New World Notes

Magic Leap Launches Avatar Chat With AR Chatroom & Media Sharing, Cartoonish, Low-Detail Avatars

Continuing in its now familiar "Where's the fricking whale we were promised?" theme, Magic Leap just announced Avatar Chat with media and browser sharing features in (what looks to be) a small, augmented reality chatroom setting. If you were hoping to see vivid recreations of your friends as full featured 3D avatars displayed right in front of you, seeming to be sitting on your couch or resting against a wall or whatever, this is not for you: The avatars are extremely low-detailed, disembodied heads.

In fairness, the limited graphics seems to be by design -- probably because this is meant to be a light application for content sharing. Still, the lack of "Wow" factor continues to be a frustration for Magic Leap:

Watch: Dazzling Demo of Fluid Physics in Augmented Reality

Remember those great scenes in James Cameron's The Abyss where water seems to float in the air and change to the character's touch? Developer Lee Vermeulen has basically done that in augmented reality with fluid physics -- watch above. He's using a ZedMini with an HTC-Vive set-up. This feature is for a platform he's building for Modbox, his ambitious AR development platform:

Watch: MICA, Magic Leap's Eerily Human AI Avatar Who Looks You in the Eye

Word on the street is this is the most impressive tech unveiled at this week's Magic Leap conference. Say hello to MICA -- because she'll soon say "hello" back, while looking you in the eye:

Mica was sitting at the table in the same room. She smiled at me and look at me. I was struck that she wasn’t just looking at me. She was looking in my eyes. She tilted her head from side to side... When I noticed how attentive she was, I moved my head forward and looked in her eyes. She did the same and looked at me. I moved my head back and she moved her head back too. She was mimicking some of the movements that she saw me make. She didn’t talk, but that is coming in the future.

UploadVR's Ian Hamilton was staggered on an ontological level:

I need to process some thoughts. The Mica AI left me in a deeply introspective mode. I didn’t want to think of it as “she” but I couldn’t control my reaction. They Ex Machina’d me a little bit. https://t.co/gHZyzIAXKi

— Ian Hamilton (@hmltn) October 11, 2018

Full keynote below, beginning with inspiring words from company CMO Brenda Freeman and acclaimed designer Robin Hunicke, an apparent (and admirable) attempt to make a clean break from the startup's history with internal sexism, followed by a fireside featuring Neal Stephenson and John Gaeta (the Matrix effects guy), with Andy Serkis and others soon after:

Despite Slow Sales, Apple Continues Pushing AR-Based Games for iPhone

Augmented Reality was a featured part of Apple's new product announcements today, so let's watch these crazy kids play AR Galaga:

This AR adaptation of Galaga comes from Directive Games. When you look at your iPhone screen, you can see a bunch of alien-bug spaceships that you have to shoot down. You’re not only trying to survive, but you’re also trying to beat the other players. It was a pretty cool demo, with a lot of blasting onscreen and loud sounds.

More games are coming later this year, and who can blame Apple for trying? Challenge is, despite the huge exception of Pokémon GO, AR games for iOS aren't exactly flying off the shelf:

Let's Compare & Contrast What Magic Leap Once Promised With What Magic Leap is Actually Offering With Its Launch This Year

Back in olden times (by which I mean 2015), this video sure excited everyone in AR and VR:

Three years, 2.3 billion dollars in funding, major distribution partnerships with AT&T and other big companies later, here's what Magic Leap just showed in advance of its announced launch this year:

(Advance to 11:30 for the actual product demo)

Maybe it's just me, but I'm somewhat detecting a fairly large gap between hype and reality? Which might not be fair to point out. Except for, you know, that $2.3 billion dollars and that launch this year. I mean, it would really be unfair to bring up that old whale in the gym video. To actually be fair, I'll say the AR technology seems to be a bit better than what we might get playing Pokémon GO, and Pokémon GO is still massive. So maybe there's still hope?

What the hell, here's the whale video:

Yes, Pokémon GO is Still Massive Worldwide (If Less So in the US) -- I.E, Augmented Reality Games Have a Future

Here's a conversation I've often had or heard at various AR/VR events over the last couple years:

"VR games might not be ready to go mass market, but Augmented Reality games for smartphones have potential."

"Maybe, but Pokémon GO was huge for a while, then turned out to be just a fad. You don't see anyone on the street looking for Pokémon anymore."

"Yeah, true."

No, not true, not true at all. According to SuperData, there were 147 million active Pokemon Go users in May 2018 -- i.e. considerably more than Fortnite, which is supposed to be gaming's current top dog with only 125 million players.

"I know that may seem counterintuitive," SuperData's  Stephanie Llamas tells me, "but based on our internal data that's the number we are seeing. There is likely less frequency of gameplay but more people logging in overall."

After becoming a massive hit in the Summer of 2016, to the point where it seemed like everyone outside in major US cities was playing, the game experienced a sharp drop. At which point, many people in the VR/AR world wrote it off. (Including, I'm embarrassed to say, me.)

But the game kept growing -- especially outside the US:

Datapoint of the Day: Only 18% of Consumers Have Tried & Liked VR

Another data point from Realities 360 worth noting, via Superdata's latest VR/AR report: According to its market survey, only 18% have tried and liked virtual reality, while just 11% have tried and liked augmented reality.

Contrast this with the number of people who still want to try VR or AR: 1 in 3 and 1 in 4, respectively. With virtual reality, the mystery is why they haven't tried it even once, with so many VR headsets (if we include Google Cardboard and Gear VR). With augmented reality, these numbers  may imply some confusion with what "AR" actually is; Pokemon Go and Snapchat are massive hits that many people enjoyed (for at least awhile), and definitely have AR or AR-eseque features.

These survey numbers are consistent with the report last year that a major retail chain closed up much of its Oculus demo stations for general lack of interest. And so four years after Oculus' $2 billion acquisition by Facebook, it's fair to assume (unless sales numbers substantially budge) the total market for VR content is roughly around 18% of the consumer market. Which isn't necessarily bad -- that's about the size of the population who enjoy hardcore PC and console games. A niche, in other words, but a large one. It's just a mistake to assume this market is going to grow any larger.

Augmented Reality Apps for iOS Show Little Growth, Usage

SuperData has the low numbers, putting the most positive spin possible on them:

Early excitement for the new technology brought a lot of curiosity, but with a modest addition of 250 apps since the last quarter, there aren’t many new ways to experience... Overall, the number of apps users are accessing has gone down since last quarter, with an average of 2 apps per user as opposed to 3 per user last year.

62.5 million users may seem like a lot, but much of that reflects people who've tried one or more AR free apps, then gave up after the novelty wore off. You can see that by the lack of much growth from Q1 2018 to Q2 2018. (I.E., little or no organic, "Wow you gotta try this" viral, word-of-mouth growth.) As a point of contrast, a single non-AR game, Fortnite for iOS, was released to the App Store last March, and to judge by ratings numbers, has probably been downloaded 20-40 million times.

I recently wrote that AR coming to iOS would be Augmented Reality's do-or-die moment, and we may be seeing that now. Unless these user numbers strongly jump next quarter, less and less developers will be willing to invest the resources to make more AR apps -- for iOS, or any platform.

Watch: Headset-Free Augmented Reality Created on Water Surfaces

OK this demo is quite impressive, and full of potentially cool use cases -- AR images created on the surface of the water, without the need for headsets. Created by UEC Media Design Lab (Japanese only website, alas) employs some clever sensor and light technology to create his effect:

iOS' ARKit Enables Reflection of Real Objects on Virtual Surfaces

Real banana, virtual reflection

I wasn't duly impressed by Apple's augmented reality announcements for ARKit last year, but this updated feature is noteworthy and full of potential -- virtual reflections of real objects via ARKit's SCNFloor feature:

By default, a floor extends infinitely in the x- and z-axis dimensions of its local coordinate space, and is located in the plane whose y-coordinate is zero. To position and orient a floor in a scene, attach it to the geometry property of an SCNNode object. Often, you use a floor to provide a background for a scene.

If a floor’s reflectivity property is greater than zero, SceneKit automatically renders reflections for all geometries above it. Optionally, you can add an opacity gradient so that reflections of scene contents closer to the floor appear more clearly than those of scene contents further from it. You control the floor’s reflectivity using the properties listed in Adding Reflections to a Floor.

This via AR expert Helen Papagiannis, Ph.D., who notes it's a major leap from previous ARKit capacities: