Following a bout of skeptical press, Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz claims the company is already doing production test runs of their first AR “system,” which is said to be “small, sleek, cool.”

Following an oddly scathing headline from The Verge, based on a report by The Information, Magic Leap’s peculiar CEO, Rony Abovitz, published a stream-of-consciousness Tweetstorm rebuking the skepticism of the “grumpy mouse tech blogger writers.”

Magic Leap has raised a staggering $1.4 billion from some of the world’s biggest companies and well known venture firms, reportedly leading to a $4.5 billion valuation. Little is known about the augmented reality tech that the company is building, or precisely what makes it worth so much in the eyes of investors. So far it seems the company intends to build a pair of AR glasses with a novel display that’s said to create more realistic visuals than other AR headsets seen thus far.

SEE ALSO
This is What Star Wars Looks Like Running on Magic Leap

According to The Verge, in an interview with The Information, Abovitz says that the company has been unable to miniaturize and scale a key technology: a fiber scanning display. It’s further stated by the reports that Magic Leap’s product is technologically and developmentally far behind Microsoft’s HoloLens headset, which is already available on the market.

Rony Abovitz, CEO of Magic Leap | Photo courtesy Magic Leap
Rony Abovitz, CEO of Magic Leap | Photo courtesy Magic Leap

Cue a Tweetstorm of Abovitz’ characteristically ambiguous tweets, featuring instant classics such as, “‘He buys two bars, and after unwrapping the second chocolate bar, Charlie finds the fifth golden ticket’,” and, “Stay tuned – what’s coming next for Magic Leap is the best part.” Along with the word “Believe,” a smiley emoticon, and a photo of questionable effort featuring a billboard with a train and the words, “Magic Leap Is Coming.”

“For our launch: everyone – skeptics and friends alike – will be able to try Magic Leap for themselves,” he tweeted. “Ice-cream included :-).”

Among the innocuous tweets was wedged something tangible:

It’s still not clear exactly what the “system” is. The descriptors, “small, sleek, cool,” suggest what many have suspected is a B2C product coming from Magic Leap in the form of a pair of AR glasses, but the company could also be creating displays or other components not meant for end-users that will be integrated into other products.

Whatever it is, production test runs is a good sign that the company is well on the way to manufacturing a product, possibly launching in 2017.

Update (2:56PM PT, 12/9/16): Prompted by recent reports, in the first post to the company’s blog since February 2016, Abovitz offered a brief update with some additional details on the status of the company’s work:

• We have completed our first PEQ (Product Equivalent) build of our target form factor, in our new facility.

• We are about to start a much bigger PEQ run, which will exercise our supply chain and manufacturing/quality operations.

• The units we are building now are for engineering and manufacturing verification/validation testing, early reliability/quality testing, production line speed, and a bunch of other important parameters.

• There is also a lot more going in our development of software, applications, cool creative experiences and overall operational readiness.

Original article continues below.

Despite the recent skeptical coverage, those who have had a chance to see Magic Leap’s tech continue to rave about what they saw (without being able to tell us anything about what is was). Benedict Evans, a Partner of the respected VR firm Andreessen Horowitz (which is one of Magic Leap’s investors), this week compared his experience with the product to the iPhone.

Tons of similar tweets over the last year have lavished the same ‘mind blown’ praise on what Magic Leap has been showing, but after the report from The Information, whether or not the final product will be equivalent to the demo tech remains unclear.

Whatever the case, it seems as if the company plans to wait to begin its formal product marketing before it will detail exactly what it’s making.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • user

    i want to “believe”

  • PrymeFactor

    I like how you characterize theverge headline as ‘odd’ while accepting abovitz’s rambling tweets as normal.

    • benz145

      It’s odd for a publication to go out on a limb with a self-serving qualifier like ‘as we always suspected it was.’

      We also described Abovitz as “Magic Leap’s peculiar CEO,” and his tweets as “characteristically ambiguous,” and “innocuous,” to specifically refer to past behavior. None of that is ‘accepting his tweets as normal’.

  • Sponge Bob

    bad comparison : iphone was nothing new – just well executed agglomeration of palm and dozens of other previously known techs (some of those stolen from rightful patent holders :-)

    magic leap ?

    why so much hype and $$$$$$$$ ?

    Vrvana of Montreal took just 1.5 mil and they already have a decent (for present state-of-the art) VR/AR headset for sale (at 5K a piece…)

    • user

      magic leap wants to build glasses which you can wear all day… in public. they want to replace smartphones.

      • Sponge Bob

        well, glasses are glasses, phones are phones

        not sure i want to wear a hybrid…. but first we need to see it …

        • user

          i wear prescription glasses. so to me theres no reason not to wear smart glasses once they are thin enough.

          • Get Schwifty!

            I’d strongly consider wearing them, at least part of the time.

    • Get Schwifty!

      Now, now… the iPhone as an aggregate of existing technologies with a vision was very new “thing” in the market. Yes, the “original” smart phone, ie. the Blackberry had been around awhile, but the Internet in your palm along with everything else in an easy to use package was a fundamental shift. If you don’t believe me please stop using your smart phone for a day and see how it feels to go back to 2007 :)

      In all seriousness, they most likely do have something (probably what user is saying about glasses) that is impressive. To attract even a million dollars in investment spending is a feat, getting what, 1.5 billion? People don’t drop that kind of money without seeing something very, very convincing. Then again it could all be a scam… :)

      Looking for big things from these folks… even if its just a replacement tech for smart phones displays

      • Sponge Bob

        actually I have a tiny LG flip phone which I use as a .. phone

        many people don’t want smartphones , they just want smaller phones which can fit in shirt pocket

        this is evidenced by the market success of Iphone SE – a smaller cheaper version of iphone – about the size of the original iphone before it grew into monstrosity

        for internet I use tablet or laptop

        • Get Schwifty!

          But the iPhone SE is a smart phone…. correct? Saying a lot of people dont want smartphones belies the fact that the majority of people who could use one normally want one, particularly the younger you go. To say they haven’t been transnational in society… is an absurdity. VR will potentially have a huge if not revolutionary impact over time, but that doesn’t mean everyone will have a desire for it. A lot of people never had cars… but to say they haven’t had a transformational effect on societies…?

          • AndyP

            iPhone SE is a smart phone that fits in your pocket and isn’t a pain in the arse like the top of the range (haha) galaxy I “downgraded” from! I agree, and Apple made its fortune producing products that consumers actually wanted – that’s not just agregation, but sophisticated DESIGN.

          • user

            as if a handset with a 5.5″ screen doesnt fit in your pocket…

        • user

          many people want <5 inch screen sizes but most people dont.

          go to a website like gsmarena and look up how many phones were released with android 6 or 7 with <5 inches in 2016 and how many are 5 inches and more.

          spoiler: it's 20 and 292

      • Sponge Bob

        “Then again it could all be a scam… :)”

        it’s no bigger scam than promising VR inside-out position tracking “next year” and showing some prototype (e.g santacruz) which works only inside one particular demo room…

        • Get Schwifty!

          That was a joke… but it could be a scam, people have been scammed with less… think “Segway” hype…

  • Get Schwifty!

    Tiny pocket elephants… it’s genius! Don’t tell me you wouldn’t run out and buy one ;)

  • Facts

    Verge review said Microsoft halo lens is better so lets hope they are wrong and it’s not all a hype. Cause hololens small field of view sucks ass

    • Get Schwifty!

      They may be right (and wrong) at the same time maybe in terms of utility? The field of view if the glasses are what is coming and have a small FOV may well be correct if the goal is to have a view of your smartphone output that is non-intrusive to your surroundings…. Considering Hololens is quite expensive currently… $3K for a dev version, $5K for commercial… if Magic Leap has a pair of glasses that does the same thing with a much smaller FOV for say $300 …. that is impressive. It says something that if the articles are correct the people who keep seeing it are always impressed…. its healthy to be cynical to an extent, but the technologies exist to do pretty much what it sounds like they are doing by rumor…

  • dmbfk

    I don’t know what that tiny elephant is doing in that guy’s hands, bit too long, didn’t read… I want one though! Where do I get micro-elephant simulator? Have to read the article do I? Groan.

    • Foreign Devil

      You sound like one of the people who invested in this company.

      • dmbfk

        Man you caught me out. For a moment I thought I was a fat, overweight father of 2 sitting around lazily clicking shit on my PC, like the RoadToVR digest email and making suitably ignorant comments and wondering whether or not to order a dial-a-pizza. But you reminded me of my true identity! I’m a hot shot investor, probably very handsome, living in a penthouse. And, my post actually originated from my social media management company that I employ to post things “like real people would”. Well done sir. You win… the opportunity to come and work for us in NYC as a “Chief of Social Media Believability”. If that doesn’t pan out and I’m not who I think I am, you are welcome to the crusts off the dial-a-pizza.

        • As long as you are enjoying your lengthy prose….

          • dmbfk

            Not as much as I enjoy your trite one-liners bitch…

          • Yes ! This is going to go on all day !
            Here I go : Eat my nerdy fart !

          • dmbfk

            LOL 2 posts in reply!
            Wow I got 2 back!! That’s a sign that you’re REAL MAD.
            I got you all worked up bitch because you got absolutely humiliated by my trite-oneliner comment. If you can’t take the heat stay out of the kitchen bitch!
            You got so mad you needed to hit back with 2 replies. What a victory for me and what an utter humiliating defeat for you.
            Fuckin awesome!

          • Yes I am really, really mad (!). But I am bored with you now, bye.

          • dmbfk

            Haha the old bored routine. Classic. dmbfk wins! Flawless Victory!

          • Bryan Ischo

            As much as you’d love to believe you can, you can’t actually hurt someone’s feelings in forum postings on the internet. It’s a loser’s game.

          • dmbfk

            Is that what you tell Madeleine and Graham?

          • Bryan Ischo

            As you can see I don’t hide because I’m not afraid of internet assholes.

          • dmbfk

            Steady on Ischo you fearless Linux warrior!!! I would never fuck with someone like you because you probably know magic from all the years playing AD&D with other like-minded guys who also wear black t-shirts.
            Listen man, don’t do an “expecto patronum” on me for asking, but I always wondered something about you Linux guys.. i.e. the proper ones like you that proclaim to “love Linux” on one of your many 90’s stylised websites (cheerily optimised to run on WAP and Netscape Navigator 2 for the 0.02% of web browsing adults still using Windows 95 with Trumpet Winsock. Thanks Bryan!). What I wondered is this… Is it possible for a regular guy like me to get into Linux without yellow teeth? Can a guy with clean teeth still use it? Also, I don’t have halitosis so can I still install it?Thanks in advance! dmbfk aka dumbfuck.

          • Bryan Ischo

            You’re funny, although I wish you’d use your skills for productive discussion instead of insulting people.

            I know you’re just trying to get a rise out of me, but to answer your question truthfully, yes, anyone can “get into” Linux, regardless of their personal hygiene. However, I wouldn’t recommend it unless you just enjoy tinkering with computers, as it’s not as good as an end-user, easy-to-use product as the traditional commercial offerings like Windows or Mac OS X.

          • dmbfk

            Bryan was that “Mac OS X”, or just “Mac OS” and you signed off with a kiss?

          • Bryan Ischo

            You’ve seen my picture. Would you really want it even if I did?

          • dmbfk

            Are you grooming me Bryan?

          • Denti

            Hey this is great. I just registered a Disqus account to be able to post in this thread. Please continue. And by the way dmfk, the joke by Foreign Devil was about venture capital executives and not you.

          • dmbfk

            You just registered to be part of an inane argument among children. What fruitful lives we all lead!

          • yag

            Why people keep responding to you instead of blocking you ?
            (hint : don’t bother to respond to me)

          • dmbfk

            yag goes munging in the cemetary!

          • MdM

            Wow, if you just did what I think you did, that’s f’d up. You seem to be embracing the whole “bully” thing. How did that come about? BTW, your set up and Foreign Devil’s response was priceless, but based on your reply to him, it sounds like the joke totally went over your head… presumably because you were too busy feeling like you were being attacked, when in reality you weren’t.

          • dmbfk

            Ooh I love a bit of deep psychoanalysis on a Monday. I see you’re one of those tedious guys who says “THE WHOLE [INSERT WORD HERE] THING” instead of just using the inserted word because you like to roll like it’s still 2010. You know, doing the whole 2010 thing LOL

          • MdM

            That was a painfully lame comeback. Seriously? All you could think to do is attack my style of grammar? Sounds like you’re embarrassed because you didn’t get the joke (and possibly still don’t). It’s ok, man… everybody makes mistakes… just admit you over-reacted to the guy’s post and move on. Or are you one of those guys that has too much pride to admit when they are wrong?

          • dmbfk

            Here we go again, another journey into borrowed clichés courtesy of Mdm. This time we’re trotting out the Seriously? Like Really? Seriously? Really? Anyone who writes Seriously? or Really? as an entire sentence is a lazy-thinking, simple-minded fuck who just follows linguistic fashions rather than engaging any kind of originality or creativity. You know, a bit lacking on THE WHOLE [creativity] THING LOL. REALLY? SERIOUSLY? Yes seriously… tedious idiot.
            Also a guy so keen to talk in the parlance of “comebacks”, “attacks” and suchlike is never going to make any headway with me. I only engage in comebacks and attacks with worthy opponents who have a modicum of intelligence not vacuous, pseudo-intellectual fools like you who bang on incessantly about “getting the joke” and tries the most brazenly hackneyed pop-psychology in the weakest attempt imaginable to undermine. Yeah man, take your talk of “embarrassment” and “pride” and “mistakes” and pitch it to someone who it will actually work on. Unfortunately I wrote the book on this shit so it won’t work on me ;)
            DUHHHH don’t you get the joke I think you don’t I think you still don’t. What like SERIOUSLY? You don’t get the whole joke thing? SERIOUSLY? yada yada etc. wind your neck in dude.

          • MdM

            The fashion of words is a big thing with you, huh? You seem to find it very difficult to communicate with someone who uses words that you deem cliche (which seems very ironic to me considering your one-word sentence “Classic” above, and how you like to end your sentences with “bitch” – the latter was cool when Pinkman did it, but nobody says either of those anymore). And… as I suspected, you still don’t get the joke. If I’m wrong, prove it.

          • dmbfk

            “Nobody says that any more” says Mdm like some kind of authority on what people do and do not say.
            Dude the only thing you’re an authority on is self-fellatio, mouth-breathing and the relative merits of the various brain medicines you rely on to avoid getting triggered :)
            You love a bit of psychoanalysis don’t you big man?
            Why don’t you psychoanalyse the implications of me sticking my dick in your ear? Are you up for that? Give me your fucking lunch money anyway you nerd.

          • MdM

            Man, does your dick really fit into an ear? I don’t think I’d be bragging about that if I were you.

          • dmbfk

            I don’t recall bragging, I just recall suggesting ear sex and to be honest I’ve never tried it before so I don’t know.
            Before you look a gift horse in the mouth, consider the offer very seriously because this might be the closest you ever get to another human being.
            I’m just saying, look in the mirror dude. Nobody’s going to want a piece of that right? Me on the other hand, I’m offering to upload a hot bolt of superior DNA into your ear canal.

            OK I admit, I’ve got writers block now. I’ve backed myself into a corner with this story arc.
            The missus has fallen asleep and we were supposed to be watching The Walking Dead. I’m distracted and all out of ideas right now. Please stay on the line. Thank you for waiting. We really appreciate your business. An agent will be with you shortly.

          • MdM

            You disappoint me. I didn’t think it would be that easy to shut you down. Oh well, goodnight dumbfuck.

          • dmbfk

            Dude, please, we both know the only thing you ever shutdown is your own nervous system when girls talk to you.

          • MdM

            I’m married and have a 10-year-old kid, but nice try. And BTW, my son, despite his age, treats people (especially strangers) with way more respect than you do (not that you likely see that as a positive thing). Perhaps one of these days, you’ll have your own kid… either you will act this way around him and he’ll grow up and be just like you… or maybe, just maybe, he’ll change you for the better. I know my son did that for me (and continues to do so). I used to be kindof a dick like you. I know what it’s like… people tell you to look in the mirror, but you never do, or at least you never see anything wrong. But then one day, you have a kid, and there’s a mirror in front of you all of the time whether you like it or not.

          • dmbfk

            Oh cos I’ve got 2 kids. When you have your second you’ll be as wise as us 2+ kids guys and able to contribute in a more meaningful way instead of chiming in like a 1-kid parental noob.

          • Mike

            I have two kids and in no way do I want to associate myself to this dmbfk guy. so you can remove me from his suggested “us 2+ kids guys”

          • dmbfk

            I’ve added you to the humorless fuckwits list Mike, you’re welcome. I mean do you sincerely think anybody who says “us 2+ kids guys” is saying it for real. You do obviously. What an utter an complete moron. No concept of anyone saying anything tongue-in-cheek or to be foolish. No. Everything in your world is dry as fuck. I feel so sorry for your friends and family. Well, family anyway, doubt you’ve got any friends.

          • Mike

            As long as I’m officially removed from association to you, I’m happy.

          • dmbfk

            I’m sure you are happy. That’s what they say about you guys with an extra chromosome.

          • Mike

            idgi

          • dmbfk

            Of course your don’t get it Mike. Let’s be honest, there’s not much in life you do get. Most of the time you just sit there with your underpants on your head wondering when one of the grown-ups is going to give you a lollipop.

          • Mike

            what what! you have lollipops?

          • dmbfk

            Yes Mike and you can have one so long as you promise not to smear faeces all over the walls.

          • Mike

            idgi

          • dmbfk

            Nevermind big boy. How about I make you some dinosaur pasta shapes?

          • Mike

            Bored now, I was expecting better replies based on your other stuff. Cya

          • dmbfk

            Oh. Looks like Paw Patrol just started in Mike’s house!
            How can I compete with that? I can’t. Go and watch your show big man – quick before Marshall and friends start their crazy adventure without you!

          • You should stay polite, you didn’t really come across as very intelligent already.

  • V H

    Remember the Segway? It was launched with great fan fair and then went on to fall flat on its face. Hope Magic leap isn’t like that.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      Uhm, Segway is very popular in the professional world. It’s a great transportation device on a large campus.

      • Get Schwifty!

        True, but the way they touted it, you would have thought everyone was going to want one. Instead, it turned out to be a very nichey set of applications.

        • Jim Cherry

          you can still get rich off of niche that said alot of money was wasted on marketing the segway

  • brubble

    “…..Magic Leap’s product is technologically and developmentally far behind Microsoft’s HoloLens headset” …gets a big meh from me so far.

  • What could it be to get that kind of investment at this stage in AR/VR tech? My hopes are that they have discovered a new superior display (not sure display is the right term here) that does not rely on pixels so content can sit in AR and you wouldnt know it until your hand passess through it, it is that realistic. If so, it would rock the computing world. Maybe they are spending all this time (and money) fortifying their IP before launching. All speculation of course.

    • user

      • Interesting video. So, what I gather is, If he is right, then the display (which is similar in fashion to how a microchip works) could have billions of light paths within it e.g. a xeon can have 7+ billion transistors in it, all connected) and the actual size of that chip is tiny. So in terms of pixels, a 50,000 x 50,000 display would produce 2.5 billion pixels. Forget 4K on a monitor, 50K at the size of a postage stamp would be incredible. Obviously I am talking in terms of pixels not light here. Could it be the end of pixel based GPU’s as we know it? hehe, all very interesting and theoretical.

        • user

          i guess it still depends on the micro projector which produces the light. i imagine that bigger objects – such as the complete field of view in vr mode – could be blurry and at the same time when they display smaller objects they could use the max resolution of the projector and shrink the object by directing the light in a certain way through the photonic chip.
          that way the wired reporter could be right when she talked about the perfectly rendered small object she had seen while the star wars robots dont look perfect and to some maybe blurry. just a guess.

      • Get Schwifty!

        Thanks for posting these, very informative…even as a generation one technology it’s amazing.

        If what we have seen is correct, Hololens holds the edge at the moment, but the principles this uses implies it may have a whole lot more potential. I would go nuts to have a pair of these glasses and just plug into my phone on the go…

        After seeing this… maybe it’s goodbye Rift and Vive and PSVR….

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPMHcanq0xM

        • user

          ya, but it probably wont work with your phone. i think they build a compute unit thats a box similar to your phone but the micro laser projector is probably in there and not in the glasses. i could be wrong, not sure.

          • Get Schwifty!

            I’m not saying phone *today* though…. I tend to think in 3-10 year movements… clearly, you need something portable to run the imaging, but even at fairly low resolutions phones are relatively capable and probably can do a decent load in a few generations. Think I need to qualify that more, it seems to be a recurrent misunderstanding whenever I mention phone tech in conjunction with VR.

          • user

            got you. im sure, qualcomm as an investor in magic leap, will build a great soc for this thing.

        • Ian Shook

          This was made by Weta workshop as an advertisement / viral video, it didn’t actually use any Magic Leap tech.

          • Get Schwifty!

            Ah okay, that is sad to hear, thats definitely not clear from the video but since they didn’t point out it was actually using Magic Leap tech then its a promo piece.. That’s actually a bad sign and underscores Sharrow’s concerns above they might be duping the public and investors, at least on a certain level.

      • Wow.. um… this is very very very wrong.

        First off, those 3D block curios are Acrylic, not “Crystal”. Those imperfections aren’t mirrors that bend light, they are damaged caused by forcing large amounts of laser light through the block. It’s just a burn spot in clear plastic, there is no “Bending of Light”.

        Secondly, a laser Hologram, the 3D panel of buildings, is a series of interference patterns etched into film, much like the pits burned into a CD. Just as the CD produces a rainbow of light that seems to drift off the surface, if you control the layout of those pits, you can reconstruct the appearance of entire objects if those pits are laid out carefully enough. You can even influence the color via size of the pits, as it will change the wavelength of light it reflects.

        BOTH of those are fixed things, carefully pre-calculated, and burned in things. NONE of them have anything to do with what Magic Leap is doing!

        That SFE rotating beam display system can be projected directly into your eye. It’s the key component. The glass they are bouncing the image off of is just a light spreader, nothing more then a flat version of a lens on a camera. It’s only there to make the display thinner. It’s NOTHING SPECIAL. It’s certainly not a “Photonic Light Chip”. It’s not an optical computer!

        This video is ignorant of the very science it discusses. This is how Magic Leap gets by as a company. If they are vague enough, people who know little about science and technology will credit them with all sorts of Sci-Fi movie worthy achievements. Outside of the SFE projection system, nothing about this device is amazing or novel.

        Magic Leap’s display is no different then any other 3D display. It doesn’t do anything impressive with light. It has the same depth handling techniques as an old View Master, Nintendo 3D, or any VR HMD. If you put a slightly different image in each eye, you get depth.

        • Get Schwifty!

          Are you certain about the blocks being acrylic? I have something similar from a trip and it is definitely crystal and there are countless links to such items which are described as crystal and its referenced this way in this FAQ on the devices sold:

          http://www.3dlasermachine.com/3d-laser-machine-FAQ.html

          I think the point about bending light comes down to describing in lay mans terms how light is deflected in order to be seen. If an object scatters no light, ie “Bending” in this discussion, then you can’t see it. There has to be disruption to the flow for the light to reach your eye. Not the best analogy, but it gets the point across.

          I did come across some discussion on Reddit about the “photonic lightfield display chips”

          “Judging from the patent, they stack linear waveguides ) guides in columns, sets or layers which each produce a respective depth plane to simulate a 4D light field. (About 16 to 32 waveguides) Then a diffractive zone plate changes what depth plane (waveguide) your eye focuses on. They aren’t actually producing a true light field they are only simulating one.”

          Based on that I totally agree that there is no optical computing at work here, at least not in the lenses and I seriously doubt they have anything going on with the processing chips either as that is still very embryonic technology.

          EDIT: Watching the second video, the concept of the lenses doing both functions ultimately is explored a little further though so I can see why they refer to it as they do but its not a true computing chip.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0b6IeX_x48

  • Gerald Terveen

    Some interesting points from the AMA with the original article author:

    “They showed me controllers similar to the HTC Vive controllers.
    They didn’t show me anything like hand controls. But I know they have
    worked on that tech. Just didn’t show it to me. ”

    “The PEQ was
    not finished. It was just a bunch of circuit boards and chips. There was
    no “ID” as they say covering up the electronics. There was also no
    external battery pack, which Magic Leap plans to use. ”

    “Magic Leap has experimented with eye tracking on its devices. It
    wasn’t clear whether the eye tracking was in use in my demo. I don’t
    believe it was. There was no foveated rendering happening. The objects
    were focused by a separate, motorized lens that actually changed the
    focal depth of the projected image. ”

    My money is on the whole thing being orchestrated. Doubt he had no NDA by accident and while they might have gotten more bad press than they bargained for – overall I think this helped create more healthy expectations and I can’t wait to see their product.

    If the battery is an external unit I expect the processing will be as well. And them realizing the need for controllers that make it easier to port VR content is a great thing too imo.

    I’d be lying if I had any clue what to expect, but my current expectation is something in between the current HoloLens and the advertised vision (which lets be honest – never was realistic for the first generation!).

  • When the first iPhone hit the market, I had already gone through 3 smartphones based on Windows OS, and one from Palm. And all of those phones could handle Copy and Paste! (lol) It wasn’t amazing or new, it was just that non-techys had no idea what was already available to them.

    I think Magic Leap falls into that same category: Old tech repackaged and pushed on ignorant people with money. If those same people had seen a DK1 Rift, they’d have been equally impressed… maybe more so since *IT* was actually production ready!

    • Get Schwifty!

      The point is no one gave a sh*t that it had already been done in packages and formats that the public frankly didn’t care about. “Non-techies” i.e. the “Great Unwashed” are the real market, not the relatively small number of “techies”. The application and marketing of tech is what ultimately matters, not how “new” it is in terms of market impact. Clearly people were more interested in what the iPhone (and ultimately Android) meant to their day to day lives than the ability to cut-and-paste and send emails on Windows and Palm, those products lacked the vision to be meaningful in the broad spectrum.

  • JustNiz

    So after years and now under significant pressure, the best he can still come up with is more empty marketing bullshit like “small, sleek, cool” instead of actual product pictures and demos.
    Rather than increase interest as he obviously intended, his continued vague, subjective statements do far more to indicate that he’s actually got little or nothing significant and its all just an extended venture capital scam, or at best a massive disappointment compared to the hype.

  • OgreTactics

    So how is that vaporware money-laundering going? Yup, even more of a confirmation. Technological devices are not “magic leaps” that just happens within a C2C/B2B company’s lab, it’s the smart conception of a product using pre-existing technologies, researches, algorithms, programs, materials, mechanics, technics…that are publicly available to all.

    And I’m sorry, but there’s no such thing as a magical lightfield glass display tech that can even match the underwhelming current VR headsets specs. Let alone when they claim it’s somehow inferior to the HoloLens or ODG (which has a glass form-factor, unless they’re going the integrated glasses way, which again does exist but that is in it’s fondation and nowhere near consumer-operable).

    Also please don’t insult Steve Job’s legacy, which was one of the last conceptor left in the Silicon Valley (with the exception of Elon Musk and a few Google guys like Matthias Duarte).