Harry Potter: Wizards Unite
is the new augmented reality
game from Niantic,
the company that
made Pokemon Go such a global
phenomenon a few years ago.
Our wizarding community
is at risk of exposure.
Traces of magic are appearing
all over the Muggle world.
Niantic has pioneered a
new kind of video game, one
that combines the virtual
world and the physical one.
Great!
I've rescued a small cat.
I've got one!
So it's a goblin.
You have to draw a
squiggle on the screen
to cast a spell accurately.
So there is somewhat
degree of skill involved.
Whereas Pokemon Go sent
people scurrying around cities
in search of monsters,
this time Harry Potter
is recruiting wizards to
go in search of fragments
and magical artefacts,
bringing some of Harry Potter's
best-loved characters from
the JK Rowling universe
into the real world.
It's doing that with a
combination of smartphones
and sensors, with maps
and location tracking,
and with AR-powered cameras.
And then we go
off hunting again.
Right.
Where's the next one?
Young Hogwarts students
walking the streets.
Over the last couple of
years, Apple and Google
have built AR
technology into hundreds
of millions of smartphones.
And that's made it far easier
for less technical companies,
like IKEA or Nike,
to build AR apps that
let people try on
a virtual sofa,
or a virtual pair of trainers.
Baby hippogriff.
Not many of those to the dozen?
Augmented reality has
become a top priority
for Silicon Valley companies,
including Apple, Snap,
Microsoft, and
Facebook, who are all
hoping that one
day smart glasses
and ubiquitous computing might
supersede the smartphone.
But so far no AR
app has achieved
the kind of worldwide
impact that Pokemon Go did,
and that was three years ago.
Maybe that could change
with Harry Potter sprinkling
a little bit of his magic to
show the latest innovations
in augmented reality.
Apps like Wizards Unite and
Microsoft's forthcoming AR
game Minecraft Earth provide
a testbed for new technologies
such as computer vision
and scene awareness.
So in the not too
distant future,
we could see characters
like a goblin interacting
with real objects around them by
jumping on top of a lamp post,
or climbing a tree.
Despite the billions of
dollars that Silicon Valley is
investing into
augmented reality,
it still isn't clear
if this is a bold leap
into a new dimension,
or just a blind alley.
