E-Mail 'Magic Leap raises another $800mil' To A Friend

2 Comments

1. 

   The “product” isn’t just an augmented reality tool for gaming, and it’d be highly myopic and ignorant to consider that as the primary use case. Rather, it has the potentially to completely eliminate the need for a lot of gadgets in our current lives, including screens, phones, tablets. If the interface is usable enough, you can do work or check your email anywhere without having to take out your phone. And you can visualize anything in 2D or 3D instantly.

   Imagine you are shopping with your spouse and now you have to meet with them to check out. In today’s world, we awkwardly take out our phone from our pocket, launch a messenger app, click on the spouse’s name, type “where are you”, hit send, and await a response which could take minutes. Do you even realize how ridiculous and primitive that is? Imagine instead you can just see them on an HUD screen, with an arrow indicating if they are “off-screen” and a diamond indicating that they are 231 meters away in this direction when they are in your field of view, like in Deus Ex Human Revolution.

   Imagine you are shopping for a bunch of beers. “Which one should I pick?” In today’s world, we awkwardly take out our phones and ONE BY ONE search a brand name and its rating to see if it’s critically acclaimed. Do you not realize how terrible this is? Imagine instead that you can just see the rating floating above each beer brand in real life and in real time.

   Efficiency of daily life and work, not stupid zombie games, is the promise of Augmented Reality. If Magic Leap truly delivers, it will make the world more efficient ten-fold, never mind the entertainment use cases.

   1. 

      Right — but that’s EVERYONE’s end goal. Certainly for Google Glass, and many of the mobile-based headsets allow for the use of the front-facing camera for potential future augmented reality applications.

      My point is that it’s not enough to have the one device. You need an entire ecosystem of apps, content, and so forth. Google is currently way ahead on this front, as is Oculus with the Samsung Gear VR partnership. The Oculus Rift, as a tethered device, probably isn’t a good fit for your grocery shopping application — who wants to lug around a $1,000 desktop when they go to a store?

      Meanwhile, the apps you mentioned — seeing where your spouse is, seeing the beer ratings — that is all possible now with just the smartphone screen. In fact, some of these apps are already available. Google Maps shows you where you are and where you should be going, Waze tells you about traffic conditions. There’s a Google translate app that lets you point your smartphone at street signs and they get automatically translated into your language.

      I personally would rather hold up a smartphone, launch an app, and point it at what I need to know than constantly wear a headset everywhere you go — but the form factor is likely to change and become less intrusive over time.

      And Apple is bound to come out with something soon, maybe an iWatch-style peripheral that is a pair of glasses, instead, that connects to the phone via high-speed Bluetooth.

      Both Google and Apple are rumored to be working on headsets, and they are both way, way ahead in terms of ecosystems, app delivery platforms, developer communities, brand name recognition, etc…

      Magic Leap is going to have to do something extra special to get beyond that. And Lightfield technology is not enough — that’s a feature, something you would invent then license to the Apples and Googles of the world.

      Like the foveated rendering of the Fove headset — it’s a cute feature, but without developers, apps, accessories and peripherals, they’re not really making a dent in this space.