Ingress | The Niantic Project

[SquidInk]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-575 ... lity-game/

Last week we began to see the first hints of Google's first foray into so-called "alternate reality gaming," in which cryptic clues are strewn about the on- and offline worlds for the perusal of highly engaged fans. "What is the Niantic Project?" asked a teaser video. As of today, we know the answer: the Niantic Project is a game called Ingress .

[...]

The thing about layering things onto a world that can only be seen via smartphone is that it tends to make the real world look boring by comparison. On my smartphone, I was capturing portals and linking them to far-flung places; in the real world, I was a guy standing on a corner dodging people heading back to the office after lunch. Alternate reality games promise a kind of magical intersection between real and virtual worlds; Ingress, at least at this early stage, hasn't quite delivered it.

Related: http://www.aqualab.cs.northwestern.edu/ ... ownload/82

We implemented a proof-of-concept augmented reality game for Android called Ghost Hunter. In Ghost Hunter, a player chases ghosts and other monsters around her neighborhood and “zaps” them by capturing their photo through an augmented reality display, for which she is awarded points. We chose this augmented reality game for our implementation because it supports the most control over a user’s device; in addition to a user’s location, augmented reality allows us to control the heading and orientation of the device.

The game consists of two parts: a map screen and an augmented reality display. To play, the user walks around toward the location of “ghosts” which are overlaid on the map screen. When sufficiently close, the game switches to an augmented reality mode in which the player follows arrows on the screen to place the ghost in their cross hairs. Once the ghost is within their sights, the player is able to capture it. Ghost Hunter is implemented in about 3,500 lines of Java code.

[...]

By pairing network services, such as a mobile sensing application, with location-based apps, CSC allows researchers to leverage an application’s incentives (e.g. game objectives) to control the movement of participating users

(LINK)

Gamification. Past generations gamified traditional economics. The idea used to be to 'work hard', collect tokens of success over a period of years, & place them conspicuously in your environment in order to 'rank up', socially or what not. The psychopaths among us were able to extract a lot of power from that game. But this new kind of game is many orders of magnitude more compelling from a power acquisition standpoint.

The free (as in freedom) economy is being dismantled.

Going forward, there will be no economic liberty for the vast majority. The free (as in freedom) economy will be accessible by invitation only. The rest will simply run around in pre-defined physical spaces, digitally tugged by the nose into one planned & programmed economic transaction after another. They will measure 'success' not by the amount or quality of physical goods they acquire, but by how complete their digital game profiles are. It will be natural to them. This is already the case to some extent in many games like World of Warcraft.

The people who run the game will be powerful beyond belief.

Now we begin to see the actual end-game behind all of the data collection and simulation projects in the world.

[SquidInk]

http://www.nianticproject.com/

[SquidInk]

Originally posted by Fan [HERE]

Welcome to the world of conspiracy where nothing is as it seems. The truth is intentionally murky. [...] I guess one side has better IT guys.

Originally a quote about political situations, but relevant on a larger scale, I think.

Well said.

[SquidInk]

http://www.webpronews.com/the-niantic-p ... ok-2012-11

All Things D has an interview with John Hanke, the guy who run’s Google’s Niantic Labs, which created the game (in addition to the Field Trip app launched in September). Here’s a snippet from that:

• “The concept is something like World of Warcraft, where everyone in world is playing the same game,” Hanke said. Players are on one of two teams: “The Enlightened,” who embrace the power, or “The Resistance,” who fight the power. Anyone can play from anywhere in the world, though in more densely played areas there will be more local competition for resources.
  
  Outdoor physical activity is a big component of this, though driving between locations isn’t banned. “You’re like a rat in a maze on the phone,” Hanke said. Then, back at your computer, you can review the larger area and gameplay.

Interestingly, Hanke revealed in that interview that the game will incorporate advertising by adding real physical stores and products in the game, and that partners include Hint Water, Zipcar, Jamba Juice and Chrome apparel and messenger bags.

John Hanke, guy who founded Keyhole? Down the rabbit hole we go...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyhole,_Inc

Keyhole, Inc., founded in 2001, was a pioneering software development company specializing in geospatial data visualization applications and was acquired by Google in 2004. Initially launched as a spin-off of Intrinsic Graphics, first round funding came from a Sony venture capital fund and others, additional capital came from an NVIDIA bundling deal, from the CIA (via its venture-capital appendage, In-Q-Tel) and from angel investor Brian McClendon (who later came on as a board member and VP). Keyhole's marquee application suite, Earth Viewer, emerged as the highly successful Google Earth application in 2005; other aspects of core technology survive in Google Maps, Google Mobile and the Keyhole Markup Language.

The name "Keyhole" is also a homage to the KH reconnaissance satellites, the original eye-in-the-sky military reconnaissance system now some 30 years old.

[SquidInk]

http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/blog/2012/ ... s-project/

Essentially it looks like the goal is to get enough people from all over the world working together to solve/hack enough of the important clues to solve the mystery.

Clues appear to be well placed so that you get an idea that something is going on with a landmark, but until you find the right interaction with the landmark the information is locked.

From the screen shots we can see there’s a level meter tracking your progress as a player, an energy meter that likely limits your ‘moves’ in the game, and a GUI that was developed specifically for this game.

[SquidInk]

http://imtheirwebguy.com/ingress-proves ... its-users/

On first playing, my reaction was pure awe. Ingress is a sci-fi conspiracy game played in the real world by walking around and interacting with the local landscape and other players. The first time I opened it, I ended up on an unplanned two mile walk around the neighborhood.

[...]

Ingress is also the answer to a question: how do we get users to help improve what is already the best mapping system available? With the release of Ingress, tens of thousands of formerly couch locked nerds (such as myself) are now gleefully clocking miles on their pedometers, walking back alleys and park paths with a GPS device recording the entire trip. While Google’s map cars have gone everywhere that can be driven, Google now has their users filling in the gaps between streets.

I think this explanation is akin to identifying the top layer of the onion. It's probably accurate, as far as it goes.

I have to admit, part of me would probably enjoy participating in the game portion of this.

[SquidInk]

http://support.google.com/ingress/answe ... ic=2799231

The primary goal of the game is defend the takeover of the human race by an unknown “Shaper” force or, depending on your perspective, to assist in an “Enlightenment” of mankind through an alliance with the Shapers. This is accomplished by aligning with either the Resistance or the Enlightened faction and by creating “Control Fields” over geographic areas. Progress in the game is measured by the number of Mind Units controlled by each Faction (visible on the Intel Map).
*
XM Control Fields are established by claiming Portals and then linking Portals together to form Fields. More powerful Portals can link over longer distances (up to hundreds of kilometers). The link range of a Portal is determined by the power of the attached Resonators. Portal Keys are needed to form links.
*
When three Portals are linked to form a triangle, a Control Field is established over the region. It will be rendered on the Scanner as a hazy blue or green field over the area. The number of Mind Units claimed is related to the population density of the area covered. Cities yield more Mind Units than rural areas.
*
Your ultimate goal is to cooperate with other players in your Faction to secure or liberate the entire world.

[SquidInk]

[yt]wJyfvUzWT1Y#![/yt]

[Fan]

What can I say. I will try it out I am sure. The fact that they will use this to map out ultra-detailed street view is neat.

It is scary, in a William Gibson way, but it is also interesting to me... I have wanted to get into augmented reality for so long, and finally the tools are becoming available. There will be major improvements in libraries and platforms dealing with this stuff, and the "good guys" (IRL) will be able to make some interesting hack-traptions with them.

[SquidInk]

Sometimes I hope I'm raving in Zion when SHTF. Other times I think to myself, 'self, you can't forge the world of your dreams, so live in this one - fully & with no regrets'. Then there are the dark days.

Internal conflicts are points of leverage. I feel the tug of the Hive too...

Related:
1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation

2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperreality

3] http://www.transparencynow.com/eco.htm

As Eco explains it, his trip is a pilgrimage in search of "hyperreality," or the world of "the Absolute Fake," in which imitations don't merely reproduce reality, but try improve on it.

Not unexpectedly, it leads him to the "absolutely fake cities," Disneyland and Disney World, with their re-created main streets, imitation castles and lifelike, animatronic robots. Here, he takes a boat ride through artificial caves, where he sees scenes of pirates sacking a city, in the attraction, Pirates of the Caribbean, and he travels through a ghost story that appears to have come to life, with transparent, dancing spirits, and skeletal hands lifting gravestones, in the attraction, the Haunted Mansion.

It is in the two Disneys, where he finds the ultimate expression of hyperreality, in which everything is brighter, larger and more entertaining than in everyday life. In comparison to Disney, he implies, reality can be disappointing. When he travels the artificial river in Disneyland, for example, he sees animatronic imitations of animals. But, on a trip down the real Mississippi, the river fails to reveal its alligators. "...You risk feeling homesick for Disneyland," he concludes, "where the wild animals don't have to be coaxed. Disneyland tells us that technology can give us more reality than nature can."

He also discovers something else in Disney: a place that no longer even pretends it is imitating reality, but is straightforward about the fact that "within its magic enclosure it is fantasy that is absolutely reproduced."

[...] "The Main Street facades are presented to us as toy houses and invite us to enter them, but their interior is always a disguised supermarket, where you buy obsessively, believing that you are still playing," he writes. He similarly finds in Disney, "An allegory of the consumer society, a place of absolute iconism, Disneyland is also as place of total passivity. Its visitors must agree to behave like robots."

[Fan]

isn't it up to the user to be responsible and to determine the difference between reality and non-reality? I have to do this every day, every minute... The internet is the greatest spying mechanism ever created, fake reality. However, it is also a platform allowing for massive communication advances and information storage and retrieval.

I see most of these things as pure tools. The tools can be wielded by evil or good or robots or sheep. You yourself need to divine who is wielding them for what purpose and how you can use or adapt the tool to your means.

[SquidInk]

isn't it up to the user to be responsible and to determine the difference between reality and non-reality? I have to do this every day, every minute... The internet is the greatest spying mechanism ever created, fake reality. However, it is also a platform allowing for massive communication advances and information storage and retrieval.

I see most of these things as pure tools. The tools can be wielded by evil or good or robots or sheep. You yourself need to divine who is wielding them for what purpose and how you can use or adapt the tool to your means.

Sure, that makes sense to you because you (like me) are witnessing the transition. Kids will never see the analog world. Their world will 'behave' differently.

example: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/1409 ... the-future

In a year or two, augmented reality (AR) headsets such as Google Glass may double up as a virtual dieting pill. New research from the University of Tokyo shows that a very simple AR trick can reduce the amount that you eat by 10% — and yes, the same trick, used in the inverse, can be used to increase food consumption by 15%, too.

The AR trick is very simple: By donning the glasses, the University of Tokyo’s special software “seamlessly” scales up the size of your food. In the video below, you see a person picking up what seems to be an Oreo cookie, and then the software automatically scales it up to 1.5 times its natural size. Using a deformation algorithm, the person’s hand is manipulated so that the giant Oreo appears (somewhat) natural. In testing, this simple trick was enough to reduce the amount of food eaten by 10%.

In the same video you can also see the inverse effect applied, shrinking the Oreo down to two-thirds its natural size. In testing, this increased food consumption by 15%. As you can see, the technology currently requires the use of blue screen chroma keying, but moving forward the Hirose-Tanikawa Lab research team hopes to improve the software so that it could work anywhere.

Think about the implications of using technology to leverage psychological weaknesses, and to leapfrog evolutions.

• "you can also see the inverse effect applied, shrinking the Oreo down to two-thirds its natural size.
  In testing, this increased food consumption by 15%."

No *net* good can come of this.

[Fan]

I hear you, but every innovation can be implicated in this... the discovery of fire allowed us to cook and from then on kids had no idea that we used to have to eat raw meat / veggies. The reality of food changed. However, I still know that food comes from live things. I know it is an oversimplification, but even when "reality" changes for us the past is not necessarily lost, and alternate ways of doing things still exist.

In the oreo example, they can just do this to the physical food itself, and you can be damned sure they tested every size to find the optimal one. These tricks are around, "skinny mirrors" in department stores, wonderbras, fertilizers, GMO, bla. Trickery has always been around, now they can do it in real-time, but is that worse or better? I think it is easier to see through personally because you can take the glasses off and look - which you cannot do with physical reality tricks.

[SquidInk]

The big difference I see between the neolithic revolution and the digital revolution is this: we now run the risk of allowing a web-work of economic manipulators to consolidate their position between each individual and organic reality.

Of course, nothing less than free will is on the line.

[Fan]

I guess that is the difference. I don't think we have had free will for a long time. Even ones who think they do, don't. I know my will is bent by thousands of influences every day, and that those bends are controlled. Whether they are comprehensive or not, whether they are organized on a broader scale, whether they are possible to filter... these are the questions for me.

This is just one more bend. The strong wills survive. They won't be free, but they may eke out a life.