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| Niantic launches Metaverse app building platform |
Niantic has started a platform to create what is known as a real-world metaverse application. John Hank, the company's founder and CEO, said the platform called Lightship is built on the elements necessary to connect the digital world with the real world.
Hanke said Lightship enables mobile apps to determine if a user's camera is pointed at the sky or the water. Or draw surface gravity and environment depth in real time. Or put something virtual behind the physical thing.
Niantic is known for creating one of the most successful mobile games of all time, Pokémon Go. Hanke said that through the Lightship platform, the company is opening up a library of technology that is used for product development to help others develop AR applications around the world.
Lightship has been in development for a while. But it is now open to any developer. Most software toolkits are free, although the company charges for a feature that allows multiple devices to access a shared AR experience at the same time.
The company also pledged to invest $20 million to fund new companies developing augmented reality applications. The company plans to make a major update to the Lightship platform over the next year to develop a visual positioning system for augmented reality glasses.
With the help of the new system, VDU eyeglasses can accurately recognize their location in the real world. This allows virtual things (like Pikachu) to stay connected to real places.
This is an important part of augmented reality glasses, such as those developed by Niantic in collaboration with Qualcomm.
Invest $20 million in the companies that are shaping the future of augmented reality. Building
Hanke used Google Maps before launching Niantic and said Lightship's goal is to define a basic model for augmented reality.
Tech giants like Meta and Apple are also developing similar software tools. However, Hanke believes that Lightship's support for iOS and Android makes it attractive to developers.
In August, Hank wrote a blog post describing the ideas of the Metaverse as a dystopian nightmare and opposed the idea that technology could take people out of the real world.
Contrary to the ideas of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Hank wants developers Niantic and Lightship to develop AR apps that allow people to interact with physical objects.