A significant positive impact on the world

I am certain that 3D computing is going to have a major positive impact for people. 

Here's the best illustration of how that will happen I've seen yet.



Guides

Investor Presentation

Missed the audio portion, so looking for a recording. There's great stuff in here!

This year.

It's looking like very healthy upgrade cycles built into the business. (Think personal computers in the 1980's and 1990's) Those upgrade cycles made a lot of investors rich.

First thing that jumped out, is what appears to be the form-factor for consumer LiDAR. What I take from this is that it's almost certainly a home-security application. (it's stand alone, and not a portable design.... ) And apparently stand-alone from a smart speaker --- where we're already looking for participation. (better picture of it later....)

Products LAUNCHED in volume, 2nd half of this year. (Of course "volume" is a word that needs interpretation, but when you're dealing with Tier #1 OEMS, huge volumes are likely. (We've seen this stuff in action and it's amazing)

Anticipate seeing products launched in volume in the 2nd half of this year

This is selling shovels to gold miners.

MicroVision is focused on enabling unique Input / Output solutions for Artificial Intelligence connected products and services targeting 4 market verticals 

Smart speaker form factor of MVIS engine:  The embedded TOF display isn't included in the module shown at WPG yet, but the comparison is very interesting.

Microvision Interactive at WPG Holdings 

Some AR coolness...

Look at the intro page, then fast forward to 6:20 ( and have some time.)



(@ 9:32)

Magic Leap, Layers on the earth

This is the best explanation I've seen so far about the impact mixed reality can have.

As though you could turn on different notation for the world. Most of us won't want to see energy and water or communications layers. Being able to see a "transportation" layer could help us find our way around a large city with multiple modes of public transport.

This would be incredible at helping us do things.

And they plan a LOT of entertainment layers.

Futurism

Magic Leap Blog

the “Magicverse,” a series of digital layers that would exist in AR over the physical world.

Three new Microvision Videos

Thanks Fru

Hololens 3

Could it match a humans full field of view..

Of course we know about the idea of foveated rendering... and have for a while.

Last summer here... 

Hololens 3 Digital Trends


Kipman notes that Microsoft’s team can eventually develop a headset that matches a human’s field of view. It would be accomplished by what Kipman is referring to as “foveated rendering,” something not yet available on the current HoloLens. This technique would allow holograms to appear in high quality only in the direct view of a HoloLens wearer, but then dissipate as they move into the corners of the viewer’s eyesight. This would represent an improvement over the current generation HoloLens, where holograms projected through the headset fade as the user moves closer to them.

United States Patent Application 20180176551 Viswanathan; P. Selvan ; et al. June 21, 2018
Applicant: Microvision, Inc.

Devices and Methods for Providing Foveated Scanning Laser Image Projection with Depth Mapping
FIELD

Magic Leap, Facebook, Google, Microsoft...

The whole article is interesting. It tells me that Microsoft is really ahead of the curve with display, and some of their competitors really don't know that they are yet.

Reminding me of how Apple had developers working on content that will work with glasses (while working for iPhones and iPads.)

The article teases "When" but doesn't do a good job of answering it... although there are two very important take-aways:

THE FUTURE OF COMPUTERS IS SPATIAL

The people and companies above, and others like them, will have to listen closely to successfully navigate the technological shift over the next decade.

Everything that is on a flat screen is second to something that is in 3D --- Give it 20 years and kids will look at flat screens like a lot of us look at black and white televisions or rotary phones.

And, this is a process that is going to involve numerous upgrade cycles over a decade or more, this is all just beginning. Like tube televisions or LCD screens, I think the laser near eye display is going to be the best solution for a decade or more... 


Fast Company

What we really want to know is what we always want to know: How soon? When will the “Magicverse,” as Magic Leap calls it, be as accessible as picking up a svelte pair of XR glasses from my night table and putting them on?

A better question is how quickly the technology is moving toward a more refined experience, and what challenges remain. To find out, I asked experts from various companies that will play big roles in the developing XR ecosystem. (Some responses have been lightly edited for clarity.)

****

It’s about all those digital layers working together and providing you information. And that information could be a bus route. Or if you’re an engineer it could be about understanding what the sewage system looks like underneath the city. These functional layers are almost like radio stations in a way. You can tune into the transportation layer, which might say here’s where all the buses are, here’s where all the Ubers are, here’s where all the trains are, here’s where all the flying Ubers are!

“But then you might tune into the entertainment one. There will be dozens, hundreds, thousands of the entertainment ones alone. (LAYERS) You know we love to be entertained as humans. So you could tune into the Game of Thrones channel and you’re walking down the Embarcadero and there’s a dragon flying and you’re seeing it and I’m seeing it and we’re interacting with it and we’re having this shared experience. You think of Pokémon Go, but much more realistic and much more engaging because now you’re able to see in three dimensions that character happening. That’s what we mean when we talk about ‘the Magicverse.’ It’s all about serving that digital content.”

“[Customers] did tell us a number of things we could improve on with the HoloLens 2, and the ones we chose to concentrate on were immersion, comfort, and usefulness out of the box.

“Looking forward we will continue to invest in those same three categories. What you’ll see in the next version is even more immersiveness, more comfort, and more applications that have more value. It’s relatively easy to do any one of those things but it’s hard to do all three.

“You can make it more immersive by including more powerful displays, but that’s going to make the device bigger, heavier, hotter, and have a shorter battery life. You can make it more comfortable by making it weigh less, but then you give up computing power. So it’s relatively easy to do any one of those things–the challenge is achieving advancements in all three areas. 

FOR FACEBOOK, AR/VR’S KILLER APP IS TOGETHERNESS

Facebook is thought to have some of the best computer vision and spatial computing talent in the industry working on social experiences in VR (like Spaces), and on AR experiences for smartphone apps like Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook. Facebook’s first consumer product, the Portal home speaker/camera, offers some AR experiences–expect the company to add more in the future. The company owns Oculus, which develops VR headsets, but it’s likely exploring options for releasing more of its own AR hardware products in the future.

*****

It’ll be consumers that decide these things over time. The people and companies above, and others like them, will have to listen closely to successfully navigate the technological shift over the next decade.

Planting Seeds, Rolling dice

While everyone is focused on Hololens, I just remind myself that there's a lot of room in Augmented Reality that is beyond Hololens. The makers of those systems will be looking for the best display. 

There's another company that has a lot of patents that mention MicroVision.

Remember they're getting developers to create AR content BEFORE they have a specifically AR device to use to do it.


AppleInsider
Cook claimed he's "never been more optimistic" about where Apple is going, according to Bloomberg. The company saw a rough December quarter in which iPhone sales fell 15 percent year-over-year, and most analysts don't expect them to resume growth until this fall's models ship.

The executive didn't elaborate on what future products he meant, but Apple is known to be working on an augmented reality headset and self-driving car technology. Both are potential gambles, given intense competition in the autonomous car space, and the absence of any affordable, mainstream AR headsets. Products like the Magic Leap One and Microsoft's HoloLens have so far targeted niche audiences like businesses.

Starting at :53 --- A Miracle

I'm a little late getting to this one, but totally worth it.

A lot of questions answered.

They must have badgered him about a consumer version -- to which he denied again, which is GREAT news for this kind of platform.

Facebook -- Enterprise AR

I'm pretty sure all of the AR systems (careful word choice --'system') created will be display agnostic. Different companies will build various systems of software, sensors, content, and input. They will then use the best of whatever accessories will be available in the market.

The leaders now are each going to try to become the standard, to become at the start the most accepted version will be huge. Some other player may well appear and work to compete with Microsoft on price -- or on content. As we have seen many times in the past, those players who have chosen the right content concentration may beat a superior technology.

There will be room for multiple players in the field -- some may produce entertainment over education, or consumer over enterprise.... eventually I suspect it will be like Apple vs Android or Mac vs PC. A couple of strong contenders -- but there are a lot of them now.


The payoff for whichever company dominates in this field is going to be HUGE. It will be bigger than dominating the personal computing surge in the 1980's.

Selling the best near eye display (and having the best sensors) will be like selling shovels to gold miners.


Facebook is in the race for "enterprise AR" and they have a significant presence in Redmond. Their existence in Redmond Washington is an "open secret."

They don't advertise their presence at all. A couple of years ago I was given a heads-up about their facility there and I stopped at it. Not only were the buildings unmarked -- just normal looking office buildings.... but there was no indication on any person or any vehicle what was there. (No Facebook Stickers, Logos, Shirts, no labeled visitor spot.. nothing of the kind.)

I took a couple of pictures.

A couple of hours later, my phone asked me if I wanted to label the pictures I took at Oculus.

Facebook is growing at a rapidly in Redmond.


Mashable

Facebook wants to sell more virtual reality headsets to businesses.

The company is working on an "enterprise edition" of its Oculus Go and Oculus Quest headsets, according to a new job posting that was first discovered by Variety.

The job listing is for a software engineer position on Oculus' AR/VR Enterprise team. Though light on specifics, it says enterprise editions of its headsets will launch in 2019.

"Starting with VR, we are building an Oculus Go and Oculus Quest Enterprise edition expected to launch in 2019," the description says.

Facebook has previously dabbled in this space. The company has offered Oculus Business, Rift bundles meant to appeal to businesses, since 2017. But a dedicated enterprise version of its hardware would be a significant expansion for Oculus. The job description suggests Facebook is working on partnerships with "enterprise-developer ecosystems" and other software platforms in order to create business-specific features.

If it reminds you of Kinect

Those similarities are very intriguing....

Spar3D

If the Explorer Edition reminds you of Microsoft’s latest Kinect release, the Azure Kinect DK, you’re right. However, though both sensors are intended for AI applications, there is at least one important functional difference. Microsoft’s device is optimized for use with its Azure cloud-computing platform, while MicroVision’s is designed explicitly for processing environmental information on the device itself, using machine-learning to build maps and track objects.

“By packing the solution with machine learning at the edge,” the company says, “actionable data is provided directly to the application, eliminating the need to send raw sensor data to the cloud for processing. This results in reduced system latency while maintaining user privacy.”

There were a couple of dots to connect after this new thing from Motley Fool

The pace of technology is even faster than he expected.

Masayoshi Son Fortune

For one, he has a 300-year view of SoftBank’s growth strategy. He says that artificial intelligence combined with data gathered by billions of sensors will bring on an “information revolution,” that will benefit people more than the 19th century Industrial Revolution. 

Business Insider

In June 2010, the richest man in Japan revealed his latest vision for the next 30 years and the next 300 years.

Masayoshi Son, the chairman and CEO of tech behemoth SoftBank, shared his sci-fi predictions in a presentation at what was then SoftBank's 30th annual general meeting. We first saw the slide deck via Fortune.

Fast-forward seven years and Son has a tech fund close to $100 billion (£76 billion) at his disposal — thanks to companies like Appleand the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Saudi Arabia.

He's investing the money at a rapid pace into ideas that he hopes will turn his predictions — telepathy, superintelligent machines, computer-brain interfaces, and cloned sheep — into a reality.

Japanese Billionaire’s Prediction Will Give You GoosebumpsMotley Fool

Back to Basics...

There's a lot going on lately, and a lot of anticipation about Microvision finally being in products.

I was talking to a friend, and another who created this excellent Reddit Post.

The very basic investing thesis for this company is still intact:

People carry increasingly powerful computers with them everywhere. People universally -- without exception -- want two incompatible things from those small computers. They want their form factor smaller and they want bigger screens from them.

Until smart phones arrived, form factors for cell phones got VERY small. When smart phones arrived and they became small portable computers, the form factors got larger -- sure there was additional function, but mostly it was to fit a larger screen.

These two desires are contrary. It is simply impossible to have a smaller form factor and a larger screen at the same time --- unless you use what Microvision has to offer.

It allows two contrary desires to be answered at the same time.

They can now do this with an interactive screen.

With near eye display you can wear a comfortable hat and make EVERYTHING a screen. This isn't science fiction, it's here, and those who have been paying attention lately are part of a very small exclusive club that knows about this before most people. MWC is popular with mobile providers and enthusiasts, but that's still a very limited audience.

During the discussion the other morning, the ability for a screen to be put nearly anywhere reminded us of this commercial. 

The power of computing now, and significant computing in small packages increases the desire for screens --- if a small thing has a great deal of computing power, what's the point unless you can access that.  (Yes, you can play Doom on a Thermostat)

With this tech, you'll be able to put a "stick up" display almost anywhere.




Microvision has arrived.

The Closest thing to Magic...

I suspect the author would think the same of interactive laser displays that are always in focus, scanning LiDAR that can recognize your cat vs the neighbors cat (or lock the door for your mother in law, and open it for your best friend), and large screen viewing areas from the end of a smartphone... magic that Microvision makes a reality....
Microvision is in the magic business.



ZDNet

The experience created by the HoloLens 2 is the closest thing to visible magic the tech industry has ever produced. I'm not sure whether to describe my experience with it earlier this week as "hands-on" or "hands-off" since I didn't touch anything that was real. But my hands certainly interacted with things that, but for their luminosity and lack of tactile presence, seemed to be in the real world.

Hololens with Bentley

How will AR first be introduced to the Masses?

PARTS of the tech world know it's out there, but very little outside select audiences.

I'm a bit surprised that the announcement wasn't bigger and broadcast wider before and during MWC, but it's still coming. I'm sure some pretty smart marketing people are going to make sure they optimize the public perception at the right time.

I've been patient for a long time, I can be patient a bit longer. (And, if everything strikes paydirt at the same time things could be even more interesting for shareholders.)

Some kind of AR something will catch the public's imagination. It will be something like this.... someone will trot this or something like it over to a television studio, and the buzz will begin. 

I have no idea what will catch on and go viral.

I do expect that the Hololens version of Pokemon Go is going to happen fairly early and get a lot of attention. (Whether something else catches the public's imagination first remains to be seen.)

Trimble Hololens

One of the key phrases in the Microsoft Hololens presentation is that anyone can build one. They don't know about all the details of every environment, so the technology is there and can be modified.

I think this is the first of many that we'll see -- and I'm eagerly anticipating what Dell, Lenovo, Acer, Sony, Toshiba, Quanta, Alienware, NEC, Gateway come up with.

Just for Hololens.

I expect that other AR system producers will use the MVIS Near eye display separately.

(AR systems can be display agnostic. You can buy a computer monitor and use it with any number of computers or television tuners, I see this kind of display as little different from that.)

 The hard hat compatible device is the first to be created with the Microsoft HoloLens Customization Program. It integrates the latest spatial computing technology, a wider field-of-view, improved usability, and a flip-up viewscreen. Trimble also unveiled an expanded set of software and services and continued development for Trimble Connect for HoloLens, a cloud-based collaboration platform, for use with the XR10.

Microsoft Gaming Plans

Anyone can make their own Hololens, games going platform agnostic. There's a broad and interesting strategy being implemented at Microsoft.

It will be nice to hold shares in the company that produces the best AR display.




Motley Fool

Nadella changed that by accelerating efforts to bring the best versions of all the company's products to any platform that wanted them. Ballmer should get credit for starting that process by bringing the Office apps to Android, but it was Nadella who has preached an any-device, any-customer strategy.

Project xCloud would do that for gaming, bringing the company's software (i.e., games) to people using tablets, phones, PCs, and who knows what other devices. Using Microsoft's Azure cloud platform, the company hopes to make streaming gaming available on 4G and eventually 5G networks. It laid out its broad goals in a blog post Choudhry made back in October:

Scaling and building out Project xCloud is a multi-year journey for us. We'll begin public trials in 2019 so we can learn and scale with different volumes and locations. Our focus is on delivering an amazing added experience to existing Xbox players and on empowering developers to scale to hundreds of millions of new players across devices. Our goal with Project xCloud is to deliver a quality experience for all gamers on all devices that's consistent with the speed and high-fidelity gamers experience and expect on their PCs and consoles.

Hololens still unknown... but not for long.

If you look at MWC, Hololens seemed to impress everyone and stole the show.

If you walk down the street and ask people about it, they think you're a fruitcake who can't discern science fiction movies from reality. While it's the talk of a growing part of the techie culture, the techie culture is still very small.


That will be changing rapidly.

I, and many others who follow this expected a Hololens announcement early this year. When it was determined that Alex Kipman was going to be at MWC, most who follow the tech correctly expected that this would be the Hololens 2 reveal.

It was surprising that they didn't do a bigger launch and generate more buzz among the general public.

Apparently they're not ready for that, but they are ready to entice manufacturers and developers

Something is coming up, that should get a bit more attention: The April build of MS Windows. Hololens support DLLS arriving in the April build of Windows 10.

Windows just updates, and Hololens will apparently be included.

No idea if everyone will notice, but it's possible that Microsoft will start spreading the news through every desktop computer that uses Windows 10.

Catching up on the call.

I know some have looked here for my comments on the CC.

Was flying when it started.


(Right here when my phone started buzzing with comments.)


Didn't hear it live, and playing catch up. Called a few friends yesterday who heard it.

• I didn't expect much in 4th Quarter results. If you did, you probably weren't paying much attention.

• I was hoping for, but didn't expect an announcement that MVIS is in Hololens. I'm still very confident that MicroVision's tech is inside, (only because it hasn't been officially announced do I retain a microscopic level of doubt.)
  
• The result was exactly what I expected...because this is precisely what the company telegraphed.
  
  As it relates to our April 2017 contract, we have been advised that our customer is committed to launching its product in the second half of this year. We expect to receive orders this month or next to supply components in support of the customer’s product launch in the second half of the year. We expect to begin shipping in Q2. While we are not in a position to identify this customer because of our confidentiality agreement with them, once the product has been released our involvement would become evident. Until such time or unless the customer gives us permission, we cannot share the name of the customer or the type of product that they are making.
  
• Also very confident that there will be orders and appearances in multiple products this year.

• Display only has a lot more market potential than many people think
  
  
• I'm sure that interactive display has attention of some very big players
  
• Don't forget this quote -- it's a market size baseline: "The potential market for its wearable PC is larger than Microsoft's current 1.5 billion PC installed base."
  Folding Phones are cool, Hololens is cooler.

Reuters Transcript of Call
Microvision CC

Folding Phones are cool, Hololens cooler.

Nice compliments for the display better resolution, wider field of view, and eye tracking.

Also talking about OTHER companies making their own custom Hololens. (boom!)

Windows Central



Additionally, through hardware, platform, partnership, and Azure cloud services advancements announced this year, Microsoft is moving an already successful model even further with its target market: the world's more than two billion front-line workers.

The potential market for its wearable PC is larger than Microsoft's current 1.5 billion PC installed base. And, like Windows PC proliferation of the past, which also began in the enterprise, Microsoft retains the following strengths: It's providing Windows, a familiar enterprise-accepted platform, a supporting infrastructure of services and security, and the ability for partners to conform this wearable PC (like traditional PCs of the past) to their specific needs.

Transforming computing & the world as we know it.

As world maps go, a globe is a much better representation than a flat map.

But as things are -- globes are hard to come by. We don't carry them with us. In the age of computing everything was on a two-dimensional screen. Some on-screen maps are improved by making them appear three dimensional (google maps does this), but still it's something on a flat screen.

Sculpture is more interesting than painting. Even the best paintings are those that make the art appear to be in three dimensions when it's not. Where the shadows are just right so it appears to pop off the canvas.

Up until now, everything nearly everything humans used to compute and record was in two dimensions.

You could get three dimensions in say an MRI by scanning different layers -- but then a person still had to have the skill to imagine it in 3 dimensions. 

One of the things that you need to be able to do if you're an air traffic controller is look at a 2d screen and imagine a 3D world.

This will also allow computing to help everyone at every job...the computer will be truly portable and possibly with everyone much of the time.

This will be as profound as switching from handwritten books to printed books, or like the advent of radio and television -- or the arrival of the internet.

That's all about to change -- and this little company is a key to that change. Providing the near-eye displays and the scanners to make it possible. 

Just watch.

C|NET






RFI (Translated)

Forget about your over-priced foldable smartphones, 5G networks that are struggling to set up, or the connected gadgets that have been heavily advertised at Mobile World Congress 2019 in Barcelona, ​​Spain. The innovation that caused a sensation at the show is HoloLens 2, the new version of the augmented reality headset developed by Microsoft researchers, allowing its user to mix reality and synthesized images in real time and in relief, in its immediate environment.

9 Augmented Reality Stocks to Enhance your portfolio

They haven't figured out yet that its all but certain that Microvision is in the Hololens.... but it's an AR stock to enhance your portfolio.

It's heavy on the advertisement, but the source is here:

Investorplace

AR Stocks to Enhance Your Portfolio: Microvision, Inc. (MVIS)

For the record, Microvision, Inc. (NASDAQ:MVIS) and Microsoft are two different companies. The aforementioned Microsoft is the maker of the HoloLens, which may be on the verge of becoming a must-have. Microvision’s role in the augmented reality movement, however, it a little bit different. It’s the maker of laser (and the supporting technologies) that can project images and data into glass.

The most practical and tangible use of its PicoP(r) technology is the projection of the information normally found on a car’s dashboard up to the windshield, allowing a driver to keep his or her eyes on the road. It’s the same basic concept being used by Google Glass, Microsoft’s HoloLens and the like though — melding the benefits of a transparent material with valuable information overlaid.