Can't help feeling that the charlatans at ML are potentially making a lot of dangerous enemies who have shown themselves in the past to be enthusiastic about extra-legal sanctions. Of course, they may just be a poor misunderstood group of genii.
More money than sense? Saudi Arabia invests $400m in Magic Leap
Throwing caution to the wind, the investment arm of Saudi Arabia has sunk $400m into augmented-reality biz Magic Leap. Despite a history of over-promising and under-delivering – to put it mildly – the Florida-based company continues to attract funding, pulling in just under $1bn in its fourth round of financial infusions. It …
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Thursday 8th March 2018 09:09 GMT trevorde
Taking investments now!
Hey Saudi Arabia, would you like to invest in my AR, IoT, AI powered, reality filters? It's based on the blockchain technology and has a cloud based, ML infrastructure. With a small, $6B USD investment, we expect to develop our prototype (see attached video) into a production ready model withing 12 months. This thing is going to revolutionise everything and you can get in early with a minor investment!
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Thursday 8th March 2018 09:33 GMT imanidiot
Hype builds hype
It seems these investment funds only look at hype. The problem is that hype is never a good indicator as to what is and isn't a good product, and as more investments happen because of hype, the hype builds and more investments are made. And since so many investments are being made there must be something to this hype right? So more hype!
===> Another example of all hype and no substance ==>
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Thursday 8th March 2018 10:12 GMT Dave 126
Meanwhile, back in the real world:
Meanwhile, Microsoft seem to be fairly open about their push into the AR market, and are aiming it at niche areas - businesses, architectural visualization - instead of promising to supplant the multi-billion dollar movie and video game markets. MS's headset has been widely demonstrated in public, and seems fit for purpose. The bulky size is a plausible enclosure for the sensors, screens and silicon required - MS aren't claiming the impossible by saying it'll fit into a pair of sunglasses. The price is fair in the historical context of CAD hardware.
Apple have characteristically kept their explorations in this area to themselves, other than Cook hinting that it's an interesting area but he doesn't believe that the technology yet exists to make a compelling consumer product. However, their recent iPhone silicon (post Imagination Technologies) suggests they have some good building blocks.
Who knows, maybe the consumer breakthrough might come from a dark horse like Nintendo? They have form for packaging less than state of the art kit into fun products (see N64, Wii) and they aren't afraid to experiment (VirtualBoy, 3DS). The one extant AR gaming fad came out of Nintendo IP - Pokémon Go on iPhones. Hmmm, Nintendo were at a recent Apple Keynote (Mario on iPhone) and their respective product portfolios largely complement each other...
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Thursday 8th March 2018 20:12 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: Meanwhile, back in the real world:
"The bulky size is a plausible enclosure for the sensors, screens and silicon required - MS aren't claiming the impossible by saying it'll fit into a pair of sunglasses. "
It does seem odd that they mostly all seem to think putting all the tech into the headset to make big, bulky, heavy and uncomfortable units is the target though. What;s wrong with putting all in a belt mounted box and just running leads up for video and sensors? Minimise what needs to go on the head.
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Thursday 8th March 2018 21:08 GMT Dave 126
Re: Meanwhile, back in the real world:
Good question, let's work through it.
-If we take the optics to be a given, then it is possible that placing mass at the back of the helmet might improve the balance. It's the turning moment ( mass X distance from fulcrum) that people might notice, not just the weight.
-if we assume SoCs weigh naff-all, then extra weight is battery.
-clipping battery on belt is extra bit of faff in addition to faff if putting in the helmet. If the use-case is to show a client / boss new idea for ten minutes then minimal faff is good.
-if the use case is working for longer periods with colleagues in a design, then having battery on headset is not mutually exclusive to extra battery on belt. Battery in headset allows for hot-swapping of belt batteries.
Remember, MS have learnt from the public backlash against Google Glass so aren't trying to make a device to be used in public.
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Thursday 8th March 2018 17:18 GMT mark 58
Why does this remind me so much of .....
The hype surrounding the launch of the Segway ?? Gonna change the world, bigger than the PC, etc.. even the same venture funding driven excitement. That was, of course, a $5000 dog - In the famous words of George Santayana ;Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
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Thursday 8th March 2018 18:57 GMT Eduard Coli
BS
One can't help but think that this is being done because large investors, banks, etc. all know that a bailout will be forthcoming if hotair tech corps like ML fail.
For its part if ML is smart, or at least buys some brains, they will buy out a startup that actually knows what they are doing.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
