Augmented Reality and Spatial Computing

Augmented reality (AR) overlays computer-generated content onto a live view of the physical world, typically through a smartphone camera or a headset display. Niantic, spun out of Google in 2015, had already built the location-based mobile game Ingress in 2012, which sent players to real-world landmarks to capture virtual territory; the studio reused that same location-game infrastructure, along with Google Maps-derived place data, to build Pokémon Go, launched in July 2016, which layered collectible creatures onto real streets and parks and quickly became a global cultural phenomenon, credited with hundreds of millions of downloads within its first year.