This is Viewpoints Explained…
Back in 2016, Pokémon Go turned the outside world into a virtual playground. at its height, the game had about 230 million monthly users. people were hooked and ventured into new neighborhoods, parks and landmarks to catch their favorite Pokemon. However, most users didn’t realize that their activity was being recorded and saved. today, it’s being used to build a detailed map of the physical world.
Niantic, the company behind Pokémon Go, has partnered with Coco Robotics, a delivery robot company. the goal is use a technique called a visual positioning system, or VPS, to help robots navigate sidewalks. instead of relying just on GPS, which can be off by several feet, this system uses visual cues, like buildings, signs and landmarks, to pinpoint specific locations.
VPS was trained on more than 30 billion images – many of them captured by Pokémon Go users over the years. Features like in-game scanning tasks and “Field research” encouraged players to record statues, public spaces and city corners from multiple angles. When you stack those images together across different times of day, weather conditions and perspectives, you get a highly detailed 3D model of real-world environments.
In other words, playing the game created a map that robots can now use to deliver your takeout. But this application also raises bigger questions. For one, it shows how data collected for entertainment can be reused a decade later for something entirely different – often without people realizing it at the time. And secondly, as these robots hit the streets and use their cameras to navigate, they’ll be constantly capturing and saving new images of public spaces. Companies say this data is handled responsibly, but it does blur the line between innovation, privacy and mass surveillance.
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