
A Peek Inside the Niantic Real World AR Platform - srameshc
https://nianticlabs.com/blog/nianticrealworldplatform/
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ruytlm
As one of those who got stuck into Ingress in its early days, I'm always happy
to see Niantic pushing forward.

The only issue is they always seem to be a step ahead of themselves, in terms
of their ideas being just a little too far ahead of the technology.

It will be interesting to see how truly real-world AR shapes the world when it
becomes widespread. I'm sure that some day anthropologists will look back on
this era with fascination, at how both society and individual human
development/behaviour were shaped by technology, in terms of things like the
way that access to information and exposure to 'realities' not restricted to
the real laws of physics shape development.

~~~
digi_owl
Speaking of the laws of physics, i suspect the primary limitation for this
will be the power supply.

I seem to recall that there are ongoing jokes regarding existing AR games that
one basically have to bring a generator (aka car) to keep up with the battery
drain of the game.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I would expect the rendering efficiency to get better fast. The amount of
power spent on graphics relative to the actual amount of new information being
generated is absurdly high.

We should start seeing more experiences designed specifically for low power
renderability soon.

~~~
opencl
Why do you expect it get better at a significantly higher rate than it has
been over the past several decades of computer graphics? Is there some major
up-and-coming research on the topic?

~~~
erikpukinskis
No, just a kind of Hegelian turn. Computer graphics have been oriented towards
emulating photography for many years. That project is nearing its end and
still realism is lacking.

As people start to realize there is more to seeing than just photography, we
will enter an era of discovering more sparing uses of computation.

Look to painting for a possible progression. Realism/classicism was just an
early maximum. Impressionism followed. And then many other movements.
Contemporary painters can do much more with much less.

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BLKNSLVR
The "Neon" demo displayed the horribly limiting nature of the device. The AR
aspect is great, but to have to see it through the lens of the device and to
have to occupy both hands to interact whilst full-bodily moving around the
space makes it seem quite "cacky" (I can't explain what I mean by cacky, but
it sounds like what I mean).

It's like playing a shooter game in the real world, but having to have the
device pointing in the right direction in order to see what's actually there.
Like using a torch in pitch blackness (Doom 3). This is where a Google Glass /
VR-style headgear kind of interface would be perfect.

But since this is all just in "tech demo" stage, I'm probably being too
critical. It is "cool".

Tertiary worry: AR advertising.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
It's building the communications infrastructure you need for glasses to "just
work."

You can't just come out with glasses because there is too much you don't know
about how multi-user and persistent content AR interface and communications
work from a standing start.

~~~
BLKNSLVR
My comment was based on my reaction to how unexpectedly badly the handling of
the device fitted into the activity, and how obvious it was that a different
interaction device was necessary.

And yes, I think Niantic are more of a technology / platform company than they
are a game developer, and I think that's the level of their involvement in the
Wizards Unite game.

Google "just came out with glasses", but that didn't go very well, probably
for the reasons you gave. Google Glass time may be upon us again soon,
however, given these tech demos.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Yes, I'm agreeing with you and explaining why the big companies are making
such huge investments in this when the form factor and use case is still not
refined.

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the-pigeon
Interesting. Niantic has done a really poor job managing Pokemon Go and
Ingress though.

Hopefully they've hired better management with boatloads of cash they've made
with Pokemon Go.

~~~
hrktb
Users have been frustrated and very vocal on the social media, there are clear
areas where Niantic is pointed pitch forks at.

Yet I am not sure I would call that bad management, in that they kept the game
running, core players are still there in decent numbers while casual players
seem to be coming back in waves.

They can surely do better and the game is riddled with bugs, but no one is
operating at that scale without significant issues, and they managed to not
ruin the game while making impacting changes to the whole system for two years
now.

I have my frustration with the games, but I genuinely think they made a very
decent job.

~~~
pedroaraujo
As an early player of Pokémon Go since the release day, I can say that the
whole game was poorly managed (and still is). Even after the initial spike of
users, they can't do a major event without messing it up:

\- [https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/25/16019404/pokemon-go-
fest-...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/25/16019404/pokemon-go-fest-refunds-
disaster-review)

\- [https://www.destructoid.com/niantic-is-handling-pokemon-
go-p...](https://www.destructoid.com/niantic-is-handling-pokemon-go-poorly-in-
spite-of-its-success-376241.phtml)

The people who play Pokémon Go nowadays, they do it for the novelty of being
Pokémon, not because it is a good game. Also, Pokémon Go is popular the same
way Flappy Bird was popular: it's an effortless game to handle and it's very
convenient to play when you already spend a lot of time on the phone.

Niantic managed to turn a multi-billion dollar game into a multi-million
dollar one.

~~~
Wofiel
And yet, according to some sources, as of May had the most players they've had
since launch. [0]

Whatever beef you might have Niantic or the players of Pokemon Go, the numbers
suggest that the game still has some stick, beyond novelty.

[0] [https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-06-27-pokemon-go-
pla...](https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-06-27-pokemon-go-player-count-
at-highest-since-2016-summer-launch)

~~~
dwild
That HAS to be from others countries then. Where I lived, in Montreal, there
was HUGE AMOUNT of peoples playing that game all around. I remember there is a
tiny park close by my work, it's cute, almost always empty but there is 3
Pokestop there. During the first few months, there was literally 30-40 peoples
there constantly. It was always funny to see them all flee somewhere else when
there was no longer the "boost" on theses Pokestop. That wasn't including the
people I was constantly seeing walking around playing. I now rarely see people
even play that game. It still happens but it pretty far from the first few
months where it was everywhere.

~~~
hrktb
There is a clear shift on who plays the game the most and how they play.

The first 3~4 months I remember seeing a lot of youngish and very active
people, the heavy players being those travelling all day around the city to
complete their dex.

Now I end up a lot more with elder people who manage to play during their
jobs, do a lot less “grinding” but do it more efficiently and can pop real
money here and there when it matters.

I am not surprise by the number of players rising again while there is no huge
30~40 people croud rushing everywhere: we don’t need to rush anymore, and the
main events can easily be planned 30~15 min in advance.

If you are interested in huge crowds, public parks during community days might
be the remaining attraction.

------
pbw
Pokemon Go's AR was a joke, but the promise of AR was very real and compelling
to people, so they were wildly successful and now have the resources to
actually try and solve the technical problems for real.

A lot of startups work this way. They have an ambition to do something but
really no chance of doing it. But if they can attract enough attention and
raise enough money they might actually be able to attempt it for real.

Crowd funding overtly works like this, but it's really common in regular
companies as well. If you can show there's a chance, maybe you can raise
enough money to actually do it.

~~~
CharlesW
> _Pokemon Go 's AR was a joke…_

If you think of AR as video overlays on reality, for sure.

If you think beyond video, Pokémon's AR was a home run. My kids know where
Pokémon are most likely to live. They know where the gyms are. Their reality
has _definitely_ been augmented.

~~~
proto-n
Yeah that's what many people confuse. In pokemon go, AR, meaning 3d stuff
rendered over the camera input, is not really essential to the game, and most
people never even use it, as it drains the battery too much.

On the other hand AR, as in augmented world map, is the core of the game and
is brilliant.

~~~
birdman3131
Has nothing to do with battery drain and everything to do with the fact it is
significantly easier to hit the harder throws that give you a higher chance of
catching the pokemon.

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MaxLeiter
Niantic is currently developing a Harry Potter AR game. I wouldn’t be
surprised if they allow you to cast spells at other players during duels and
what-not, as one of the demos shows

~~~
jerrysievert
as both someone who's been in the mobile location industry (having headed an
R&D center specifically focused on real-time location for mobile devices), and
is an avid pokemon go player (and thus Niantic customer), I don't expect them
to have anything close to their demos until a year after launch, and even then
in extreme beta.

that said, it's almost time for me to do another 1km walk to try to eek out
400m of "egg distance" in pokemon go.

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madrox
Well done. The occlusion is far better than I would've ever thought possible
with a single camera on current mobile hardware.

Whenever they get the form factor right for AR, I think we'll get to see some
really interesting apps

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wpietri
One of the big questions I have about AR is the extent to which it's a novelty
versus something that delivers lasting value. As an example, 3D movies and
especially 3D TVs were an impressive technical accomplishment that basically
nobody cared about. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

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taneq
Good to see them working on real AR instead of "render an geolocated object
with the camera feed in the background" (original Pokemon Go). At least the
new ARKit version attempts to track the feed a bit.

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kriro
I'm curious when Blizzard will enter the mobile AR/geo-game market. Walking
around questing in groups with dungeon spawns etc. using the WoW-IP would be
interesting as would hack and slashing around Diablo-style. Plenty of skinner-
box random loot material to keep people playing as well. The battle systems of
MMORPGs or Diablo should map nicely onto AR-games. I suppose actually using
distance could get tricky as people would try risky things to get battle
advantages so just spawn and fight round based is probably the way to go.

I thought Pokemon Go got dull rather quickly (played upto level 35, I liked
Ingress a lot more) and I still can't understand why they didn't opt for round
based battles. I've recently been playing Jurassic World Alive very casually
and like the overall design more. Each "catch" is sort of meaningfull and the
DNA-extraction sequence is more fun than catching a pokemon. On top of that
the battle system is cooler and rewards good play to a certain degree.

Before playing Pokemon Go I thought of AR in terms of overlaying 3D models
over a camera feed (which is the feature I turned off in Pokemon Go). It
certainly gave me a different perspective as I thought of some other use cases
for geo-location overlay.

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kauloswag
I wonder when the first AR adblocker will become available.

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Animats
Not too bad. They definitely have Pokemon Go, the Next Generation. How good is
the phone location system? Staying locked to the real world is essential for
AR.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPMHcanq0xM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPMHcanq0xM)

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Applethief
This is awesome! I'm loving the advancements in AR.

