SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
After years of hype, Magic Leap starts selling $2,300 AR headset
After years of behind-closed-doors demos and over-the-top hype, Magic Leap's augmented reality glasses took one more step towards reality today. The company has opened up orders for the $2,295 "Creator Edition" of its first headset, the Magic Leap One.
That price includes in-person delivery and setup of the developer-focused hardware, though that delivery is only available in select US cities for the time being—Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Seattle will be covered on day one. Those in other locations have to reserve a spot and wait for wider availability.
The hand-delivery is in part to determine which of two adjustable sizes for the headset is most appropriate for you—Magic Leap says "you'll be measured upon delivery to ensure the perfect fit." Magic Leap also says "limited quantities" are being made available now and that delivery of current orders will take place within "120 days and typically much sooner."
Compare the price to the $3,000-$5,000 developer versions of Microsoft's HoloLens, or the $1,500 Google Glass.
It requires a connected "lightpack" computer that clips onto a pocket or shoulder strap. The device has an Nvidia Tegra X2 chipset (2 Denver 2.0 cores, 4 ARM Cortex A57 cores, with one Denver core and two of the A57 cores accessible to developers), 8GB of memory, 128GB of storage, and a battery supposedly offering 3 hours of use. It also comes with a wireless handheld controller similar to ones offered by Oculus, Samsung, etc., although it is fully tracked by the headset's cameras, offering "a full range of motion" according to The Verge.
The field of view of the device is 40° horizontal, 30° vertical. This is larger than HoloLens's 30° horizontal, 17.5° vertical field of view, but is far less than that of VR headsets (typically 100-110° horizontal, and 200-210° horizontal for the Pimax and StarVR headsets) and human vision (around 220° horizontal when including peripheral vision).
Detailed review at The Verge.
Previously: Magic Leap Bashed for Being Vaporware
Magic Leap Finally Announces a Product, But is It Still Vaporware?
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday August 10 2018, @06:42PM (8 children)
Hololens really captured my attention, but with the price tag I couldn't justify getting it without one o dem "good reasons".
I really think AR could be a huge improvement on productivity for me, but I don't know that, so I'm really hesitant to jump in.
Shaving $700 off the price sounds really good, but it's impossible to hear any sort of impartial reviews of the utility of these things, it's all super-hyped enthusiasts, obviously-part-of-the-press-release puff pieces, and pure technical specs. None of which tells me if I sat down and tried to do some task I already do: coding, web browsing, watching videos, ugh spreadsheets, whether I'd get any benefit.
I just want to get a realistic assessment of whether the tool could help me. If it would, i'd buy it.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday August 10 2018, @06:45PM (4 children)
To clarify why I feel that way, after it came out it became apparent that Google Glass wouldn't solve any sort of real world problem that a cell phone won't. I don't know if the better tech does any better.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday August 10 2018, @07:34PM (2 children)
It's a product for developers, who could make their money back by writing software for it, and early adopters, who have money to blow on an inferior Gen. 1 product.
There could be plenty of use cases for it, but it probably has to exist for a while before we see any killer apps. I'd point to stuff already done by smartphones but with less finesse. Such as automatic translation of text by holding up your smartphone and using the camera. Or identifying objects, plants, etc. using the camera. Or augmented reality Street View [theverge.com]. All of these would be pretty good if they were hands-free (it would also be funny and potentially useful to have multiple of them happening at the same time, such as Street View + sign translations in a foreign country).
Google and Microsoft have come up with some business, engineering, and medical use cases for their AR devices. There will be people seriously evaluating these and potentially coming up with some great time-saving or even life-saving measures. For example, the endless amount of checklists that doctors and nurses need to juggle could be put in an AR interface. Have the checklist to the side, and have it slide into the field of view when it is glanced at. When drugs are administered, require the AR device to see a label or bar code before administering the drug, and throw up an alert if that is not done or if it is the wrong drug. This isn't even something cool like AR-assisted surgery, just a way to cut down on medical mistakes [newyorker.com]:
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday August 10 2018, @07:39PM (1 child)
On the one hand, yeah.
On the other hand, there's something Orwellian there that makes me feel like I'd go mad if I were a nurse. Being micromanaged by an algorithm all the time sounds exhausting.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday August 10 2018, @07:52PM
I was just in a hospital. They already do it, but with a computer that they have to go back to repeatedly. And they have to scan the patient's armband and ask them their name and DOB every time they give drugs. They can call other personnel with a voice-activated device. They also had a low-tech whiteboard for writing down some stuff.
And they still got things wrong, i.e. important requirements for the patient weren't addressed until brought up.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 10 2018, @10:39PM
Google Glass is currently being used in places like warehouses, production lines, autism therapies, and surgical theatres. It's doing just fine solving many real-world problems that a cell-phone won't, it's just not solving your kinds of problems.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 10 2018, @07:31PM
I don't think your use cases:
are going to see a lot of improvement. These all already involve a computer screen, putting another one over it doesn't do a lot. AR is really for augmenting "reality" not another screen. IOW, I'd think it would be more useful/compelling in other environments: finding something (which the computer knows exactly where it is) in a giant warehouse, finding a route through town/a convention center. those are easy and obvious, if its optics/computational power are up to it: help you mow the lawn / trim the hedges perfectly evenly, count the number of jelly beans in the jar for you, etc.
Hmm, how many jelly-bean counting contest wins would pay off the the $2400 price tag?...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 10 2018, @10:36PM
What's your use case? I can only think of a select few that would benefit...
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Saturday August 11 2018, @12:08AM
I want to see, overlaid over the picture of some guy I should probably know, but don't, doesn't even ring a bell:
SOLD. Shut up and take my money.
Just handy stuff my phone already does isn't that helpful.