\n \n \n “. concat(self. i18n. t(‘search. voice. recognition_retry’), “\n
Augmented Truth Concept Art Created Corporate Generation Niantic Credit – Niantic
On Tuesday, Niantic, the corporate Pokémon Go, announced the release of a hyper-detailed mapping formula that it hopes will pave the way for the extensive use of augmented truth (AR) in everyday life. For years, Niantic has collected spatial knowledge of occupied public spaces in cities around the world, and now it needs to provide those immersive and accurate maps to developers to create their own games, history lessons, and audio-visual experiences. However, some privacy experts are involved in the rise of AR and what it means for public surveillance.
AR is made up of virtual elements that look like in real-world environments, which can be seen through the phone or smart glasses (such as the disappeared Google Glass). Instagram and Snapchat filters, for example, allow you to replace your surrounding appearance, voice, or landscape.
Niantic CEO John Hanke believes augmented truth will continue to be incorporated into everyday life in complicated ways. For example, in the future, you might see the instructions to reach your destination layered through the streets as you walk through them, through sages. glasses; or you can also take a look at the site of a structure and see its history and beyond the architectural incarnations.
His company’s new three-dimensional map will allow developers to accurately see how their users move around the world and see their surroundings, which Hanke says is a key step in “opening up this sci-fi truth we dream of. “virtual things in the global that are in the right portions of this physical world,” he said in an interview.
The map was created by removing over a hundred million video clips from Niantic players (who chose to share their screens), developers, and surveyors. , adding San Francisco, London, Tokyo and New York.
Independent AR developers will now have access to the generation, starting with the loose beta, on a platform called Lightship. There, they can simply create virtual animals that hide the park benches; plaques for public statues delving into forgotten stories; or moving characters “painted on the floor that indicate the way to their destination,” Hanke explains.
One of the first projects created with the new generation of cards is a collaboration with artist JR and Art Company Superblue called JR Reality. JR is known for pasting giant images of other people in public places. The Niantic generation allows users to upload their own JR-style portraits or voice messages to express public places, uploading to those of those who have made the same pilgrimage.
“Have you ever crossed paths on the street and wondered what his story was?” wrote JR in a statement. “It’s time to get out there and explore, reconnect and show your face to the world again. Tell it and meet other amazing people who live in your city. »
Meanwhile, Hanke is excited about how the map could be niantic’s flagship: Pokémon Go. A viral ad that brought the game in 2015 showed other people watching the animated character Mewtwo flying over Times Square, but most people watch the game through animated. graphics on their phones. ” This map paves the way for this giant Mewtwo above the crowd: having the shared fun of many other people seeking the same thing from other angles,” says Hanke. “This is what we’ve been dreaming about since the beginning. “
Pokémon Go is arguably the first successful advertising use of AR. It was downloaded more than 500 million times in its first year, with budding running shoes hunting Pokémon around the world. Jacob Navok, CEO of Genvid Technologies and one of the metaverse’s leading thinkers, says Niantic’s pedigree means his new board will most likely be a coveted tool for augmented reality developers. “Providing more, larger, and less expensive equipment for third-party developers is key to the expansion of the industry,” he wrote in an email to TIME. “Developers who decide on Lightship will do so knowing that Niantic understands how to create a product and not just APIs [programming code]. “
As the GENERATION of AR progresses, many watchdogs worry about its effect on privacy. They worry that corporations like Niantic will collect a staggering amount of data that would be vulnerable to hacking and that people’s movements can be traced. an AR device is potentially subject to a court order to become a government tracking device,” says Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. He issues to search for orders that collected recordings from Amazon’s Alexa and Ring cameras. Cahn also believes that geofence orders, in which police seek information about each user’s location in a specific location for a certain period of time, can be a threat to AR users. (However, one of those orders has just been declared unconstitutional in Virginia. )
“It’s anything we take very seriously,” Kjell Bronder, product manager for Lightship, Niantic’s progression platform, says of privacy. “For the contributions that those players can upload [to the map], we do everything we can in the background so that much of that knowledge is erased. “
Niantic is also launching its own social media platform: Campfire. The app will be based on a map, and users will be able to see what other users are in a local area, send them messages, percentages of content, and host events. Our big thesis is that the metaverse is everything that happens in the real world,” Hanke says.