When Devices Won't Matter

From Yahoo News / Digital Trends

If you want to be able to LOOK at something -- and not notice the device that produces what you're looking at --- you need a tiny projector with infinite focus.  

There isn't any other way.

If you're an investor --- holding stock in the company with the best tiny projectors and the only ones with infinite focus -- that's where you want to be. If that same company also has the best 3D scanning technology... that's even better.

With 5G ultra high speed connectivity coming -- most of the processing power that we'd want to use may be elsewhere.


"In the foreseeable future, we likely won’t even notice our devices. That’s the vision Google CEO Sundar Pichai cast in the search giant’s annual shareholder letter."

Today we still think of devices first. Most of use smartphones and some use tablets. We are certainly aware of our desktop and laptop computers. But imagine if all those devices disappeared. Not that computers and the devices are really going away, but we won’t be as aware of them. As we speak, move, gesture, look, and — at some time not so far off — even think, the world of future computers will work with us.

As Google’s Pichai states the shift, “Looking to the future, the next big step will be for the very concept of the ‘device’ to fade away.” And Google is not alone, but joined in readying for the transition from device-centrism to AI by virtually every major player in what is still somewhat quaintly referred to as the “computer business.” Facebook’s smart assistant “M,” Microsoft’s renewed focus on AI, and Amazon’s home hub manager, Alexa, are examples cited in USA Today’s coverage of the Google CEO’s message.

Money Raising and Price Targets -- A little math

I'm not a financial wonk. I try not to look at the price of MicroVision stock all the time, but I am invested in a company that has the best portable projection technology.

What follows is all my opinion.

My investing thesis is simple: 

• We carry little computers in our pockets that we use to communicate, entertain, and retrieve data. 

• We want what we carry to be as small as possible
• We want the screen we view that entertainment and data to be as big as possible

• The only thing that can solve the big and small problem is a good projector that can turn any surface into a screen - as big as you might want.

• MicroVision has the best solution for this problem. No focus required, energy efficient, and tiny -- but still able to light up the side of a building at night, or even in bright light can give a cell phone a screen the size of a decent laptop screen. 

Manufacturing Issues:

Initial design: Designing a new product is a difficult proposition, often taking more years than most people think a thing would. MicroVision's PicoP is through this process.

Production: transition from prototypes to production of a product is extremely difficult. For MicroVision, PicoP was stalled partly because the production had to wait for the existence of required components.

Mass production and production processes are difficult to engineer. They can be constantly challenged with problems that may require significant redesigns. It can be very time consuming. A redesign of a single portion of a process requiring all other progress to halt for a time. It can't be rushed. Throwing more people and more money at this kind of problem generally doesn't make it faster. MicroVision is close to the end of this process with PicoP.

Initial Production to Mass Production: Transitioning from Initial production to mass production is easier to accomplish than the initial stages. Once the processes are figured out, duplicating the result is relatively easy. The first assembly line is very difficult to create. The following ones are simple, and can be done at a fantastic speed compared to the first. If you produced thousands of units the first year while perfecting the manufacturing process, producing millions of units in subsequent years is easier. MicroVision is beginning this process.

Market adoption: In the case of many new technologies, market adoption is difficult. Even today, we are surrounded by ultra-high resolution televisions that aren't being adopted because their is very little accessible content for them. Adopting the fax machine was very difficult, because they were useless without a network of them.

PicoP genuinely has NO impediments to mass market adoption. The content for them to use is widely available - from video media, data generated or pictures taken by the phone they will be embedded in being the favorite media. 

The transition to mass production and the lack of impediment to mass market adoption is the biggest reason I will continue to hold stock in this company no matter what the price does in the short term. 

"Dilution": MicroVision just raised money through issuance of more stock. While as an investor this certainly isn't an ideal case - when it is put in perspective it is certainly not a catastrophe.

Prior to the raise, there were approximately  47,500,000 shares of MicroVision stock.

By raising six million dollars at a price of $1.70 per share, there will be approximately 3,500,000 more shares of stock, raising the total number of shares to approximately 51,000,000 shares. Whatever you thought your ultimate price target was, you can reduce it by about 6%. My upside target is high enough that I don't think I will notice it much.