horse problem with VR/AR. The tech isn't quite there, so no one wants to buy it, and people aren't going to improve it unless the money is there. And since people aren't buying it, the money isn't there...so the tech isn't quite there...

Maybe in time.

I'm skeptic about virtual tourism. We already have 4K HDR screens that display gorgeous pictures, but people still go to the museum to admire paintings.

Tourism is more of a social act than a content-consumption one. People brag when they go to the museum, but never when they binge-watch paintings at 3 AM on the Internet.

Virtual tourism is like Soylent. Soylent doesn't replace good food. It replaces crappy fast food. Virtual tourism won't replace going to an art gallery for real. It replaces never going at all.

I could see it really enriching the lives of those who can't afford to travel.

I do it myself sometimes with Google street view. I'll go "visit" some random place.

I agree, I've spent way too much time on Google Earth VR !

But I still think virtual tourism will stay niche in the future because of the social reasons I stated.

Most people travel to relax, explore and feel better, not to brag.

Why do you think people consume porn instead of having the real thing?

Society still treats travel and vacations as an extravagant, frivolous activity to be "earned", rather than one of the fundamental joys of life which should be regularly experienced.

Also, visiting fictional places will only be possible through virtual tourism, or fantasy tourism if you will.

Any developers actively creating (and sharing) interesting stuff for the device? The examples on their website feel like stuff I’ve seen before. I’d be interested in hearing about the good things and the challenges of developing for their platform and for AR in general

Is it just AR? Or is it something different? All the hype for so many years showed console level graphics in the ads but the real videos show low quality android level graphics.

I haven't seen anything that differentiates it from Hololens at this point. Their 'waveguide' tech apparently allows it to create graphics in focus at 0.5m and also at 5m, but having items become out of focus with the rest of the world, never seemed like a hindrance to me since if I wasn't focused on it, well, I wasn't paying attention.

They have eye-tracking tech but aren't using it yet.

The Palmer piece (Magic Leap is a Tragic Heap) breaks down that this is a Tegra X2 running an Android OS.

The console level graphics were most assuredly vaporware.

It has a slightly wider field of view and two focal planes. Also, it's cheaper.

It also has a wired headset to a belt computing device, and a dimmer view of the real world. I’m not convinced that the FOV is worth that.

When I see "belt computing" I think of Factorio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSfVqIkVEnI

Well it's 2 years later so I hope the same tech would be cheaper ;)

Before judging the price, remember that other less useful luxury tech gadgets have similar price points. E.g. Sony's new Aibo at $2899.

And Aibo is now reasonably priced and a huge success?

I don't have kids yet, but when I do I am so glad I won't have to buy them a dog that craps all over everything. So worth 3k.

Thank god to SNE.

Sony makes other stuff.

"Both the real world and virtual light rays initiate neural signals that pass from the retina to the visual part of the brain, creating unbelievably believable experiences."

So light?

It's a transparent display that lets you see the real world while also seeing what's on the screen.

Edit: it's basically describing the advantage of AR over VR in general.

Woah, virtual light rays travelling via neural signals! Oh wait, that's the same as looking at computer screen. I hate marketing speak..

Any advantages over the hololens

It's cheaper, and it looks like the controller it comes with has more features than the HoloLens clicker.

It has two focal planes instead of one, which helps with depth perception a lot.

Side-note that Hololens is over two years old, and a second iteration is coming.

$700 cheaper, less weight on your head, increased field-of-view, 6-DOF tracked controller, eye tracking, and support for two focal planes.

Quite the name. Pretty sure that Rudolf Nureyev already cornered that market tho.

Was the part at the end about the Airbender and zuko a dig at journalists?

It was a dig at Palmer Luckey, who wrote a scathing review of the MLP.

https://palmerluckey.com/magic-leap-is-a-tragic-heap/

Too much.

It's an engineering prototype that you can buy. Hololens was $3,000 and this is better than Hololens.

How is this better? You seem somewhat involved with them.

I'm just taking a break at work, chill.

https://magic-leap.reality.news/news/magic-leap-one-first-ha...

Microsoft's Hololens is quite a bit more:

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

Definitely too much for consumers, though. The price needs to drop at least 3x, which it probably will in a couple of years.

Really, really cool. I don’t any usecases in mind, but I want one. I wish someone can just port a Sublime text or A VSCode on the headset, and code from here.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com