Oh man, so Snap Inc. and Niantic are teaming up, huh? Imagine Snapchat and those funky Spectacles AR glasses getting all spatially aware. It’s like, the city is now their playground for real. Crazy, right? Anyway, so Snapchat taps into this whole city positioning vibe, and Niantic scores a ton of data. Symbiotic, I guess? Or… parasitic? Depends on your mood.
Okay, here’s the thing. AR gizmos can figure out where they are in a room — like, “Am I facing a fridge or a plant?” kind of stuff. But when two devices need to talk to each other in AR, it’s a whole different game. They’ve gotta share a map, like they’re both at the same funky concert when they aren’t.
Niantic’s been hustling on this Visual Positioning System (VPS) for ages, aiming to make all this AR real in a shared world. GPS? Nah, too messy for this stuff. You want precision, like a cat landing on its feet kind of precision. So, think about friends seeing the same digital fireworks in the park. VPS nails that.
Now, bam! Niantic and Snap are shaking hands over this VPS thing. Saw a video – kinda mind-bending — showing Snapchat and Spectacles turning cities into AR wonderlands. Like, imaginary concerts in the square and secret doorways appearing when you hit the right park bench. Out there, but super cool.
They’re calling this buddy-up a “strategic multi-year partnership.” Sounds fancy, right? Snap’s probably shelling out some serious dough into Niantic, but who’s counting? Safe to say, Snap’s getting the best city-scale positioning gear, and Niantic’s getting floods of user data. Win-win, sorta?
Niantic’s playing the long game with all those user scans. It’s like turning the whole world into their AR playground bit by bit. Get users snapping scans to unlock features — clever, eh? Keeps the map fresh, too.
Niantic didn’t wake up yesterday. Remember Ingress and Pokemon Go? They’re pros in this space stuff. With this new move, and after selling off their games (yeah, that happened), they’re doubling down on VPS. Now they’ve got that shiny name — Niantic Spatial.
Snapchat’s Spectacles might be in their early days, but think about it — 900 million Snapchatters out there! Talk about a jumpstart for Niantic and Snap’s whole spatial AR empire. Wild times ahead, I reckon.
