"Magic Leap is probably one of the most secretive technology companies of our generation"??! It's no secret that they're a fraud. That cat's out of the bag.
I mean, come on: just watch Rony Abovitz's TEDxSarasota talk [1] that he so fittingly presented at the Ringling College of Art & Design [2], whose trademarked mission phrase is "Shattering the myth of the starving artist.™".
Yes, those very same Ringling brothers [3], whose colleague P. T. Barnum said: "There's a sucker born every minute." Send in the clowns.
Charlatans like these give the rest of the industry a terrible name.
In my mind, they're not as reputable after having given Rony Abovitz a platform to perform that "fudge". Just watch the video, if you can stomach it, all the way through. And read the comments, like this one:
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Nick Steele 2 years ago (edited)
This is a joke. Take it for what it is. They didn't want to say anything so they basically said "are you ready? READY? ... fuck you".
After a completely ridiculous intro which includes nano machines humping blood cells and two crack monkeys worshiping a massive block of "demented space fudge" which takes up 75% of the talk until 4:30, right after 30 seconds of literal silence, a spaceman says "greetings" and introduces today's "keyword" which is "fudge", then a guy plays terrible music out of tune and sings half-way into the mic. Then the lights suddenly go out and the crack moneys and space man simply walk away.
Keep in mind the audience thinks they are about to hear a billionaire explain his new "world changing" virtual/augmented reality technology, then they get this shit.
The best part is the audiences reaction at the end. :)
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And if that's not enough proof that Magic Leap is a fraud, then watch their completely fake demo, that they originally did not truthfully bill as a "concept video" but instead they falsely and deceptively titled it "Just another day in the office at Magic Leap" and described it with the blatantly false claim that "This is a game we’re playing around the office right now". But since then, the title and description have been retroactively amended, AFTER they got busted.
That last Time article above was written BEFORE they got busted, and it cites a Magic Leap company spokesman (and I'm pretty sure it was a man) mendaciously lying to the rightfully skeptical (and eventually vindicated) Time reporter:
It's unclear whether the video shows an actual game overlaid onto a real-world office space or just an artistic rendering of what the game might look like in the future. The way the gun rests so realistically in the gamer's hand certainly raises suspicions. Still, a company spokesperson confirmed to Gizmodo that the video was authentic.
"This is a game we’re playing around the office right now," Magic Leap wrote on its official YouTube account.
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The game they were playing (and still are) is called FRAUD.
Guess the unfortunate thing about trying to solve big problems* with the Silicon Valley startup model is that the pressure to get disruptive overnight to satisfy VC ROI expectations is that you get companies like this or Theranos that promise groundbreaking advances and do them in complete Apple-like secrecy without oversight.