7 ms·

Neal Stephenson Joins Magic Leap

251 points by carloscm 12y ago

miles932 12y ago
OMG. I can think of no stronger endorsement of a technology. take my money NOW
- krick 12y ago
  Even after "Clang"?
  - Cushman 12y ago
    Clang just couldn't raise nearly the budget it needed... Neal Stephenson had a whole blog post about how it turns out that just because you're Neal Stephenson doesn't mean people will give you money to make a sword fighting video game.
    - dominotw 12y ago
      >just because you're Neal Stephenson doesn't mean people will give you money to make a sword fighting video game. Infact, that is specifically why I funded that kickstarter.
      - jessaustin 12y ago
        Did you receive any refund?
        Cushman 12y ago
        They shipped something similar enough to what they said they'd ship that the project was a nominal success, but far enough from what people wanted that nobody's very happy about it. (AKA, a Kickstarter.)
      - Cushman 12y ago
        Yeah, me too... Unfortunately neither of us gave him nearly enough to make a difference.
    - teraflop 12y ago
      I thought the entire point of Kickstarter was to absorb the failure-to-acquire-enough-funding risk? If Clang failed because of a lack of budget, then the failure was on the part of the project owners to set their funding threshold appropriately.
      - Cushman 12y ago
        My recollection is the plan was to use the kickstarted funds to put together a tech demo, then raise funding to turn that into a game. That second part never happened for a few reasons; mainly, it is not as easy for a semi-famous author to raise money as people think. Of course that's on Stephenson, and he acknowledges it. He didn't understand the investment market. It probably wasn't a great plan in retrospect. But this seems like an odd place to complain when a risky investment doesn't pay off like you'd like.
    - pfisch 12y ago
      No. I don't agree with this at all. We had like 160k with kickstarter for Road Redemption and have made a game on early access that has sold enough to easily continue development. The problem 100% was that Neal Stephenson was incapable of doing the project himself and was just hiring devs to do it and then ran out of money. It was poorly managed because they had lots of traction and risked basically no capital on development. If you give me half a million dollars I would have no problem getting that project to an early access state. Honestly I could do it with half that. I can say that because I actually know how to make both the hardware and software side by myself if it came to that.
      - Cushman 12y ago
        This wasn't a game, it was an engine. A novel motion control scheme, more satisfying to wield than any one currently extant, and a realistic and historically accurate simulation which supports different sword fighting styles. I know a thing or two about motion controls, and game development, and sword fighting for that matter, and I am dramatically less convinced than you that this is trivial. (Even if you are able to donate a year of developer time, valued in the six figures, which in fairness to your point is not something Stephenson brought to the table along with his relatively modest personal assets. Semi-famous authors aren't as rich as people think, either.) I'm not saying I'm impressed with what they made, but I'm not too surprised either.
        pfisch 12y ago
        I don't really think it was an engine so much as a peripheral with some mediating libraries. I would do that plus write a C# interop to make it compatible with unity so you could make your die by the sword clone quickly. What they were trying to make was basically a better wiimote, and a wiimote is essentially an arduino with a single accelerometer hooked up to it and a bluetooth receiver. I think without the budget restrictions of a wiimote you could probably use better/more responsive parts and then basically just mimic a wiimote with the wiimotion plus(which is just a single gyroscope) and call it a day. Or you could add several of each of those components and then average their output or do other clever math with their separate outputs. I think this would take a little more than a year if the person who was doing it knew what they were doing. Then you need to make the game/demo which you would do in parallel with a team of 3-4 additional people. "Even if you are able to donate a year of developer time, valued in the six figures" See this is where misunderstandings with kickstarter begin. We assumed almost no risk in making Road Redemption. In addition to salary we get 100% of revenue less distribution. So not only did we get to draw salary during development, now we get all the sales revenue and we own the IP. It is a crazy good deal, nobody needs to donate anything. It is basically like you get a bunch of VC money and also the VC's have no equity interest. The problem comes in when someone who is unqualified tries to middleman the operation and takes a bunch of money but is totally incapable of doing what they said they would do. Now they both don't have enough money to actually get the shit done at cost, and don't want to give away all the equity. The biggest problem though is that they are unqualified to discern who is capable of doing the task because they don't know anything about how to actually do things. So they fritter away the money and then the project falls apart.
  - nkron 12y ago
    I wasn't sure what you meant by this so I had to look up some details: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/another-kickstarter-game-bites-the-dust-writer-nea/1100-6422442/ http://www.gamespot.com/articles/another-kickstarter-game-bi...
- hyperbovine 12y ago
  "Having a product" comes to mind...
  - efng 12y ago
    Oh my god grandpa, how 20th century can you be...
  - miles932 12y ago
    Hence why I said "technology". If this gives Stephenson a jaw-drop moment, it's something I'd like to see turned into something we can all use.
- king_magic 12y ago
  ... but, uh, what is the technology? What are you giving your money for? The website is pretty mystifying.
  - CmonDev 12y ago
    They will basically replace customer's eyeballs with a couple of optical fibers wired directly into the visual regions of the brain. (just kidding)
  - miles932 12y ago
    guesses based on analysis and conjecture: imagine a tiny projector which is tracking your eyes (and surrounding light conditions), and can project a 3d light field, rather than a 2d image onto them. With this device you could create the perception that you're looking at something in the real world which just ain't there. Hence the flying whales and tiny elephants n' such. It's a AR/VR/Display technology.
davidw 12y ago
Hrm. I hope he doesn't get distracted from writing books. I love his books, but don't care much about video games. I wonder if he's tired of writing, or just wants to do something different...
calebm 12y ago
When I heard of Magic Leap, "Snow Crash" is one of the first things that came to my mind. I really want to see a Magic Leap demo!
themoonbus 12y ago
That's cool and all, but this has got to be one of the worst company websites I've seen recently. I get that they're stealthy, but this doesn't even build any interest. It was only until I clicked "Wizards Wanted" (yes, I get it. Magic.) that I sort of got an answer. Edit: Actually, the Developers section has some more information. But my point still stands.
- a3n 12y ago
  I had no idea what the company does until I bailed from their site and read a comment here. Yes, I could have dug deeper, like the person posting that comment did (thanks), but damn, gimme a reason. And no, having $CELEBRITY in your company is not enough reason. Two utilitarian sentences on what your thing is, and then all the literate prose you can produce. But gimme those two sentences.
  - danellis 12y ago
    Give you a reason for what? You're all acting like this company owes you an explanation of what it does.
    - mbrutsch 12y ago
      Only if they want me to care.
    - Delmania 12y ago
      They're selling something. If they want people to hand over cash, it might be practical to tell us what it is.
      - vidarh 12y ago
        They're not selling anything yet. They don't you to hand over cash yet. And so it is more practical for them to tease and build interest.
        12y ago
throwaway90446 12y ago
Unclear from their site what MagicLeap even does.
thearn4 12y ago
The hype for me is tempered pretty heavily by what happened to Clang. I'm still very curious what Magic Leap is all about though.
- eco 12y ago
  What/who is Clang (apart from the compiler)?
  - egypturnash 12y ago
    A sword fighting video game Stephenson kickstarted for $526k and failed to deliver anything playable on. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/260688528/clang https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/260688528/clang
    - jmelloy 12y ago
      I happily kickstarted it, but I had no belief it would actually deliver. $500k is 5 software devs or artists for a year. That's not very much money for a 3D game.
      - fixedd 12y ago
        And it's only 5 people if you're offering below-industry pay, not paying taxes, no benefits, no office, no equipment purchases, etc. I'd figure 150k/person minimum, with more like 2-300k in more contentious areas.
  - searine 12y ago
    A kickstarter scam by Stephenson.
    - tekromancr 12y ago
      Fuck that scam noise. When you back a kickstarter, you are trying to help make something happen that isn't real yet. You are sharing in the risk.
carloscm 12y ago
This is notable not just because of Neal Stephenson, but because his blog post contains what I think is the most detailed public description of the tech so far: --- Here’s where you’re probably expecting the sales pitch about how mind-blowingly awesome the demo was. But it’s a little more interesting than that. Yes, I saw something on that optical table I had never seen before--something that only Magic Leap, as far as I know, is capable of doing. And it was pretty cool. But what fascinated me wasn’t what Magic Leap had done but rather what it was about to start doing. Magic Leap is mustering an arsenal of techniques--some tried and true, others unbelievably advanced--to produce a synthesized light field that falls upon the retina in the same way as light reflected from real objects in your environment. Depth perception, in this system, isn’t just a trick played on the brain by showing it two slightly different images. Most of the work to be done is in applied physics, with a sizable dollop of biology--for there’s no way to make this happen without an intimate understanding of how the eye sees, and the brain assembles a three-dimensional model of reality. I’m fascinated by the science, but not qualified to work on it. Where I hope I can be of use is in thinking about what to do with this tech once it is available to the general public. "Chief Futurist" runs the risk of being a disembodied brain on a stick. I took the job on the understanding that I would have the opportunity to get a few things done. ---
- aetherson 12y ago
  One of the things that's interesting to me about that quote is the phrase "optical table." I think that there's a presumption (that I've shared) that Magic Leap is trying to make AR goggles or glasses. But, as has been extensively commented upon in the past, that's just crazy. We're just barely at the point of doing semi-decent VR (Oculus Rift) and just barely at the point of doing semi-decent wearable heads-up displays (Google Glass). The idea that Magic Leap could in any foreseeable timeframe create a device that has all the virtues of the Rift + Glass + A huge dose of additional technology on top of both is just laughable. But if they're trying for something much heavier-weight, like the ability to create convincing illusions not in the form-factor of "some goggles," but rather, "a specially prepared room and table," then that's maybe a little more realistic -- and of course less obviously revolutionary.
  - 12y ago
cryoshon 12y ago
Still can't figure out what the heck this company does. Guess it plans to sell hype.
- paulhodge 12y ago
  Augmented reality - hardware and software. Kinda like Google Glass, except it draws realistic-looking stuff in your face that fits seamlessly with what you can see in the real world. (Source: if you read EVERY page on their mysterious web site, you can eventually suss it out)
- nissimk 12y ago
  The last time I remember this much hype was in the lead up to the segway. http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/2013/1019/Inventions-that-were-going-to-change-the-world-but-didn-t/The-Segway http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/2013/1019/Inventions-tha...
llamataboot 12y ago
I wish we knew what their estimated timeframe on having some MVP of this tech available. 2 years? 5 years?
king_magic 12y ago
I literally have no clue what Magic Leap does after reading through a few pages on their site. It's pretty absurd IMO to have a site like this that says so much but says so little. Honestly, why bother at this point?
- Intoo 12y ago
  eye projecting tech, THEY KIND OF WANT TO REPLACE OCULUS VR BY A COMPLETELY NEW VR TECH, where u'll see an elephant in times square because it'll be projected to you eye from somewhere, stuff like that, VR IN REALITY
nabla9 12y ago
http://www.faqs.org/patents/assignee/magic-leap-inc/ http://www.faqs.org/patents/assignee/magic-leap-inc/
valarauca1 12y ago
So they are a holographic augmented reality company? From their site: >Imagine being able to generate images indistinguishable from real objects and then being able to place those images seamlessly into the real world. Sounds like you generate a hologram anywhere. And project it into the real world. Think Star Trek holodeck, but everywhere, or anywhere from what they are selling. And the holograms they're projecting would be almost indistinguishable from other objects (I highly doubt that honestly, subsurface reflection takes A LOT of processor horse power with 1 view alone n). It will be interesting to see what they cook up.
- aidenn0 12y ago
  The current most popular theory seems is that they are using the usual VR tricks, plus have the ability to track the eye so that the eye's accommodation (focus) matches the distance that the object is supposed to be from. From what I remember with my experiments with stereoscopy this should reduce VR sickness in about 10-20% of the population for which accommodation mismatching with stereopsis causes issues. Note that this effect is why 99% of the content in feature-length 3d movies appears at an apparent distance of more than 10 feet from you; the amount that accommodation falls off rapidly with distance, so it's a much less strong effect at that distance.
- nilkn 12y ago
  They're making some sort of AR goggles. Despite all the imagery on their website, I'm not convinced there's anything holographic about what they're doing. In other words, this is a truly Herculean amount of marketing fluff. Google got interested probably only because they're targeting a form factor very similar to Google Glass.
CmonDev 12y ago
"I sometimes feel that the creative minds who make games have done about as much as is possible in two dimensions. It’s hard to imagine how the current crop of games, for example, could be more finely tuned to deliver that particular kind of entertainment." Well PCs powerful enough for proper amount of voxels would let us do interesting things. Dwarf Fortress with a voxel-based high-res graphics could be interesting.
Intoo 12y ago
MagicLeap is so secretive that it looks like their eye projecting tech. is far from being ready
kylestlb 12y ago
Is the blog down? I only see a picture of a submarine hovering above a street!
kingzain 12y ago
There's more information here if anyone is interested: http://io9.com/how-neal-stephenson-is-helping-to-make-snow-crashs-meta-1671621178 http://io9.com/how-neal-stephenson-is-helping-to-make-snow-c...
ThinkBeat 12y ago
Will he bring as much success to this company and he did with Clang? http://www.geek.com/games/neal-stephensons-526000-kickstarter-sword-fighting-game-officially-canceled-1604892/ http://www.geek.com/games/neal-stephensons-526000-kickstarte...
verytrivial 12y ago
There is literally and purposefully nothing to see here. Move along.
javajosh 12y ago
It's too bad the economic incentives make this company take a stealth route. The problem is so large, and potentially so game-changing (both literally and figuratively) that I fail to see how one company could possibly capture all the value created, and it makes me sad that it would even try.
gavanwoolery 12y ago
"...to produce a synthesized light field that falls upon the retina in the same way as light reflected from real objects in your environment" Goes back to Carmack's idea presented in one of his Quakecon sessions (although obviously the idea has been in sci fi for a long time). This is interesting, I have an idea of how it might work: Producing a synthesized light field could be done with a huge array of tiny mirrors or refractive material (I know stuff like this has been done in the past). By simulating directional rays coming in, I'm guessing your eyes could be tricked into thinking there is depth since the movement of each eye would change the amount of light absorbed (i.e. "focusing" on different objects in the light field). I could be wrong about this, have not thought it through very well. All that said, they've raised over $500 million from Google Ventures and others, so I'm guessing there is something here, as lacking as the website is.
replicatorblog 12y ago
This Gizmodo article does a great job of demystifying MagicLeap's tech by digging into the founder's background, patent filings, and trademark applications: http://gizmodo.com/how-magic-leap-is-secretly-creating-a-new-alternate-rea-1660441103?utm_content=bufferb8afe&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer http://gizmodo.com/how-magic-leap-is-secretly-creating-a-new...
- scott_s 12y ago
  This is the most informative story I've read in this submission.
- carloscm 12y ago
  That 1mm single fiber endoscope is just amazing, out of a spy/scifi novel.
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    Oh, it's that guy. Awesome. That's perked my interest more than Stephenson joining them.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
ChuckMcM 12y ago
Interesting hire. As a startup it seems an unlikely one, Neal is a wonderful author, and has a sharp wit, but as he explains "his brain is not useful" to the work at hand. I could see consulting with him, but hiring him struck me as odd. In terms of what Magic Leap purportedly does my guess would be that Daniel Suarez (Daemon, Freedom) might be a better choice in terms of a vision that applies somewhat directly.
- Thrymr 12y ago
  Well, they've got to do something with that half billion dollars. Decisions that don't objectively make sense somehow become possible when you've got that kind of money to spend.
  - ChuckMcM 12y ago
    Sad as it is, that is a very real danger of the 'over raise'. Way too many startups have negotiated their bankruptcy in their own, soon to be someone elses, overly well appointed offices. I picked up an Aeron office chair for $12 that way, very sad.
desdiv 12y ago
Did this "revolutionary startup hires top SF writer" thing ever happen before? If so, how it turn out last time(s)? I hope it doesn't end up like the whole "revolutionary CPU maker hires Linus" thing.
- aetherson 12y ago
  It happens (sort of) in REAMDE. :P There, it ends up precipitating a gigantic MMO war.
Impossible 12y ago
This quote "I sometimes feel that the creative minds who make games have done about as much as is possible in two dimensions. It’s hard to imagine how the current crop of games, for example, could be more finely tuned to deliver that particular kind of entertainment." isn't particular inspiring coming from a Chief Futurist. I can imagine a ton of 2D (or text based, for that matter) games that haven't been attempted let alone perfected. I also feel like I play new novel 2D games all the time. I say this as someone that is excited about VR, AR and would love to see whatever Magic Leap is cooking up, and is a huge Neal Stephenson fan.
bambax 12y ago
> We know what you're thinking: "Who the heck are we?" Well, no, I'm thinking, who the hell are they. And I can't seem to figure it out from your website.
pfisch 12y ago
This sounds so fake it is ridiculous. They hired a sci-fi author...come on.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  Hiring a sci-fi author is not that odd. Lots of sci-fi authors have done proper consultancy gigs for serious organisations.
- sophacles 12y ago
  I know, what possible use could a company with game designer postings on its website have for someone who writes fiction? (science or otherwise...)
- geoelectric 12y ago
  Stephenson has some roots in tech too. Second Life, arguably the most successful modifiable MMO-environment, was based on his vision of the Metaverse. One Laptop Per Child was influenced by his ideas in The Diamond Age (and a side project, Nell, was directly inspired by it). In the Beginning was the Command Line was an excellent non-fiction work of his surveying OS evolution. His books in general have a heavy technological focus. I mean, I hear you, but this is more like Arthur C. Clarke joining a spaceflight organization. Yes, he's coming at it from a different direction, but plainly he's got some valid ideas because other people keep implementing them, directly or otherwise.
fsloth 12y ago
Anyone else enjoy the fact that Stephenson's 'Reamde' also featured a hightech VR company that employed famous fiction authors in their staff :)
linguistbreaker 12y ago
Stephenson is a fairly well respected futurist. The Magic Leap technology involves light field projection - kind of like the opposite of light field photography if you remember the Lytro camera.
lucasgw 12y ago
Step away from goggles, glasses, etc. Start thinking about contact lenses and optical implants - the kind of stuff that requires FDA approval - medical devices - then the amount of funding and interest they have received becomes instantly much more credible, and makes much more sense.
billsossoon 12y ago
For anybody curious about Magic Leap, I highly recommend this TED talk by the company's founder Rony Abovitz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY It starts off kinda weird, you gotta give it a few minutes.

251 points by carloscm 12y ago

miles932 12y ago

OMG. I can think of no stronger endorsement of a technology. take my money NOW

krick 12y ago
Even after "Clang"?
- Cushman 12y ago
  Clang just couldn't raise nearly the budget it needed... Neal Stephenson had a whole blog post about how it turns out that just because you're Neal Stephenson doesn't mean people will give you money to make a sword fighting video game.
  - dominotw 12y ago
    >just because you're Neal Stephenson doesn't mean people will give you money to make a sword fighting video game. Infact, that is specifically why I funded that kickstarter.
    - jessaustin 12y ago
      Did you receive any refund?
      - Cushman 12y ago
        They shipped something similar enough to what they said they'd ship that the project was a nominal success, but far enough from what people wanted that nobody's very happy about it. (AKA, a Kickstarter.)
    - Cushman 12y ago
      Yeah, me too... Unfortunately neither of us gave him nearly enough to make a difference.
  - teraflop 12y ago
    I thought the entire point of Kickstarter was to absorb the failure-to-acquire-enough-funding risk? If Clang failed because of a lack of budget, then the failure was on the part of the project owners to set their funding threshold appropriately.
    - Cushman 12y ago
      My recollection is the plan was to use the kickstarted funds to put together a tech demo, then raise funding to turn that into a game. That second part never happened for a few reasons; mainly, it is not as easy for a semi-famous author to raise money as people think. Of course that's on Stephenson, and he acknowledges it. He didn't understand the investment market. It probably wasn't a great plan in retrospect. But this seems like an odd place to complain when a risky investment doesn't pay off like you'd like.
  - pfisch 12y ago
    No. I don't agree with this at all. We had like 160k with kickstarter for Road Redemption and have made a game on early access that has sold enough to easily continue development. The problem 100% was that Neal Stephenson was incapable of doing the project himself and was just hiring devs to do it and then ran out of money. It was poorly managed because they had lots of traction and risked basically no capital on development. If you give me half a million dollars I would have no problem getting that project to an early access state. Honestly I could do it with half that. I can say that because I actually know how to make both the hardware and software side by myself if it came to that.
    - Cushman 12y ago
      This wasn't a game, it was an engine. A novel motion control scheme, more satisfying to wield than any one currently extant, and a realistic and historically accurate simulation which supports different sword fighting styles. I know a thing or two about motion controls, and game development, and sword fighting for that matter, and I am dramatically less convinced than you that this is trivial. (Even if you are able to donate a year of developer time, valued in the six figures, which in fairness to your point is not something Stephenson brought to the table along with his relatively modest personal assets. Semi-famous authors aren't as rich as people think, either.) I'm not saying I'm impressed with what they made, but I'm not too surprised either.
      - pfisch 12y ago
        I don't really think it was an engine so much as a peripheral with some mediating libraries. I would do that plus write a C# interop to make it compatible with unity so you could make your die by the sword clone quickly. What they were trying to make was basically a better wiimote, and a wiimote is essentially an arduino with a single accelerometer hooked up to it and a bluetooth receiver. I think without the budget restrictions of a wiimote you could probably use better/more responsive parts and then basically just mimic a wiimote with the wiimotion plus(which is just a single gyroscope) and call it a day. Or you could add several of each of those components and then average their output or do other clever math with their separate outputs. I think this would take a little more than a year if the person who was doing it knew what they were doing. Then you need to make the game/demo which you would do in parallel with a team of 3-4 additional people. "Even if you are able to donate a year of developer time, valued in the six figures" See this is where misunderstandings with kickstarter begin. We assumed almost no risk in making Road Redemption. In addition to salary we get 100% of revenue less distribution. So not only did we get to draw salary during development, now we get all the sales revenue and we own the IP. It is a crazy good deal, nobody needs to donate anything. It is basically like you get a bunch of VC money and also the VC's have no equity interest. The problem comes in when someone who is unqualified tries to middleman the operation and takes a bunch of money but is totally incapable of doing what they said they would do. Now they both don't have enough money to actually get the shit done at cost, and don't want to give away all the equity. The biggest problem though is that they are unqualified to discern who is capable of doing the task because they don't know anything about how to actually do things. So they fritter away the money and then the project falls apart.
- nkron 12y ago
  I wasn't sure what you meant by this so I had to look up some details: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/another-kickstarter-game-bites-the-dust-writer-nea/1100-6422442/ http://www.gamespot.com/articles/another-kickstarter-game-bi...
hyperbovine 12y ago
"Having a product" comes to mind...
- efng 12y ago
  Oh my god grandpa, how 20th century can you be...
- miles932 12y ago
  Hence why I said "technology". If this gives Stephenson a jaw-drop moment, it's something I'd like to see turned into something we can all use.
king_magic 12y ago
... but, uh, what is the technology? What are you giving your money for? The website is pretty mystifying.
- CmonDev 12y ago
  They will basically replace customer's eyeballs with a couple of optical fibers wired directly into the visual regions of the brain. (just kidding)
- miles932 12y ago
  guesses based on analysis and conjecture: imagine a tiny projector which is tracking your eyes (and surrounding light conditions), and can project a 3d light field, rather than a 2d image onto them. With this device you could create the perception that you're looking at something in the real world which just ain't there. Hence the flying whales and tiny elephants n' such. It's a AR/VR/Display technology.

davidw 12y ago

Hrm. I hope he doesn't get distracted from writing books. I love his books, but don't care much about video games. I wonder if he's tired of writing, or just wants to do something different...

calebm 12y ago

When I heard of Magic Leap, "Snow Crash" is one of the first things that came to my mind. I really want to see a Magic Leap demo!

themoonbus 12y ago

That's cool and all, but this has got to be one of the worst company websites I've seen recently. I get that they're stealthy, but this doesn't even build any interest. It was only until I clicked "Wizards Wanted" (yes, I get it. Magic.) that I sort of got an answer. Edit: Actually, the Developers section has some more information. But my point still stands.

a3n 12y ago
I had no idea what the company does until I bailed from their site and read a comment here. Yes, I could have dug deeper, like the person posting that comment did (thanks), but damn, gimme a reason. And no, having $CELEBRITY in your company is not enough reason. Two utilitarian sentences on what your thing is, and then all the literate prose you can produce. But gimme those two sentences.
- danellis 12y ago
  Give you a reason for what? You're all acting like this company owes you an explanation of what it does.
  - mbrutsch 12y ago
    Only if they want me to care.
  - Delmania 12y ago
    They're selling something. If they want people to hand over cash, it might be practical to tell us what it is.
    - vidarh 12y ago
      They're not selling anything yet. They don't you to hand over cash yet. And so it is more practical for them to tease and build interest.
      - 12y ago

throwaway90446 12y ago

Unclear from their site what MagicLeap even does.

thearn4 12y ago

The hype for me is tempered pretty heavily by what happened to Clang. I'm still very curious what Magic Leap is all about though.

eco 12y ago
What/who is Clang (apart from the compiler)?
- egypturnash 12y ago
  A sword fighting video game Stephenson kickstarted for $526k and failed to deliver anything playable on. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/260688528/clang https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/260688528/clang
  - jmelloy 12y ago
    I happily kickstarted it, but I had no belief it would actually deliver. $500k is 5 software devs or artists for a year. That's not very much money for a 3D game.
    - fixedd 12y ago
      And it's only 5 people if you're offering below-industry pay, not paying taxes, no benefits, no office, no equipment purchases, etc. I'd figure 150k/person minimum, with more like 2-300k in more contentious areas.
- searine 12y ago
  A kickstarter scam by Stephenson.
  - tekromancr 12y ago
    Fuck that scam noise. When you back a kickstarter, you are trying to help make something happen that isn't real yet. You are sharing in the risk.

carloscm 12y ago

This is notable not just because of Neal Stephenson, but because his blog post contains what I think is the most detailed public description of the tech so far: --- Here’s where you’re probably expecting the sales pitch about how mind-blowingly awesome the demo was. But it’s a little more interesting than that. Yes, I saw something on that optical table I had never seen before--something that only Magic Leap, as far as I know, is capable of doing. And it was pretty cool. But what fascinated me wasn’t what Magic Leap had done but rather what it was about to start doing. Magic Leap is mustering an arsenal of techniques--some tried and true, others unbelievably advanced--to produce a synthesized light field that falls upon the retina in the same way as light reflected from real objects in your environment. Depth perception, in this system, isn’t just a trick played on the brain by showing it two slightly different images. Most of the work to be done is in applied physics, with a sizable dollop of biology--for there’s no way to make this happen without an intimate understanding of how the eye sees, and the brain assembles a three-dimensional model of reality. I’m fascinated by the science, but not qualified to work on it. Where I hope I can be of use is in thinking about what to do with this tech once it is available to the general public. "Chief Futurist" runs the risk of being a disembodied brain on a stick. I took the job on the understanding that I would have the opportunity to get a few things done. ---

aetherson 12y ago
One of the things that's interesting to me about that quote is the phrase "optical table." I think that there's a presumption (that I've shared) that Magic Leap is trying to make AR goggles or glasses. But, as has been extensively commented upon in the past, that's just crazy. We're just barely at the point of doing semi-decent VR (Oculus Rift) and just barely at the point of doing semi-decent wearable heads-up displays (Google Glass). The idea that Magic Leap could in any foreseeable timeframe create a device that has all the virtues of the Rift + Glass + A huge dose of additional technology on top of both is just laughable. But if they're trying for something much heavier-weight, like the ability to create convincing illusions not in the form-factor of "some goggles," but rather, "a specially prepared room and table," then that's maybe a little more realistic -- and of course less obviously revolutionary.
- 12y ago

cryoshon 12y ago

Still can't figure out what the heck this company does. Guess it plans to sell hype.

paulhodge 12y ago
Augmented reality - hardware and software. Kinda like Google Glass, except it draws realistic-looking stuff in your face that fits seamlessly with what you can see in the real world. (Source: if you read EVERY page on their mysterious web site, you can eventually suss it out)
nissimk 12y ago
The last time I remember this much hype was in the lead up to the segway. http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/2013/1019/Inventions-that-were-going-to-change-the-world-but-didn-t/The-Segway http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/2013/1019/Inventions-tha...

llamataboot 12y ago

I wish we knew what their estimated timeframe on having some MVP of this tech available. 2 years? 5 years?

king_magic 12y ago

I literally have no clue what Magic Leap does after reading through a few pages on their site. It's pretty absurd IMO to have a site like this that says so much but says so little. Honestly, why bother at this point?

Intoo 12y ago
eye projecting tech, THEY KIND OF WANT TO REPLACE OCULUS VR BY A COMPLETELY NEW VR TECH, where u'll see an elephant in times square because it'll be projected to you eye from somewhere, stuff like that, VR IN REALITY

nabla9 12y ago

http://www.faqs.org/patents/assignee/magic-leap-inc/ http://www.faqs.org/patents/assignee/magic-leap-inc/

valarauca1 12y ago

So they are a holographic augmented reality company? From their site: >Imagine being able to generate images indistinguishable from real objects and then being able to place those images seamlessly into the real world. Sounds like you generate a hologram anywhere. And project it into the real world. Think Star Trek holodeck, but everywhere, or anywhere from what they are selling. And the holograms they're projecting would be almost indistinguishable from other objects (I highly doubt that honestly, subsurface reflection takes A LOT of processor horse power with 1 view alone n). It will be interesting to see what they cook up.

aidenn0 12y ago
The current most popular theory seems is that they are using the usual VR tricks, plus have the ability to track the eye so that the eye's accommodation (focus) matches the distance that the object is supposed to be from. From what I remember with my experiments with stereoscopy this should reduce VR sickness in about 10-20% of the population for which accommodation mismatching with stereopsis causes issues. Note that this effect is why 99% of the content in feature-length 3d movies appears at an apparent distance of more than 10 feet from you; the amount that accommodation falls off rapidly with distance, so it's a much less strong effect at that distance.
nilkn 12y ago
They're making some sort of AR goggles. Despite all the imagery on their website, I'm not convinced there's anything holographic about what they're doing. In other words, this is a truly Herculean amount of marketing fluff. Google got interested probably only because they're targeting a form factor very similar to Google Glass.

CmonDev 12y ago

"I sometimes feel that the creative minds who make games have done about as much as is possible in two dimensions. It’s hard to imagine how the current crop of games, for example, could be more finely tuned to deliver that particular kind of entertainment." Well PCs powerful enough for proper amount of voxels would let us do interesting things. Dwarf Fortress with a voxel-based high-res graphics could be interesting.

Intoo 12y ago

MagicLeap is so secretive that it looks like their eye projecting tech. is far from being ready

kylestlb 12y ago

Is the blog down? I only see a picture of a submarine hovering above a street!

kingzain 12y ago

There's more information here if anyone is interested: http://io9.com/how-neal-stephenson-is-helping-to-make-snow-crashs-meta-1671621178 http://io9.com/how-neal-stephenson-is-helping-to-make-snow-c...

ThinkBeat 12y ago

Will he bring as much success to this company and he did with Clang? http://www.geek.com/games/neal-stephensons-526000-kickstarter-sword-fighting-game-officially-canceled-1604892/ http://www.geek.com/games/neal-stephensons-526000-kickstarte...

verytrivial 12y ago

There is literally and purposefully nothing to see here. Move along.

javajosh 12y ago

It's too bad the economic incentives make this company take a stealth route. The problem is so large, and potentially so game-changing (both literally and figuratively) that I fail to see how one company could possibly capture all the value created, and it makes me sad that it would even try.

gavanwoolery 12y ago

"...to produce a synthesized light field that falls upon the retina in the same way as light reflected from real objects in your environment" Goes back to Carmack's idea presented in one of his Quakecon sessions (although obviously the idea has been in sci fi for a long time). This is interesting, I have an idea of how it might work: Producing a synthesized light field could be done with a huge array of tiny mirrors or refractive material (I know stuff like this has been done in the past). By simulating directional rays coming in, I'm guessing your eyes could be tricked into thinking there is depth since the movement of each eye would change the amount of light absorbed (i.e. "focusing" on different objects in the light field). I could be wrong about this, have not thought it through very well. All that said, they've raised over $500 million from Google Ventures and others, so I'm guessing there is something here, as lacking as the website is.

replicatorblog 12y ago

This Gizmodo article does a great job of demystifying MagicLeap's tech by digging into the founder's background, patent filings, and trademark applications: http://gizmodo.com/how-magic-leap-is-secretly-creating-a-new-alternate-rea-1660441103?utm_content=bufferb8afe&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer http://gizmodo.com/how-magic-leap-is-secretly-creating-a-new...

scott_s 12y ago
This is the most informative story I've read in this submission.
carloscm 12y ago
That 1mm single fiber endoscope is just amazing, out of a spy/scifi novel.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  Oh, it's that guy. Awesome. That's perked my interest more than Stephenson joining them.

deleted 12y ago

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ChuckMcM 12y ago

Interesting hire. As a startup it seems an unlikely one, Neal is a wonderful author, and has a sharp wit, but as he explains "his brain is not useful" to the work at hand. I could see consulting with him, but hiring him struck me as odd. In terms of what Magic Leap purportedly does my guess would be that Daniel Suarez (Daemon, Freedom) might be a better choice in terms of a vision that applies somewhat directly.

Thrymr 12y ago
Well, they've got to do something with that half billion dollars. Decisions that don't objectively make sense somehow become possible when you've got that kind of money to spend.
- ChuckMcM 12y ago
  Sad as it is, that is a very real danger of the 'over raise'. Way too many startups have negotiated their bankruptcy in their own, soon to be someone elses, overly well appointed offices. I picked up an Aeron office chair for $12 that way, very sad.

desdiv 12y ago

Did this "revolutionary startup hires top SF writer" thing ever happen before? If so, how it turn out last time(s)? I hope it doesn't end up like the whole "revolutionary CPU maker hires Linus" thing.

aetherson 12y ago
It happens (sort of) in REAMDE. :P There, it ends up precipitating a gigantic MMO war.

Impossible 12y ago

This quote "I sometimes feel that the creative minds who make games have done about as much as is possible in two dimensions. It’s hard to imagine how the current crop of games, for example, could be more finely tuned to deliver that particular kind of entertainment." isn't particular inspiring coming from a Chief Futurist. I can imagine a ton of 2D (or text based, for that matter) games that haven't been attempted let alone perfected. I also feel like I play new novel 2D games all the time. I say this as someone that is excited about VR, AR and would love to see whatever Magic Leap is cooking up, and is a huge Neal Stephenson fan.

bambax 12y ago

> We know what you're thinking: "Who the heck are we?" Well, no, I'm thinking, who the hell are they. And I can't seem to figure it out from your website.

pfisch 12y ago

This sounds so fake it is ridiculous. They hired a sci-fi author...come on.

lotsofmangos 12y ago
Hiring a sci-fi author is not that odd. Lots of sci-fi authors have done proper consultancy gigs for serious organisations.
sophacles 12y ago
I know, what possible use could a company with game designer postings on its website have for someone who writes fiction? (science or otherwise...)
geoelectric 12y ago
Stephenson has some roots in tech too. Second Life, arguably the most successful modifiable MMO-environment, was based on his vision of the Metaverse. One Laptop Per Child was influenced by his ideas in The Diamond Age (and a side project, Nell, was directly inspired by it). In the Beginning was the Command Line was an excellent non-fiction work of his surveying OS evolution. His books in general have a heavy technological focus. I mean, I hear you, but this is more like Arthur C. Clarke joining a spaceflight organization. Yes, he's coming at it from a different direction, but plainly he's got some valid ideas because other people keep implementing them, directly or otherwise.

fsloth 12y ago

Anyone else enjoy the fact that Stephenson's 'Reamde' also featured a hightech VR company that employed famous fiction authors in their staff :)

linguistbreaker 12y ago

Stephenson is a fairly well respected futurist. The Magic Leap technology involves light field projection - kind of like the opposite of light field photography if you remember the Lytro camera.

lucasgw 12y ago

Step away from goggles, glasses, etc. Start thinking about contact lenses and optical implants - the kind of stuff that requires FDA approval - medical devices - then the amount of funding and interest they have received becomes instantly much more credible, and makes much more sense.

billsossoon 12y ago

For anybody curious about Magic Leap, I highly recommend this TED talk by the company's founder Rony Abovitz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY It starts off kinda weird, you gotta give it a few minutes.