The Magic Leap 2 is Here, With an Interesting Pivot

Our first demo with the second-gen AR headset has reality-dimming tricks and a wider field of view. Here's what it felt like.
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[@dominicstocker5144]

The segmented dimming technology is something that I feel is super important for future AR applications

[@Gadget.Reborn]

Apple VisionPro pass through mode or immersive display mode addresses that specific use case.

[@TheVRtist]

These are also expensive sunglasses with the segmented dimming. It's a sweet new feature that will really make AR thrive. Not a fan on wearing a hockey puck processor on my hip but if it'll make the headset lighter, I'm game. I wouldn't mind oculus doing the same thing to make their headset lighter.

[@ebillcoyne]

What Roger Ebert was to movies, Scott Stein is to tech. A well balanced analysis without the boring techno drivel. He makes the products' attributes accessible to everyday sensibilities and understanding. More of this guy.

[@mancavestudios8955]

Hands down the most interesting would have to be that inside out tracking mech for the controllers! Given a few years we may see this develop into a full body tracking solution alternative to basestation tracking. Overcoming things like motion blur in the sensors from sudden movements and battery consumption will definitely push the jump-in point for consumers toward the better end of 5 years, assuming the VR industry ever even moves in that direction.

[@MikeB12800]

I think the separate processor is going to be necessary for a while. I don’t see anything wrong with it! Wish the Quest 2 would have one to increase the graphics and overall power!

[@ru2225]

You can plug the Quest 2 into a computer for more power, just need an extra long cable lol

[@MikeB12800]

@@ru2225 and a gaming computer

[@edgarmoreno53]

@@ru2225 I do that wirelessly with a proper router

[@Dunkeyhote]

Quest 2 costs 10x less

[@zackmac5917]

Agreed. It's a God send imo. You lose all that weight off the headset, reduce bulk significantly, and you can get way more power and battery life. I couldn't care less if I have a compute pack clipped to my pocket. We all carry phones in our pockets all day, and we've been wearing wired headphones since the 70s. They won't do this, but I wish Meta would go down this design route for their VR headsets. The cool thing, is that they're forced to do it with their upcoming AR glasses, called project Nazarene. Zuckerberg has stated that it will have this design. The glasses themselves will look and feel more like Ray bans. 2024 targeted release date.

[@Mireaze]

I really hope they release some kind of consumer version sooner rather than later

[@gamemakerdude]

They are focused on selling to big businesses because there's a lot more money in that. Even their website doesn't have that same flair as when Magic Leap One first launched. It was heavily marketed as a consumer device at first, then they screwed over the consumers who were interested. I'm extremely disappointed. I had a great experience with my Magic Leap One, but I sold it when they switched focus to enterprise customers.

[@sirusthevirus004]

@@gamemakerdude Even after Sep 2022? No consumers can by it?

[@gamemakerdude]

@@sirusthevirus004 Consumers can buy it, but it will probably only have features useful to big corporations.

[@armondo22]

Getting better and better, I wish they still were focusing on the consumer segment not just business

[@ernestlee3264]

this could be good for people with social anxiety agoraphobia

[@missrockcantswim]

@@morphingtime2000 best comment

[@tchaffman]

_All of us_

[@JIP411]

Sure.

[@colinsmith1495]

Looking further ahead, I see AR being a complete revolution for computer interfaces. Within a decade or so, I see this kind of thing replacing almost all monitors, keyboards, mice, touch displays, screens of any kind. Your cell phone will just be a black box with a power button, maybe some minimal interface for initial configuration or pairing. Your desk will be empty except for your trays and baubles and books and the like. Your walls will be free to have family photos. You'll wear the glasses for work or play, and take them off when you want to disconnect. Any 2D display can pop up wherever you set it to and hold in that relative position either to you (so it moves as you do) or the room (so you can look away from it). Phone calls will be a pop-up that you can click, or an app to open with a touch-pad of numbers, but it's all virtual. Excel can actually do 3D matrices and graphs. You can build 3D models in actual 3D, sculpting them with your own hands, or placing the piece you want exactly where it needs to go. And then share it with someone else and they can actually see the same live model you see and make collaborative changes or suggestions to it.

[@glenrisk5234]

Been using VR for 3 years now and I love it but AR clearly has the greater potential. But it's also going to be harder to do well enough to have mass appeal so going the business route is likely the best bet for now. To be sufficiently useful and unobstructive it's going to have to improve a little more. I don't mind the belt clip thing. I don't understand why there is so much resistance to such an approach?

[@johnamckinley]

If this were a startup story, it would be interesting to see the progress. Unfortunately, it is from a company that has burned through BILLIONS of dollars ($2.6B), and is now pivoting to a high-risk small addressable market (the corporate/military world), plus the cycle time for product development for such a well-funded operation is pretty slow. I am betting on more specialized implementations with no need to have a wearable side computer, and cheap open platform mass market plays like the Oculus Quest 2.

[@Aero3D]

That Quest 2 sells at a loss as a tactic for expansion. They also burn through billions. Totally necessary for an entire new industry being birthed. Magic Leap has an opportunity to pass Oculus in my eyes.

[@johnamckinley]

@@Aero3D Oculus is a subsidized device, for sure, but it has the advantage of an app ecosystem play behind it. The new Magic Leap focus will need to target $10,000 and above solutions to make the numbers work for them and their investors, and that is a non-starter for a business to scale. On top of that, you have Apple joining the game soon. If this were a public company, it would be a good short play.

[@Aero3D]

@@johnamckinley i see your point for sure. I just believe ML could hit the Consumer market in time and thrive in AR

[@edgarmoreno53]

We bought oculus just because this isn’t finished…

[@cybyrd9615]

@@Aero3D not with that assfucked FOV, color passthrough VR has already killed ML.

[@raeldor]

They should sell those inside-out tracking controllers separately. I think there are some upcoming headsets without a controller option that could make those very desirable.

[@Dreamwriter4242]

I was one of the first people to buy a Magic Leap 1 because I was going to make consumer apps for it, and as a developer, I really liked the device - it was the easiest to develop for, most well thought out, feature-complete AR device of the time. Only for the company to decide to drop their plans for a line of consumer devices :( If they *had* gone through with their consumer plans, they would be dominating! Right now there's only one consumer AR headset on the market, NReal Light, and that headset is super limited in comparison, only barely AR.

[@emmanueladdo743]

Compared to vision pro?

[@Gadget.Reborn]

Apple Vision Pro is pretty much the best of both worlds AR/VR. The processor and the ecosystem seamless transition are the things that many companies have failed to achieve. Wonder how Magic Leap is gonna compete in this space.

[@lasal8613]

Wow, compact ar glasses need to be for consumers.

[@listerdave1240]

I see the current AR technology as being off track in the way they combine reality with the VR. Combining optically is extremely difficult especially if you want to deal with occlusion. It seems to me it would make much more sense if the environment is captured by high quality cameras and then combined digitally with the virtual graphics and then presented on a conventional VR headset. That means that all the issues of occlusion become a matter of digital processing which is already well understood and it also means that there is no longer the severe field of view limitation, which in AR headsets is caused by the need to have a transparent image projection system. I know the immediate reaction will be that the video quality is no match for seeing directly with ones own eyes. Such an argument was for a long time the reason why mirrorless cameras took such a long time to surpass DSLR cameras but eventually they did and DSLRs have become an endangered species. The quality of the video display in a mirrorless camera has become very close to the purely optical image of a DSLR and in some ways perhaps better. It may take some time for it to be enough for an AR headset but I would say that even with today's limitation the reduced quality of the video display would be a small price to pay for the huge advantage of having a decent field of view and fully functional occlusion. Even the cheaper VR headsets today have a far better field of view and resolution than either the Hololens 2 or the Magic Leap 2. I would very gladly give away some quality of the 'real world' image for a huge increase in the quality and breadth of the virtual component. My guess is that the currently used optical combining methods will make some improvements in the coming years but then at some point will suddenly be rendered obsolete by a fully digital system, similar to happened with DSLR and mirrorless cameras, except more rapidly and to a greater extent.

[@buzzlightyearg3580]

It isn't the oculus 2 kinda breakthrough I'll hold for further development AR type games an life interaction has huge possibilities I can imagine the tree of possibility that branch off of AR use in real world

[@guruteja7151]

At 2:30 why is the Asia and Europe missing??

[@VJFranzK]

He still has Classic Soundwave! on the bookshelf 🤖📼 Transformers G1

[@j4k3z]

Take 2 polar lenses from sunglasses and stack them on top of each other then look through them and twist them. Dimming effect.

[@minimoovies3081]

This is the beginning of a revolution in the same way giant brick phones were in the 90s.

[@chri82s]

Magically burning through investor money. This is going the exact same path as Google Glass did initially.

[@drjones694]

This looks so cool

[@user-xm5vj5mk5j]

Thanks for the content!

[@JTHBS]

The point you mention in the end is also my main problem with AR in the form factor of a Magic Leap. I have a Magic Leap 1 at home but i barely use it becase my glasses dont fit under it . I would love to spend more time with it because it is a fascinating piece of technology and i hase some very fun Apps on it. But i cant put contact lenses on every time just to spend 2h gaming or watching AR experiences. On the other hand i can spend hours and hours in VR every day on my Quest...where my glasses are no problem at all. Thats why i think that Mixed Reality devices will have a big usability advantage for the near future.

[@Dreamwriter4242]

Magic Leap 1 has prescription lenses, like he mentioned ML2 will have. I have them, they are held in magnetically, works great.

[@JTHBS]

@@Dreamwriter4242 yes i know..but they only have them for a few standard prescriptions and not exactly for my eyes (with astigmatism factor). Also those lenses would be more expensive than the price i payed for my magic leap.... Furthermore i like to play with other people to show them the technology... should i always change lenses, not to mention that i dont have lenses for other people with glasses. So all in all not perfect. VR is much more easy to use, even when the headset itself is still bigger. but the formfactor of a headset just has enormous advantages.

[@Dreamwriter4242]

@@JTHBS They custom-make lenses for your prescription including astigmatism factor, I needed that with mine. As long as your eyesight isn't *too* bad. But yeah, showing off the Magic Leap to other people has always been ML's biggest problem - more than just prescription lenses, the fit has to be perfect and eye tracking calibrated, so you have to go to a lot of effort to show it off. And if you want to see what the other person is seeing live, streaming really killed performance. And they make it hard to get good videos of what the user sees.

[@JogBird]

i see specific use cases, but, not for everyday life

[@jerryheneghan2073]

someone please explain the difference between augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) to this reviewer… (Scott)

[@russeldeakin8792]

Have you seen the tilt-5?

[@robertmoore5042]

I’m wearing the same sweater with purple shirt underneath

[@code4chaosmobile]

Impressive, cannot arrive soon enough

[@danh5637]

I feel like Apple have just made this obsolete.

[@crispycrunchycooking]

.awesome content and lovely presentation.....🧡🧡

[@4rg3s]

On the website, the FOV is 50 degree, for both eyes? I must be misunderstood something. 90 degree FOV is already narrow for human eye natural FOV

[@frostilver]

The block-out feature, they know what they're doing.

[@desharrsaddler5305]

?

[@frostilver]

@@desharrsaddler5305 For AR/VR, the key is immersion. The block-out feature is on point and will really add up to the viewing experience.

[@JacobMerrill]

Does this work with 64 bit windows?

[@raymondharris7226]

Thanks so much...

[@th3fmd]

Soundwave on the shelf. Respect.

[@alexhathaway2155]

I still love and use my original magic leap almost every day but it seriously sucks that they went the direction of being enterprise and dropped all of their ambitions.

[@deplant5998]

Are they “peril sensitive”?

[@mayowaosibodu]

Is there a reason AR glasses have their own self-contained processing units? It just seems to me like they would be lighter and faster if they e.g, made use of a nearby computer’s processing resources via WiFi.

[@enderepsilon]

based on my understanding the processors are custom made to handle the calculations needed for these devices doing these exact processes. Offloading to a computer might be viable in some situations but then you would have to balance and sync the differences in processing speeds between different computers, latency and any interference. There's prob more but those are rhe issues I see.

[@mayowaosibodu]

@@enderepsilon Good point. A while back though, I learnt about some AR companies taking a different approach. You could check out the Rokid Air and Nreal AR glasses.

[@VJFranzK]

Usually Dimming is not a good thing 😎 but in this case, a bright idea!

[@challacustica9049]

At the rate phones are getting more and more powerful, this external processor is a good move - it will be your phone within a few years.

[@itsAreeb]

4:16 Europe and Asia ?

[@MrBradleyjcarter]

Cool tech

[@karmaduq]

They've been kind of secretive over the years, and the global dimming effect confirms to me they're still not using an LCD alpha behind an image layer. All the demos I see are very dark to minimize showthrough.

[@VJFranzK]

I'm still interesting in Magic Leap for AR Artworks! 🤓👾✍

[@far-red]

for people who wear glasses, this is a real turn off, i tried magic leap 1, it was good and better then hololens 1, but it was hard to use when i had my glasses on. Also it was a shared device, the lens insert are not cheap, and i would be only using the device for 1-2 hrs, so makes no sense to lose my glasses and add lens inserts, or use contacts. So it seems this is targeted as personal devices, however cost is always an issue making this a shared devices, hope magic leap can come out with a solution to this..

[@paullb2440]

Good question. I wondered how the guy in this video used this headset? I’m no optician but seeing how small his head looks thru his normal glasses this guy is really myopic I’m not even sure they make contact lenses that strength, they’d be like marbles sat in his eyeballs. Weird.

[@JacobMerrill]

This should be used as a AAC device.

[@workingTchr]

The big AR battle = pass-through cameras vs transparent lenses. Can technology make those parts of the visual field with AR information be completely opaque? If not, pass-through is going to win.

[@zachfox7771]

we're getting there :)

[@juanhonorio2528]

everyone is just look like the riddler wearing these lol

[@carloorelli3538]

I think that the power of top price cellphones today could replace the processors completely. The glasses should just be an external device of the phones. Also, control pads have to go. We have our hands that are enough. Until cumbresome external units and controllers are needed, this kind of product will remain niche. People does not want more stuff to bring with themselves. But we already have our phones and our glasses. Just use them and deal is done

[@richardstonyisland9719]

If they could make a battlefield game appear on a table it would be sicker than Call of Duty.

[@geenatovar6171]

Saw his hair flakes dandrift from the conference room. Instead of the 👓 bro go grab and check the effect of the situation. Head and shoulders

[@rizaadon]

Interesting

[@deeJayThraxx]

Very…

[@grizzlymartin1]

Why aren’t the Magic Leaps of the world using their tech to solve visual acuity with their tech to engineer One Pair Of Glasses that works for ALL prescriptions? I don’t get it.

[@alenev0031]

1. I don't want a box hanging infront of my eyes. I want a pare of glasses as light as possible. 2. Don't give me more than a pair of classes. No hand held Doodads, no wired side boxes in my pocket. 3. I don't want any lags when manipukating objects in AR. 4. I want to see AR imposed on Real reality. For example A driving direction app shows me directions and all information imposed on the real road and surroundings I am travelling down. And when I look at an item, or a face, the names, estimated age, and all related information could be selective displayed along side the real things. 5. Easily switching from VR-AR-True Reality. 6. Visual and auditory assists for sight and hearing compromised people (eg: allspeaches should be subtitled with selective magnification of whole or part of the screen. 7. I don't want to get dizziness or a headache after wearing it for over 5 minutes. 8. Foldable to fit into a compact box for easy carrying around. 9. Use Asisted Reality to help fix or assembling things (eg: fixing a pipe leak, assenbling a chair. IKEA, are you listening?) 10. Capture animated images of loved ones (living or otherwise) and make them available in VR. Use AI to chat with you. 11. Recognize obejcts, plants, insects and scenes... and tell you everything about it. We are still some ways from it. But it is within our reach to make them a reality.

[@Envengerx]

What you mention might well over be 10 years awaym

[@agingmirror4524]

good job magic leap

[@firdausqomaruzaman]

Wow i almost doesn't recognized you

[@saynothingass]

This is crazy

[@zackery72]

Imagine apples M1 chip is that 👁👄👁

[@vidalexperience]

It’s almost as if whoever runs the Magic Leap marketing department never got fired even though the first time around they totally over promised and under delivered. Another vague promo video using a credible tech news source to push hype around product capabilities while offering not a single real view at them.

[@dkgong]

Wish we could see what he was seeing. Describing it doesn't do it justice.

[@khalilhouston6816]

Yea ma’am ma’am

[@williamrayburn5314]

If what the Love child of Patton Oswald and Fred Armisen says, is to be true the next generations of this technology will be astounding in many applications not just for home entertainment. Mr. Stein please accept my apologies if you are offended... sometimes the laugh supersedes being a decent grown up person. 😇😉🤓

[@kreigerbailey3550]

Portland, JAMAICA in The Building !!!!!!!!

[@mikm5432]

Remember its not called a headset and these are not lenses

[@futuristicentity2417]

Price might be expensive though not expensive.....

[@e.v.k.3632]

Actually there are already a lot of AR Glasses

[@kcdiazWTV]

Wasn't Magic Leap 1 a snake oil tech when it first came out?

[@UnSlayd]

What about people with glasses

[@fallenangelguard]

So have they brought anything to market or still vaporware?

[@burbercat3558]

Blimey I thought this tanked ages ago. Magic Leap must have money to burn.

[@RobCardIV]

can you read the text ...... if you display your windows pc on the wall... can you read anything? resolution wasnt mentioned because its probably fkn terrible.

[@ericwhitney8277]

MagicScam

[@NR-rv8rz]

Magic leap the the Theranos of AR/VR. Now they pivoted to AR that is only for companies that can pay £10k and even then all you get to see is a ghost image in a tiny square on the lenses.

[@arlaban22]

To many words and not enough actual screen shots

[@RM-lj8bv]

The technology and what to watch on headsets just isn't anywhere near good enough yet, unfortunately.

[@djuell01]

You looked like Spy Vs Spy with your mask on lololol

[@berrymckockiner5883]

AR or XR are the future, not VR

[@Kynareth6]

Both AR and VR are the future. I want to be able to escape to virtual worlds, without seeing the real one, hearing the real one or even feeling the real one.

[@berrymckockiner5883]

@@Kynareth6 agree to disagree

[@alexander2685]

Business applications is the best but seems very boring for the general public.

[@zybch]

Anyone putting money into this scam company's product needs their heads examined.

[@trolatrolatrola]

Too bad we can only imagine what it actually is like

[@fate5624]

talking talking talking but not showing

[@eyesopen6110]

Its a pathetic joke. The only "leap" they're taking is into bankruptcy.

[@phillipscott4267]

here is how you know this product is more than likely not worth its salt...they did not bother to show a "THROUGH THE LENS" view..WHY NOT? Probably because the company does not want you to compare the FOV (field of view which is the vr layer) ...i bet the vr layer of this product has no relationship with the geometry of the environment and surrounding objects

[@noneofyourbuisness7]

I've still yet to see a real world useful application for this that couldn't just as easily be accomplished by a normal screen. At least not in the technology's current state.

[@Mr.ErikSnake]

This thing still isn't available so what's the point what is it for? 🤷🏻‍♂️ bla bla bla

[@joegar3174]

3rd

[@djtomoy]

I think this looks like junk hahahaha

[@johnnemesh5459]

Tragic Heap Mark 2! Yay?

[@neodidi]

Ok now.. For sure the metaverse is happening...

[@Kynareth6]

But not in the 2020s.

[@J3R3MI6]

It’s been happening. If you don’t have a VR headset you’re missing out. Like seriously go get one asap. Changed my life and expectations of the future. Still massively underrated.

[@neodidi]

@@Kynareth6. Yeah.. I thought so too

[@neodidi]

@@J3R3MI6 Well.. You know this isn't the first time we had a lot of buzz around VR or AR... And I thought the Metaverse was also going to be a wave that later changes.. But it's looking like this time, it's for real

[@Kynareth6]

@@neodidi Real performance improvements have been getting smaller and smaller. For example, improvements in performance between Galaxy S10, S20, S21 and S22 are miniscule. These smartphones have the same amounts of both RAM and storage (8GB and 128GB). This would be unheard of before. The times of high exponential growth are over. What awaits is small changes like maybe 10% faster SoCs every year or 2x more RAM and storage every 7 years (look at consoles which went from 8GB to 16GB and from 500GB to 1000GB in 7 years). This is the sad truth about the state of things. There will be no glorious VR and AR world anytime soon. 😞

[@theylied1776]

Every time there is a so-called innovation in AR or 3D I have to make this comment... people will NOT wear glasses or a headset for an extended period of time! This is what killed 3D movies!

[@bendalton]

I agree nobody is going to wear a heavy, uncomfortable device for a long time. But, your comment that people will not wear glasses for an extended period of time completely discounts that millions of people wear glasses from the moment they wake to the moment they sleep. So, there's definitely a tipping point where the glasses will be comfortable enough and the technology will be compelling enough. I firmly believe there will be a product that will reach that point and see mass adoption.

[@matthewp1682]

I agree, having a screen so close will give you massive headaches!

[@theylied1776]

@@bendalton Given the context and the subject matter being discussed, you completely missed the point of the comment. If YOU are forced to wear glasses due to poor or failing eyesight, then YES, people will wear glasses for an extended period of time. But that is NOT what VR, AR, or 3D glasses/headsets are for. This is a technology primarily for (entertainment)! It will never be mainstream enough to make a profit. People will NOT wear them.

[@theylied1776]

@@matthewp1682 That was the main complaint with 3D glasses.

[@Maxim.Teleguz]

No it did not kill 3D movies. Theatres did. I would love to wear those imax glasses. But they were apparently too expensive so they made cheaper ones and the cheaper glasses killed it.

[@kubbetuncer98]

First

[@nileinkalansooriya6490]

Lol

[@toobalkain]

dude, you need to start living healthier, it's hard for people to trust someone who can't even control his appetite, how will such a person resist other temptations?

[@nileinkalansooriya6490]

Second

[@stachowi]

Magic Leap DID NOT live up to the hype... you missed the boat guys.

[@minchang9769]

I was hoping to view a demo which showed what the user saw. Have the virtual object block a real world object would’ve been cool to see.

[@quadpicture8461]

Still wearing masks. 😂😂😂😂

[@Spacecrust]

I hate the name Magic Leap. Sounds ridiculous

[@RJdiaz103]

Your wearing a mask lol lol lol