Snap Inc. and Niantic’s Partnership: A Major Leap in City-scale AR Positioning and Experiences

Okay, so here’s this thing about Snap Inc., you know, those folks behind Snapchat and those fancy Spectacles AR glasses? Right, so, they’ve teamed up with Niantic Spatial. Now why would they do that? Well, something about accurate geospatial goodies. Basically, Snap wants city-scale positioning magic, and Niantic, they’re all like, “Hey, we’d love tons of user data!” Win-win? Maybe. Possibly.

So, AR gadgets today, they’re clever, figuring out where they are in a room. Like, a headset looks at your living room and goes, “Yep, I’m by the couch!” But here’s the kicker—what if you have two of these devices? Now they gotta chat and agree on where they both are, right? Same map and all, so both peeps are seeing the same funky things dancing around them. Wild, huh?

That’s where Niantic’s ‘Visual Positioning System,’ or VPS if you’re into abbreviations, steps in. They want AR devices to buddy up to a shared real-world map. GPS? Nah, too wonky for this. With Niantic’s thing, devices know they’re hanging in the same zone. Essentially, it means a crazy virtual concert can pop right in the middle of Central Park, and everyone sees those music notes bounce around.

Snap and Niantic, they dropped a concept vid showing off city-scale AR craziness. You’ve got these lenses embedding AR experiences right onto real-world locations with, get this, centimeter precision. Yeah, mind blown. Imagine virtual portals opening up only if you lug yourself to a specific park bench. VPS, making magic happen.

Anyway, Snap’s tossing some cash Niantic’s way (told you it’s strategic investment), and presto, we have a “strategic multi-year partnership.” Fancy words but essentially Snap wants the tech, Niantic wants the data. Everyone’s happy, right?

Niantic’s always been big on user-generated data. They started doing this with their games, like Ingress and Pokémon Go. You remember those, right? Gotta catch ‘em all! Now, they’re doubling down, rebranding stuff to Niantic Spatial. They’re getting serious, folks.

So, Snap’s Spectacles, still kind of new on the block, but with Snapchat’s 900 million users? Niantic and Snap are set for geospatial gold. Largest dataset ever? Who knows. But it could be big. And you thought AR was just for catching cute monsters or snapping silly pics. Well, welcome to the future, I guess.