VPS will allow developers to build location-based AR experiences for tens of thousands of public spaces.
Niantic’s VPS is, in a nutshell, a growing map of locations that have been scanned and AR-enabled. At launch, the VPS includes around 30,000 such locations, with a heavy focus on public places in San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, New York, Tokyo and Seattle.
Over time, Niantic intends to massively grow the number of VPS-enabled locations, and it is relying on the players of its existing games to do so. For about a year, the company has asked players of Ingress and Pokémon Go to record videos of select PokéStops and Ingress Portals.
“We've done a lot of work to make sure that anybody can scan,” said Kjell Bronder, a senior director of Product Management for the company's Augmented Reality & Geodata Platform. “This doesn't require Lidar.”
A heat map of AR-enabled VPS locations in San Francisco.Image: Niantic
Pokémon Go players aren’t just asked to scan individual locations — they’ve also helped the company determine which locations to prioritize. “We see where the most popular locations are. We have really good heat maps,” Bronder said.
Once a location is captured by multiple players, Niantic uses the video and additional sensor data to create a point cloud that ultimately enables developers to place AR objects in a 3D space with what Bronder described as centimeter-level accuracy. This will enable developers to not just place AR experiences at an approximate location, but also incorporate buildings, statues and other objects into their gameplay as well as add persistent AR labels to the physical world.
In addition to tapping into the player hivemind, Niantic is also enabling developers to scan their own locations with a new Wayfarer app. Each location is then added to the VPS, with the goal of eventually AR-enabling millions of public places. “We want to unlock the entire world,” Bronder said.
Players and developers will also help Niantic maintain the accuracy of the VPS: for instance, updating it when a store goes out of business or a sculpture is undergoing renovations. “The world is constantly changing,” Bronder said. “Keeping this map up to date is almost going to be a bigger challenge than building it.”
In addition to unveiling VPS, Niantic also used its developer summit for a range of other announcements, including investments into immersive meditation service Tripp and music gaming startup Pixelynx. The company also plans to web-enable location-based AR with the help of 8th Wall, the WebAR startup it acquired in March.
Niantic is also unveiling a new consumer product it calls Campfire, which it refers to as a “real-world social network.” At launch, Campfire adds a social discovery layer to games like Ingress and Pokémon Go, allowing players to find others nearby, discover events, share content and more.
Niantic is adding a social layer to its games; Campfire will also be available as a standalone app.Image: Niantic
In addition to being directly integrated into Niantic’s existing games, Campfire will eventually be available to third-party developers using Niantic’s platform. The company plans to launch a standalone Campfire app that will allow people to discover AR content across games and experiences. “This is the place we can come and discover … the content that's around [us],” Bronder said.
In a way, this is a bit of a throwback for Niantic. Back when the company was incubated as a subsidiary of Google, it launched an app called Field Trip that was all about discovering the world around you. Field Trip was not a game, but instead a kind of location-aware Lonely Planet that would ping someone whenever they walked by a sculpture or a house with an interesting backstory.
Campfire has the potential to be the same, only for AR content tied to real-world locations, effectively turning something that used to be an interactive version of a 2D map into a 3D discovery experience — something that will be even more important when people start to wear AR glasses in public.
“You could say it's like adding an extra dimension to Field Trip,” Bronder said.
What should companies be thinking about, and what do they need to know, when it comes to achieving climate goals?
There are three things that companies need to know when it comes to setting climate goals. The first thing I would say is that if you're going to set a climate goal as a business, it needs to be a businesswide effort. It cannot live within just the corporate responsibility or the sustainability team as it often does. It really has to be incorporated across the entire company.
The second is that if a company is going to set a climate target, it needs to be able to commit budget and resources to meeting those goals. It can be expensive to incorporate these goals across operations, so that is something that companies need to be prepared for.
Finally, there must be room for creativity and flexibility. It’s important to recognize there are a lot of things we don’t know yet. You have to be able to jump in without knowing everything, which is hard for a lot of companies. It's risky, but ultimately worth it.
What's been the limiting factor to effect change and reach those goals?
Some of the rate-limiting factors are that all these companies are setting targets, whether or not they’re aligned with the Science Based Targets initiative, and everybody’s competing for renewable projects. But fundamentally the biggest challenge is that companies are trying to balance growing and turning a profit while also doing right by their stakeholders and the environment — but these two priorities are not yet weighted equally. We’re getting there, with shareholders and investors urging, but it’s not quite even yet.
What needs to change for it to be even?
Some things are happening already. Stakeholders are leading the charge here for more transparency and information around how products and services are made, for more data to be released publicly. Everyone from investors and shareholders to policymakers, employees and customers have interests here. How a company operates and how it makes its products are important questions, no matter the industry.
And how can technology help with that?
This is a big question. As a first step, companies need to look at the data and understand their sustainability baseline. For some companies, just getting their environmental data in order is a big undertaking, but you can’t really set a target until you know where you’re starting from.
Once a company understands its sustainability baseline, it is important to identify areas that the company can feasibly make more sustainable, and then address those areas. Implementing technology that improves connectivity and provides greater insight into operations will prove to be the solution for many companies. An example of this could be a manufacturing facility installing energy sensors into its machinery that can monitor energy consumption in real time and turn off different machines when not in use. Another example might be a farmer using drones for pesticide distribution. The drone collects and interprets real-time data, which allows for more efficient and accurate spraying so that crops are covered with less pesticide residue. It all comes down to digitization — as companies and eventually industries digitally transform, they will also become more sustainable.
What role does 5G play in combatting climate change?
5G is the core infrastructure to driving digital transformation, and as a result, will contribute in a significant way to combating climate change. We produced a U.S. report that highlights the many ways 5G technology can achieve critically needed sustainability benefits. The findings show that 5G will enable the reduction of 374 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, save 410 billion gallons of water nationwide, reduce pesticide usage in the United States by 50% and increase fuel efficiency by 20% through optimized lane management systems and traffic management systems enabled by C-V2X. There are so many use cases that illustrate that when 5G is fully realized, it will help reduce emissions in massive amounts that will have an actual impact on the planet.
How has Qualcomm managed its own commitment to address climate change?
In 2014, we committed to a 30% greenhouse gas emission reduction goal for Scope 1 and Scope 2, which is tied to our own operations and the electricity we buy. Since committing to that goal, we have reduced our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 20%. Last November, we took it a step further and set a net zero goal across Scopes 1, 2 and 3 by 2040, and we have interim targets set to align ourselves with the Science Based Targets initiative.
We were the first large cap semiconductor company to make a net zero commitment. We know the Earth’s population is growing: It's expected to grow from 7 billion to 10 billion people by 2050, which means there's going to be more energy being used. We set this goal to highlight that this an important issue and something we are prioritizing throughout the company. Things have to change, and we are doing our part to change the status quo.
What’s that journey been like?
It's been really incredible. We are focused on what we can do to reduce our own operational footprint and how we can help our partners across industries reduce theirs as well. Examples of this might be through leveraging 5G to digitally transform their business or developing energy-efficient products. What many people don’t know is that Qualcomm has been building energy-efficient products since our founding — power efficiency is in our DNA — so we are really well-positioned to play a larger role in the digital and green transformation of industries.
What's the one thing that companies implementing new technology to digitally transform their business and meet climate goals often overlook?
There is pressure to get things done quickly, but it’s important to pause and look at what makes sense for the business. Every company is different — what makes sense for Qualcomm, which is primarily fabless, may not make sense for another company with a huge manufacturing footprint. If you’re a retailer with a huge supply chain doing a ton of shipping, it’s a different model.
All of this goes back to sustainability and, frankly, ESG more broadly needing to be a businesswide effort, with people from across the company working on these issues. What makes sense for the tourism industry is not necessarily going to work for a semiconductor company. But both can reduce their footprint.
