Niantic buys gameplay recording app Lowkey to improve its in-game social experience

Niantic has acquired another company to help build out its augmented reality platforms. The company has announced that it's acquiring the team behind Lowkey, an app you can use to easily capture and share gameplay moments. While you can use any screen capture application — or even your phone's built-in feature — to record your games, Lowkey was designed with casual gamers or those who don't want to spend time editing their videos in mind. 

The app can capture videos on your computer, for instance, and sync them with your phone where you can use its simple editing tools to create short clips optimized for mobile viewing. You're also able to share those clips with friends within the app Snapchat-style or publish it for public viewing like TikTok. Niantic didn't reveal what the Lowkey team will be doing for its AR games and experiences exactly, but it said the team's "leadership in this space will accelerate the social experiences [it's] building in [its] products." The company added: "We share a common vision for building community around shared experiences, and enabling new ways to connect and play for our explorers."

Click here for more…..

'Pokemon Go' Creator Niantic Partners with Fold to Launch a New Crypto-Hunting AR Game

Once upon a time, "Pokemon Go" took the world by storm, and now its creator Niantic is taking the use of AR technology to a whole new level. With that, Niantic is now partnering up with Fold to launch a brand new Bitcoin-hunting AR game.

Niantic and Fold to Launch Bitcoin-Hunting AR Game

According to the story by Metro.co.uk, the game could be similar, except this time, players will be looking for Bitcoin instead of Pokemon. Although not a lot has been revealed as of the moment, news of the upcoming crypto-hunting AR game has already started to spread.

A bitcoin app cold Fold has partnered up with Niantic in order to allow people to hunt for Bitcoin in the real world. With that, the company is describing this partnership as an effort to help forge an alternative version of the metaverse that would promote freedom through both Bitcoin and fun.

Click here for more…..

HAAWK Ranked Number 100 Fastest-Growing Company in North America on the 2021 Deloitte Technology Fast 500™

Los Angeles, CA, November 17, 2021 — HAAWK, Inc. (“HAAWK”) today announced it ranked number 100 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500™, a ranking of the 500 fastest-growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences, fintech, and energy tech companies in North America, now in its 27th year. HAAWK grew 1,570% during this period.

HAAWK chief executive officer, Ryan Born, credits the continued proliferation of user-generated content (UGC) with the company’s 1,570% revenue growth. He said, “Capturing more watch time than ever before, UGC remains a high growth segment within both media production and consumption. Music remains a primary focus and integral building block for YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and other UGC platforms. Since inception, HAAWK has been committed to building tools and services that assist music producers, labels, publishers, and video creators with UGC monetization. Our dedication to the creator community will continue to deliver growth in 2022 and beyond.”

“Each year the Technology Fast 500 shines a light on leading innovators in technology and this year is no exception,” said Paul Silverglate, vice chair, Deloitte LLP and U.S. technology sector leader. “In the face of innumerable challenges resulting from the pandemic, the best and brightest were able to pivot, reinvent and transform and grow. We celebrate the winning organizations and especially the talented employees driving their success.”

Click here for more…..

Niantic raises $300M at $9B valuation as it guns for the real-world metaverse

Pokémon Go maker Niantic has raised $30o million from investor Coatue at a $9 billion valuation as it aims to build the real-world metaverse.

While Facebook/Meta is trying to build the metaverse on a foundation of virtual reality, Niantic has seen its success on location-based gaming with Pokémon Go. And that has made it partial to creating extensions of that game for its version of the metaverse. Techcrunch reported the news.

In other words, San Francisco-based Niantic believes the metaverse can be built with AR images overlaid on the real world. Hanke believes that the VR-based visions of the metaverse, like in Ready Player One, are more like a dystopian nightmare. In a speech at Augmented World Expo, Hanke criticized the dystopias.

Click here for more…..

Niantic launches platform to build ‘real-world metaverse’ apps

Niantic is releasing a platform for building what it calls “real-world metaverse” apps. Called Lightship, the platform is “built around the parts necessary to stitch together the digital and the real world,” CEO John Hanke tells me. 

According to Hanke, Lightship will let mobile apps identify whether a user’s camera is pointed at the sky or water, map the surfaces and depth of an environment in real time, or place a virtual object behind a physical one.

Niantic is best known for creating one of the most successful mobile games ever, Pokémon Go. With Lightship, Hanke says the company is “opening the vault of tech that we’ve been using to build our products” to help others build “planet-scale AR apps.”

Lightship has been in development for quite some time. But starting Monday, it’s open for any developer to access. Most of the software toolkit is free, though Niantic will charge for a feature that can let multiple devices access shared AR experiences simultaneously. The company is also committing $20 million to fund new companies building AR apps.

Click here for more…..