[ryandrake]

Wow, talk about a tech news blind spot: I honestly though Magic Leap wasn't even around anymore. Last news I heard about them was they burned through $billions, their product woefully (almost fraudulently) failed to meet any of the hype they set out, they sold a handful of units, and then the company folded. How on earth are they still in business?

[ramesh31]

>I honestly though Magic Leap wasn't even around anymore. Last news I heard about them was they burned through $billions, their product woefully (almost fraudulently) failed to meet any of the hype they set out, they sold a handful of units, and then the company folded. How on earth are they still in business?

AR/VR in general has hit the "slope of enlightenment" portion of the hype cycle [0]. Talented people are still diligently working on this stuff behind the scenes and advancing the state of the art, even though mainstream adoption has a ways to go.

[0] https://hobi.com/gartner-hype-cycle-emerging-tech-potential/...

[deanCommie]

I'd like to believe that's true, but has any meaningful progress been made?

VR games seemed to have plateaued in novel immersive experiences - people show off their Oculuses and Vives with the same tech demos.

The Meta VR presentations are embarassingly primitive, marginally better than Second Life from 2 decades ago.

The AR demos I see on Android and iOS (measuring the length table; having a dog run around on top of it) have not improved in fidelity in 3-4 years.

I think what Microsoft is doing with Hololens for the industrial sector is VERY cool, and is a meaningfully significant branch: Having a mechanic receive plans remotely and projected on top of an engine or a door and get overlaid instructions for repair is going to be either revolutionary or a dystopian collapse of skilled trades as every company decides to replace training and high paying trade jobs with Hololenses and remote experts. I'm cynical, but at least it's going somewhere impactful.

But what's happening on the consumer side? Facebook's vision is nauseating. Snapchat, Google, and Apple have gone totally quiet. I assume they're in stealth mode waiting to unleash something and blow our minds? That would be pretty great I suppose.

[wpietri]

For sure. if it is in the plateau phase, it seems to me it has plateaued at a very low level. And indeed, I think the hype cycle chart is misleading, in that it suggests that all hyped technologies eventually have productivity that approaches the hype. But things like jet packs, undersea living, and flying cars all had periods of hype and never went anywhere. Or more prosaically, 3D TV was intensely hyped and then vanished like it had been covered up by the Illuminati.

I think the lack of XR adoption is especially obvious given the pandemic. Remote working? Video calls? Ubiquitous. People snapped up a ton of Switches early on, and then it's been PS5s that nobody could get enough of. But VR? I know a lot of game players from 13 on up, but I don't know anybody for whom facehugger VR is a daily driver.

[floatboth]

> people show off their Oculuses and Vives with the same tech demos

Do they now?

I mean the most significant VR game is Beat Saber (exercise is a good niche it turns out) but by now the show-off game would be Half-Life Alyx rather than something tech-demo like.

[deanCommie]

Beat saber looks fun as hell, but I don't think it's a VR seller. It reminds me of Wii Tennis - we had motion controls for 15 years now.

Half Life Alyx is to me a perfect representation of the problem - all the best VR games are basically First-person shooters. Which also happen to be the most popular games in general, I agree.

But it's a dead end. It's where we've optimized because it's where the technology limitations are the least compromised.

The games where true VR immersion would be beneficial - flying, swimming, exploring complex 3d spaces - are not immersive enough with the technology we have it seems.

[gumby]

> But what's happening on the consumer side?

I’m biased but I think Tilt5 has the most interesting AR approach. And then brightest display, of course.

[mdoms]

In my experience when someone tells me where something is on the hype cycle (especially if it's on the left hand side) I immediately know it's going absolutely nowhere. My hit rate with this heuristic is upwards of 95%.

[robmerki]

I remember a very famous VC (who is still amazingly rich and famous) claiming the Magic Leap was a "bigger leap in tech than the iPhone."

Surprised nothing happened to him.

[temporalparts]

Wasn't everyone (including Steve Jobs) crazy over the Segway?

[bni]

I think [the design] sucks. Its shape is not innovative, it's not elegant and it doesn't feel anthropomorphic. —Steve Jobs

https://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/steve-jobs-and-jeff-bezos-meet...

[zhoujianfu]

Actually I think it was Jeff Bezos who liked it, and Steve Jobs thought it was terrible..