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Magic Leap's AR Demo Video 40

First time accepted submitter iMadeGhostzilla writes TechCrunch reports: "Magic Leap is showing what it might look like to use its hardware for augmented reality gaming in the future, with a new demo of what the team is apparently 'playing in the office' right now. The brief video shows examples of interacting with YouTube and Gmail apps, along with browsing a menu system for OS-level interaction. The person in the video from whose perspective it's apparently shot then selects a shooter game, tests out a weapon after choosing from a variety of options, does some tower-defense style stuff by placing a current and fights some visually impressive but fairly generic baddies. [...] The video was posted with an apology for Magic Leap's absence at TED." Commenters on reddit and elsewhere believe the video is fake. Magic Leap recently came into the spotlight with its recent $540M backing by Google and others.
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Magic Leap's AR Demo Video

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    Save this junk for gullible VCs.

  • by ArcadeMan ( 2766669 ) on Sunday March 22, 2015 @04:37PM (#49315307)

    Come on, we all know what we want: first person hookers.

  • by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Sunday March 22, 2015 @04:39PM (#49315317) Journal

    First of all, of course it's fake.

    The biggest flaw is the interface itself. A full 20 years ago, when Johnny Mnemonic (the movie, not the short story) came out, and I saw Keanu Reeves using that VR internet type access, I knew that those interfaces would never work in the real world. I'm sitting here browsing the internet, typing this message, etc, by moving my fingers maybe an inch most. We are currently stuck having to do physical interactions to interface with a digital world. As long as we are stuck using this kind of interfacing (IE it's not plugged directly into our mind), then the less physical effort is required to interface, the more efficient, faster, accessible, and convenient computers will be to access.

    Really, I'm going to lift my arm up to head level, and make a huge gesture like I'm pulling laundry out of the washing machine, to look at a message? LOL Suuuuuure. Anyway, you can spot it in a minute when these interfaces are generated by animators / artists / movie effects people, because they could never gain widespread usage when the majority of people would be fatigued after a mere 10 minutes using such a system. Kind of like every movie with a computer makes beeps and blips every time you interact with any widget, which in reality would drive the average human out of their mind in exactly 20 minutes. Yeah, looks cool as a prop, but annoying in real life.

    Oh, and I like the way that gun somehow turns into an actual prop in that guy's hands. They've invented a transporter and holodeck to go along with their VR headset apparently.

    • Here's there scene I'm talking about.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      This new Magic Leap video... same poor interface concept, slightly better graphics.

    • I'm reasonably sure that the gun isn't supposed to be "AR." I'd say it's an actual prop that their AR system is presumably "recognizing" and generating specs on, like other systems we've seen that use game-specific props for AR through cell phone cameras or whatever. That said, who knows how much of the rest is "real" - without some way that the entire room is part of the AR system, there's no way it should know to avoid rendering the lower part of the robots behind that divider...that's the obvious big que

      • by Anonymous Coward

        In theory you could figure out where and how high the divider is by generating a depth map with a laser (like the Kinect does). The only problem then is that you have to then make a lot of assumptions about it's depth, and the height of the floor behind it etc. You could also input the office geometry into the game beforehand, but then if things like chairs are moved the game wouldn't work right any more.

        I've done a fair bit of VR and augmented reality development, and I didn't see anything that is impossib

        • Right. I wasn't saying that any of it is impossible, just looks like a bit more is involved than a headset.

      • oh, so the magic AR system is making prop gun recoil with ... alpha waves?

    • It's fake because my Xbox 360 can basically do the same thing, other than the dual display, which is supported in a few select games, so it basically can do all of that?

      My last generation, not current generation, non-upgradeable hardware, from 2010, can already do pretty much this.

      Remember, they are playing with this in the office. This isn't the 8-to-5 interface that they use to check e-mail. 15 minutes of physical activity every two hours is good for you, and slightly above that is better.

      I'm sure that

    • Really, I'm going to lift my arm up to head level, and make a huge gesture like I'm pulling laundry out of the washing machine, to look at a message?

      Sounds like something that was on Community [yahoo.com] recently

    • Actually, I can believe it. It's a demo, probably very carefully planned - but I can believe the tech.

      First, the practical applications of the interface are not the primary concern. Granted, waving your arms around isn't a good interface - but that's not the point. The point is the overlay - positionally aligning 3D objects in the field of view. Having a way to interact with them is also useful, but not in a day to day sense. Keyboards and mice will still win for the standard type of interactions.

      Examp

    • by aliquis ( 678370 )

      Yeah.

      It's almost as horrible as standing desks.

      No-one would use those.

    • This type of technology will be the reason why geeks finally develop a genetic predisposition to be physically fit.

    • Also having Xerox doing real $$$ R&D on UIs/HMI/GUIs on physical objects... makes sense that the current mouse, keyboard, screen are pretty much 98% efficient for 98% of the population. Considering that R&D was done nearly 40yrs ago.

      All this VR stuff is maybe 5% efficient for 5% of the population. It's a start, but guys, don't sell it now as the solution to everything.

  • by QuasiSteve ( 2042606 ) on Sunday March 22, 2015 @04:54PM (#49315417)

    I'm sure Magic Leap's tech is wonderful. But I can't help but be unimpressed by any "What it might look like" videos.

    Compare the video in the article with that from the March 18 Project Tango story's video which doesn't show "what it might look like", but what they've got working right now.
    http://hardware.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org]

    That's a lot more impressive to me than any video with a bunch of VFX.

  • Great Idea! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Irate Engineer ( 2814313 ) on Sunday March 22, 2015 @05:08PM (#49315491)

    Let's have someone running around the office wearing goggles and brandishing a weapon at invisible beasties falling through the ceiling.

    Don't see a problem at all with this.

  • ...nobody in real life could afford four of Dr Grordbort's Infallible Aether Oscillators. (Although the one they're playing with in the video looks like the Righteous Bison, which is the budget model at a mere $100. Probably because when they were filming it they were afraid it'd get dropped.) http://drgrordborts.com/produc... [drgrordborts.com]
  • by Anonymous Coward

    The bigger message here is that one can, indeed, live in a place that has a 0% personal income tax and no winter, and still do cool stuff.

    Magic Leap is in the Design Center of the Americas, just south of Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport, and Miami—20 miles to the south—has a growing tech startup scene. If you can program, and you are tired of living in a place that is 67% male, South Florida beckons!

  • A video showing how it "could be" created by weta workshop. Yeah it's going to look nice, weta is a top notch shop, but i'll wait till something real is shown before being impressed.

  • If you can create AR device with better quality than dedicated, no-see-through VR, then just slap black box behind the AR googles and you have created better VR. So from very definition, AR is at most as good as VR and in real life (object detection, depth detection, variable lighting etc) is expected to be at least a bit worse.

    This is why when I see concept demos which are way ahead of current Oculus/etc offerings and nobody mentions taking over VR device space, but instead touts AR gimmics, I just don't b

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