INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
We may still be a ways away from the glamorous vision of augmented reality (AR) that Pokemon Go creator Niantic envisioned in the early
that make real-world interactions more realistic.Seeing Pokemon on our lawns and in our toilet bowls has been fun, but when Pokemon Go
that it's willing to put the time, effort, and cash toward achieving that realism
It has made recent acquisitions in the AR, computer vision, and machine learning space, and is launching the Niantic Real World Platform
This is to enable its AR systems to better understand 3D spaces and create AR objects that can interact with real objects in realistic
ways.In its blog, Niantic said, "One of the key limitations of AR currently is that AR objects cannot interact meaningfully in a 3D space."
This new platform aims to conquer that limitation.Niantic has already shown off some of the progress it's made in that direction with a demo
of Pikachu and Evee.It may not seem like much, but this is a solid step forward from having an AR object simply glued at one point in space
And, Niantic has made it clear that the company is still "in the very early days of exploring ideas, testing and creating demos."The Niantic
Real World Platform aims to better understand the objects in a scene, the relationship between those objects, and what those objects are
This is no easy task when the scene is constantly changing as users shift their cameras around, and as new objects can enter the scene (did
a potential way of sprucing up the environment as well
The system may see flowers and create AR bees, or see a lake and pop in an AR duck (though we'd hope for a Gyarados).Niantic doesn't plan to
work on all of this alone
The company intends to offer its AR tools to a selection of third-party developers later this year
So, we can all expect to see some more realistic AR experiences ahead, even if it's only a small step forward.
