Glimpse of an AR Metaverse with Wearables
We have a certain perception of what the metaverse is, but the augmented reality vision suggests that the metaverse has been all around us all along.
This publication is also syndicated on the Game Changing Vision substack, which you can find and subscribe to here.
I snapped the Hololens on, and my engineering colleagues loaded the demo. A few gestures in the environment, and Eevee was in front of me.
Right in front of my toes. On the ground in this beautiful park in Oakland. Making Eevee movements just like Eevee does in Pokémon GO or any other modern Pokémon game. Looking at me. My colleagues and I could see it.
I wasn’t prepared for my visceral reaction. There was a Pokémon in front of me — I forgot about Eevee being a 3D Hologram Pokémon — and I could feel my inner child screaming in joy. This is the dream: this is the Pokémon Trainer dream that we’ve been enabling since Day 1 of Pokémon GO launching in 2016 at Niantic. I’ve seen internal demos of upcoming exciting features we’re building for our phones. This testing environment on a wearable, the Hololens 2, was another level from the future.
A lot of hard work went into the demo that debuted yesterday on the Microsoft Ignite stage, across many teams and organizations. But it still moved me to see, even though I had the privilege of being a part of it (Literally, among other elements, I was in the video ready to challenge John Hanke.)
It was in celebration of a new partnership between Microsoft and Niantic, one which will bring new kinds of experiences that ultimately connect people together in brand new ways, which of course includes wearables.
Back on my first day of onboarding at Niantic, I asked John if we were looking to build a reality like in Ready Player One. John told me emphatically that that was the exact world he wanted us to NOT build. It’s one thing to have a wearable, looking at the AR objects that enhance our experience and encourage us to explore the world around us with others. It’s a completely different idea to “goggle in” (to take a Snow Crash term) to a virtual metaverse to escape where we are. (I have a theory that the reason why “metaverse” is hot right now is because we want to escape the reality of 2020 more than ever.) Certainly the exclusively virtual metaverse has a place in our collective zeitgeist, but the part of the metaverse that I’m excited to come to life is the one already around us, with enhancements and shared experiences that bring us all together.
When folks think of wearables, they tend to think of Google Glass, which was too early for its time. But the upcoming wearables are ultimately the way in which AR will become even more special. In 2019, Niantic also announced our collaboration with Qualcomm to develop wearables that work with Niantic’s platform. Microsoft’s continued research, B2B, and B2C work for Hololens has advanced what wearables can be and the use cases for them, including through this new partnership with Niantic.
We like to say at Niantic that we’re making dreams of our explorers come true: the dreams of Trainers, Agents, Wizards, and more. And I’m excited: no doubt, the shift will take time, but this partnership is just the beginning of a whole new set of chapters of dreams to come true at the seam of the digital and physical world.
Disclaimer: Yes, I work for Niantic, but other than the facts mentioned and cited above, any commentary is my own opinion. Anyone should feel entitled to having and expressing an opinion about the work they do that they’re passionate about, but that doesn’t mean that these are the same views of the company I work for!
