Along these lines - is there an example of a technology company that succeeded after raising so much money without proving their product in the market?
Screw the market. Personally, I don't care if this even sells (to make the general population buy it, they'll have to invent most silly possible applications imaginable). The question is - does it really work as advertised? Both Magic Leap and HoloLens look way beyond the state-of-the-art, I'm still not convinced that what they show us isn't just plain marketing fabrication.
Their first (older) video was clearly marketing fluff. That may be their long-term vision, but I'm skeptical they are anywhere close. Even if they had the capable display, code & computing power for a game in a dynamic environment like that would be incredibly challenging.
The second video (newer) though looked legit. Simpler interactions, and the disclaimer was pretty explicit.
There have been a number of flying cars over the years, such as the Model 59H AirGeep II. They're just expensive and impractical, so nobody ever builds more than a handful of them.
I never thought the "flying" part was the core technology... it seemed to be the invention some non-traditional, low-noise, propulsion & power source that could levitate heavy objects. I don't think we have that ... if we did, the expensive and practical part might be solved and we'd have them everywhere :)
To be fair... consumer-grade lightfield displays (or whatever you want to call the MagicLeap display) don't exist yet either -- so it's a technology problem too.
Except that Magic Leap's technology problem has had $1B in investment capital thrown at it -- much more than flying cars, no?
Yeah, that's pretty much my point. $1B might solve the technology problem, but no amount of money will solve the market problem (which I suggest Magic Leap, and hypothetical flying cars, don't have)
I agree and interestingly I think the first technology problem that needed to be solved was not the flying element, but instead with autonomy self driving capabilities, which we will soon see within the next 3-5 years.
Looking cool on TV doesn't mean it'll sell. Movie OSes have every keystroke and action make a sound and use 48pt font for everything. I wouldn't bet much on such an OS selling in the market.
That's not a very convincing argument and doesn't answer the question at all. I already can't think of a reason I'd buy one, and telling me it'll be full of spam isn't helping.
I'm also a little disappointed they've raised so much money if their long term goal is just spamming people in "augmented reality".
Oculus got acquired without having released a product to be fair, and that looks like a phenomenal acquisition.
By the way, how good has Facebook been at acquisitions? Instagram alone has already paid off in gains all the total dollars spent, and they also have WhatsApp and Oculus which are both huge, important "companies". Good for Zuck.
