The Californian software house Niantic kicked off the two days of Lightship Summit 2022where it presents a lot of news about the Augmented reality he was born in Real World Metaverse. The event is the first global gathering for the Lightship platform AR developer community, launched last year. During the event some important innovations were announced such as the visual positioning system and the possibility of adding positions to the AR map of Niantic.
Niantic news at Lightship Summit 2022
Niantic achieved worldwide notoriety by developing successful games such as, Ingress, Pokémon Go e Pikmin Bloom. But with the announcement of his project for an AR metaverse, he is vastly expanding his technological horizons.
The event dedicated to Real World Metaverse from Lightship starting with the impressions of the Niantic developers, who introduce the essential points of the introductory keynote of John Hanke, the CEO of Niantic. Which introduces some really interesting new features for the AR metaverse. As the Lightship’s Vision Positioning System (VPS). This solution allows developers to determine the location and orientation of users, in order to display AR content with pinpoint accuracy.
Another important change is the ability for developers to add locations to the AR map of the Niantic world. This allows you to create AR experiences based on locations. There are in fact beyond 30 thousand public VPS positionsespecially a San Francisco, London, Tokyo, Los Angeles, New York and Seattle.
An example of this type of localized event concerns the concerts of Coachella, which Hanke talks about from the stage. But they have introduced experiences and demos using VPS Lightship company like VR Reality di Superblue, AREALM di FoundrySix, PIXELYNX, Shueisha XR, Rhizomatiks, Liquid City e TRIPP.
VPS Lightship: the news that Niantic announced at the 2022 Summit
To realize VPS Lightship and offer localized augmented reality experiences, Niantic had to design a new type of map specially designed for augmented reality. He then assembled a Niantic team of experts, developers and players that have made real world scans. Short videos to map it precisely.
Once a location is scanned enough, it becomes possible for developers to introduce AR experiences. This way they can interact with objects in augmented reality as if they were real physical objects.
However, this 3D map will continue to grow. In fact, Niantic invites its users to map the world, as did the 17 million users who have scanned points of interest with Ingress o Pokémon Go. In addition to relying on its users, a group of experts is mapping six key cities over the course of 2022. There are over 30,000 locationsspecifically in six major cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, London and Tokyo.
Developers can create an account and download the‘Augmented Reality Developer Kit (ARDK) of Lightship to develop using these resources.
Lightship Summit 2022: Niantic annuncia l’app social Campfire
Niantic also announced the arrival of a new and interesting app called Campfire. A social network based on the real world, which allows you to form communities and use messaging functions. A sort of “homepage” for Real World Metaversewho wants to encourage contacts with those who live and live near you.
The app starts from a map. But then it shows different events in the various AR apps, so that users can find opportunities to find community members. In the app there will also be functions of messaging that also allow you to share multimedia files, to get to know each other and create a community. But also a way to easily find events to attend.
Already available in Ingress, will also come for other Niantic experiences such as Pokémon Go, helping to socialize while playing. Additionally, Hanke announced the ability for developers to show in Campfire also own appwith an update coming later this year.
The acquisition of 8th Wall
During the Lightship Summit 2022in the opening keynote, Hanke also talked about the acquisition of 8th Wall, a WebAR development platform that allows you to create web-based augmented reality experiences. Something that many developers in the fields of retail, travel, entertainment and beyond.
On the second day of the event, Niantic promised to announce new price ranges and features to monetize the work of developers. Also because with 8h Wall the Lightship VPS system also arrives on the web. Something that developers can use to create unique events and experiences.
The investments of Niantic Ventures
He was born in November Niantic Ventures, to finance the most promising AR enterprises, and at the Lightship Summit 2022, CEO Hanke announced the first investments. In particular, he spoke of the world leader in wellness XR TRIPP. Augmented reality experiences that will leverage VPS Lightship.
PIXELYNX instead it is a play adventure created by musicians Joel Zimmerman (aka deadmau5), Richie Hawtin (aka Plastikman) along with Ben Turner, Dean Wilson and Inder Phull. The company will create a musical metaverse to create unique experiences.
Lightship Summit 2022: Niantic talks about the values (and risks) of the Real World Metaverse
During the initial keynote, CEO Hanke also wanted to underline the value behind Real World Metaverse: putting relationships between people at the center. The goal is to “give a little magic to the world, but without preventing us from noticing that the world is a really interesting world”. But Niantic realizes the risks that can exist in a world like this: the risk of continuous biometric scanningof an augmented reality that brings too many advertisements in the real world. Of a dystopian version from the future of the AR metaverse.
For reason on these issues, Niantic has announced the partnership with Keiichi Matsudathe author of Hyper–realty, the short film that showed the risks of an augmented reality that is out of control. Matsuda then showed a session on stage in which she showed several possibilities for the future of the Real World Metaverse. But she also announced an audience app in San Francisco to test one of these scenarios.
By clearly saying that, as pioneers of the AR metaverse, you have to ask yourself difficult questions now and ask yourself not only “what do we do to avoid problems” but also “How to make this Real World Metaverse better?”.
These are some of the news announced by Niantic at Lightship Summit 2022. Hanke, for example, talked about NFT he was born in Web3, a possibility that begins to be part of the metaverse with the first applications. The expansion of Lightship, the 8th Wall WebAR, the introduction of Campfire these are just macrothemes that will be explored in the next two days. We will keep you updated on all the news.