> It's a controlled environment with purpose-built demos for folks under NDA
Magic Leap pulled a similar stunt with The Information around the same time last year [1]. Seems like they found a more pliant journalist in The Rolling Stone.
"In March of last year, it released a video online titled “Just Another Day in the Office at
Magic Leap.” Shot from the perspective of one of its employees working at his desk, all appears normal until robots start falling from the ceiling and converging on the worker, who picks up a toy gun and starts blasting his enemies into tangled lumps of virtual metal. The video, viewed 3.4 million times on YouTube, was meant to demonstrate a game people were playing with Magic Leap’s headset. It had been used for more than a year to recruit employees to South Florida. 'This is a game we’re playing around the office right now,' Magic Leap wrote in the description of the video.
But no such game existed at the time, according to two former employees with direct knowledge. The video was not actually filmed using any Magic Leap technology. It was made by New Zealand-based special effects company Weta Workshop, which has worked on movies like 'Mad Max: Fury Road' and 'The Hobbit,' the employees said. One of them called it an 'aspirational conceptual' video. The employees said some at the company felt the video misled the public.
...
In addition to the bulky demo connected to a computer, Mr. Abovitz showed The Information a prototype of the compact device it intends to build. It looked as if somebody fastened electronics to every inch of a pair of wire-framed glasses. It had a multi-layered, flat lens. He would not turn the
device on, but assured a reporter that it worked just as well as the larger, helmet-like device. Mr. Abovitz would not discuss details of the technology, repeatedly responding to probing questions with the phrase 'Squirrels and Sea Monkeys.'"
I think Magic Leap is another Theranos. A second, independently-developed HoloLens makes for a respectable incremental business. But that nugget of truth has been leveraged to a $6 billion hallucination. Maintaining that hallucination could have forced management to lie to investors, to the public and to their employees.
So are you explicitly saying that the Rolling Stones journalist is lying?
And the only supposed "proof" you bring is an article over an year old written when the miniaturised prototype didn't even exist?
"This is a game we’re playing around the office right now,' Magic Leap wrote in the description of the video."
"In addition to the bulky demo connected to a computer, Mr. Abovitz showed The Information a prototype of the compact device it intends to build. It looked as if somebody fastened electronics to every inch of a pair of wire-framed glasses. It had a multi-layered, flat lens. He would not turn the device on, but assured a reporter that it worked just as well as the larger, helmet-like device."
Your post agrees that one year ago, Magic Leap was lying about the technology they had. JumpCrisscross only asserts that given all publicly available information, Magic Leap is probably still lying.
The article begins with the author describing several demos, only after which he is guided to a different room where he has, in his own words, "My first close look at the full Magic Leap hardware."
Rony Abovitz calls the chips supposedly powering his tech "Sea Monkeys."
"I noticed that when I moved or looked around, her eyes tracked mine. The cameras inside the Lightwear was feeding her data so she could maintain eye contact."
Yes. The machines used to render that demo were, in the author's own words, not the full Magic Leap hardware.
edit: Also, even if that demo was the advertised Magic Leap hardware, it still only responded to camera movement, and Miller said the demo had capabilities that he refused to actually display.
"The level of detail was impressive. I wouldn't mistake her for a real person"
"I noticed that when I moved or looked around, her eyes tracked mine. The cameras inside the Lightwear were feeding her data so she could maintain eye contact." Yes it is possible that the demo changes behavior based on eye movement alone but that's not what the author said.
Lightwear is the headset component. It is not functional without another, separate computer. The author says he only clearly saw the full, multi-piece ensemble of the advertised prototype Magic Leap hardware later, in a different room from the demos. My information comes from the literal words in and structure of the article. To make the point you are trying to make, one must add words and meaning that are not in the article. Continue insulting my literacy.
edit: You are right about one thing; my assertion that the demo in question was reliant on -camera motion- may not be correct. Eye-tracking on commodity hardware using a single camera has been a solved problem for years.
And if you're choosing who to trust between The Information and The Rolling Stone... well that's like choosing between a Bugatti Veyron and a Ford Pinto.
I pick you: you people are insane. they have raised based off of demos. vcs come in, get the demo, sign a check (because it's that fucking good). I know at least 4 people personally that have gotten demos and it's very real.
What is known, empirically true - it is possible for one group of people to scam other people and groups for many millions of dollars each. Given what is known about the mechanisms of high end confidence tricks, what is different about the operation of Magic Leap that indicates that it is not a confidence trick? Remember, the most detailed article written by a journalist who experienced the demo describes a literal scam.
Magic Leap pulled a similar stunt with The Information around the same time last year [1]. Seems like they found a more pliant journalist in The Rolling Stone.
"In March of last year, it released a video online titled “Just Another Day in the Office at Magic Leap.” Shot from the perspective of one of its employees working at his desk, all appears normal until robots start falling from the ceiling and converging on the worker, who picks up a toy gun and starts blasting his enemies into tangled lumps of virtual metal. The video, viewed 3.4 million times on YouTube, was meant to demonstrate a game people were playing with Magic Leap’s headset. It had been used for more than a year to recruit employees to South Florida. 'This is a game we’re playing around the office right now,' Magic Leap wrote in the description of the video.
But no such game existed at the time, according to two former employees with direct knowledge. The video was not actually filmed using any Magic Leap technology. It was made by New Zealand-based special effects company Weta Workshop, which has worked on movies like 'Mad Max: Fury Road' and 'The Hobbit,' the employees said. One of them called it an 'aspirational conceptual' video. The employees said some at the company felt the video misled the public.
...
In addition to the bulky demo connected to a computer, Mr. Abovitz showed The Information a prototype of the compact device it intends to build. It looked as if somebody fastened electronics to every inch of a pair of wire-framed glasses. It had a multi-layered, flat lens. He would not turn the device on, but assured a reporter that it worked just as well as the larger, helmet-like device. Mr. Abovitz would not discuss details of the technology, repeatedly responding to probing questions with the phrase 'Squirrels and Sea Monkeys.'"
I think Magic Leap is another Theranos. A second, independently-developed HoloLens makes for a respectable incremental business. But that nugget of truth has been leveraged to a $6 billion hallucination. Maintaining that hallucination could have forced management to lie to investors, to the public and to their employees.
[1] https://www.theinformation.com/the-reality-behind-magic-leap