Submitted via IRC for SoyCow2718
While Apple and Microsoft strain to sell augmented reality as the next major computing platform, many of the startups aiming to beat them to the punch are crashing and burning. Daqri, which built enterprise-grade AR headsets, has shuttered its HQ, laid off many of its employees and is selling off assets ahead of a shutdown, former employees and sources close to the company tell TechCrunch.
In an email obtained by TechCrunch, the nearly 10-year-old company told its customers that it was pursuing an asset sale and was shutting down its cloud and smart-glasses hardware platforms by the end of September.
"I think the large majority of people who worked [at Daqri] are sad to see it closing down," a former employee told TechCrunch. "[I] wish the end result was different."
[...] Daqri faced substantial challenges from competing headset makers, including Magic Leap and Microsoft, which were backed by more expansive war chests and institutional partnerships. While the headset company struggled to compete for enterprise customers, Daqri benefited from investor excitement surrounding the broader space. That is, until the investment climate for AR startups cooled.
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It doesn't pay to be an early adopter. Smart glasses maker North, which developed a pair of glasses called Focals earlier this year, has just announced an updated version for 2020. That means the first Focals, which displayed notifications via a retinal-projection technology that looked like a tiny pop-up window in one eye, are being discontinued, the company says.
The improved glasses promise to be 40% lighter and have 10 times the display resolution of the first version. "We spent the last year in the market learning how to build, sell and support smart glasses with our first-gen product, that we now will combine with over five years of research working on the technology upgrades in Focals 2.0," Steven Lake, North CEO, said in a press release.
Meanwhile, Magic Leap has struggled to move its Magic Leap One Creator Edition headsets despite over $2.6 billion in funding:
The Information today published an in-depth report about Magic Leap's state of affairs. Most notable is how it apparently only sold 6,000 Magic Leap One Creator Edition headsets in the first six months.
Priced at $2,295, buyers get a "Lightwear" headset that connects to a puck-shaped "Lightpack" computer worn around their waist. CEO Rony Abovitz reportedly had an initial goal of 1 million devices in the first year before settling with 100,000.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 15 2019, @05:25PM
When Magic Leap falls flat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 15 2019, @05:42PM (1 child)
AR cannot work. "To work" means "commercial" and "off-the-shelf" components or at least manufacturing to "made to order" form factor.
It fails because only the F-22 and F-35 can have a AR cockpit ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 15 2019, @06:30PM
This year modification of Merkava tanks have AR. Those strategists are trying to catch up with old PlayStation games, such as BattleZone. It is not that difficult to reuse the existing technology for anyone: https://dylanmckay.io/psvr-protocol/ [dylanmckay.io]
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Sunday September 15 2019, @06:04PM (1 child)
Can't say I'm surprised. They charge $22,746 for a pack of three headsets.
https://daqri.com/products/smart-glasses/ [daqri.com]
On the other hand, they actually look like nice equipment. Maybe some lucky people will pick up some cheap hardware at the closing down sale. :)
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday September 16 2019, @03:01AM
I was hoping it was like a "smart TV" that I could cast my Android phone to.
Oh well, like a lot of modern stuff, useful only for it's intended function.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Monday September 16 2019, @03:53AM (2 children)
"...strain to sell augmented reality"
People in economic distress aren't going to be building their vr setup and having a lot of time to game, there's your mass market gone. They were saying the middle class was disappearing and then it did and now no one remembers what that was even like.
Ready Player One tried to convey this world where really poor people could have free time to game and really great vr setups, and that they wouldn't mind living essentially in a junkyard at that point.
That's basically nuts though, none of those vr rooms in that movie were secured they would have been robbed the first time they left home or damaged by rain, or everyone would starve because there was no rain.
Sadly the vr future is just as morally silly as the space future, we're being directed to design a utopia somewhere else and giving up on this world. People with immense power and wealth aren't fixing the problem of real estate prices or homelessness in san francisco, and that's the city where so much of this software that is fixing everything is supposed to come from. The pressure today is to spend all your time in skyrim but I wonder, if you think about the Sudan, you're living in The Capital(hunger games) or Brave New World's high society while on the periphery it's pure savagery, which you pretend does not exist.
If these companies want us to buy into their vision of the future, why don't they direct some of that brainpower and massive shareholder wealth to show us what they can do in the present? Use VR and spaceships if you have to, but solve homelessness or political corruption and I might buy into the vision of some of this tech but I refuse to believe in the vision of someone for whom solving homelessness is too difficult or beyond fathoming. If VR and spaceships and megatunnels aren't far reached, then solving homelessness on our planet is not far reached.
thesesystemsarefailing.net
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 16 2019, @04:11AM
If you check their site, they weren't aiming at gaming. Theirs was for industrial use. Equipment/sites had virtual tags and instructions, and the view could be sent to remote operators who could tag or highlight it in real time.
There seems to have been stored procedures it could walk you through, and it also allowed for remote experts to talk on-site personnel through complex tasks. I know there were times I would have liked to be able to draw a flashing circle on someones view and say "push this button".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 16 2019, @11:58AM
Agree with much of your comment, but this:
"People with immense power and wealth aren't fixing the problem of real estate prices or homelessness in san francisco..."
There is already a well known solution to the real estate issue: if you can't afford the prices, live in another town. Seriously, San Francisco is not the only city on earth.
As for the homeless problem: the city encourages homelessness. They need to drive these people to treatment programs. Otherwise they will stay "homeless" forever.