I also wouldn't say 'unknowingly trained', it's pretty obvious what it does, and I think the game even tells you that they want to understands how the POI looks like in 3D.
We joke that maybe PoGo didn't get any benefit from his data, but someone did.
Do we have to think? Apparently they amassed 30B images. :)
But most people probably assumed the purpose was to improve the game, not to train delivery robots.
Or whatever else they end up doing with the data. If, as the article suggests, this ends up adding to the surveillance state by making geolocation of photos more accurate, then I really don't think that's what the players had in mind.
They have then fed that data into a more modern version of colmap (https://github.com/colmap/colmap) to create a point cloud. Then the engineering to make sure that point cloud is aligned accurately and automatically.
Once you have that point cloud aligned to the world, all you need is another image with some overlapping feature. Using simple trigonometry you can work out where the camera is from one picture
This is largely trivial to do for a few 100 sqaure meters. the hard part is doing it fast in at the city scale. Extracting a few thousand features from an image and then matching them against >billion other points is hard to do quickly, without some optimisations.
The thing that is not mentioned here is that data freshness is actually more important. Building change (advertising hoardings, paint jobs, logo changes, building remodelled etc) so the data goes stale. Its actually not that expensive anymore to just send your own people to scan areas. (A number of startups pre 2020 did it, mapillary provides a platform for it, although now owned by facebook)
The robots will be feeding that data back in to the map. the special sauce is updating the map without infringing patents, and doing it efficiently.
i remember this being available in google maps in 2008 or so. fun technology!
I'm more split on my feelings towards it these days given our current political/social climate but part of me still thinks the idea of mapping the real world in great detail is a worthy endeavor if it can be done "right". I'd probably be more inclined to support it if they would release the data or make it publicly accessible for others to use but it being tied to the whims of a corporation (even one that's been less shitty than most) makes it hard to get behind.
Open Street Maps does exactly this, and could do with more volunteers and/or donations.
I've used osm in the past but haven't heard of them supporting AR style mapping submissions of points of interest, do you have any links to resources on that?
HAH! Deep dreams.
More of an inner reflection on what it would take for me to get behind it hence the last part of that statement lol.
>> but it being tied to the whims of a corporation (even one that's been less shitty than most) makes it hard to get behind
I wish I could elevate that scenario to the level of a dream lol
Tesla has explicitly ruled out using "HD maps" for autonomous vehicles. This means that all the data they have is going to not building maps, but building scenarios for testing its self driving models.
If you look at Wayve, they are building nerf maps to allow them to create scenarios for edge cases. all of that comes from the gathered data.
If you want to build visual navigation systems, you need lots of fresh data from all over. Seeding it with the data that naintic has is useful, but a lot of that data is out of date so not that useful anymore.
Not obvious if they're successfully selling any of their collected data yet, but they must at least have plans to try.
Not a lot of big companies in the dashcam market, there are a lot of alphabet companies and some small players like Vantrue. The only company with broader recognition is Garmin and it feels like a weird side gig for them.
Niantic builds massive geospatial models that can localize and reconstruct views: https://www.nianticspatial.com/
Extremely detailed mappings of CONUS with spatial intelligence already built around it, and we let the company get sold to Saudi government last year.
You could argue that "of course it must be for AR", but that isn't clear at all. The camera shows a live image before I take a photo, and I wouldn't expect a photo to be captured and sent if I didn't press the (virtual) shutter.
There are probably some cheap phones that do precisely that, and I'd be just as annoyed at them and raise the same concerns.
The lack of transparency is about how Niantic is using the data, selling it to third parties for purposes unrelated to the game. And I agree with the parent that this is a fair trade for a free game, especially since that part is optional, but more transparency would be better.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/8i7byi/pokemo...
> Whether players knew it or not, those scans were creating 3D models of the real world
Kind of shitty reporting. Did users know about this data collection or not? Was it not disclosed?
Technically, lawyers will argue that users had to opportunity to inform themselves.
Practically, nobody knew.
I think it was quite obvious they were harvesting data although lesser technical players maybe weren't.
What's less obvious is the fact they record all your location data for who-knows-what purposes.
It's useful to map the world, this is what Google / Baidu / Yandex Maps are doing too.
The question is how one stands on the monopolistic collection by a commercial entity.
I personally don't mind to share GPS traces and other data with i.e. open streetmap, as I directly benefit from the data as well and it's more or less equal between different entities.
I try not to give too much to Google and similar companies as this increases their competitive advantage, while my benefit is small.
Or is Ingress even still around?
It is interesting that the 'non-gaming' division of the split kept Ingress.
What people dislike is noticing the strings attached so distastefully. I can't think of any fads or pastimes where there aren't any, but the benefits of the activity offered should outweigh the cost.
In that sense, Pokémon Go was a bad deal. I still don't get what was ever in it for the player.
looks back down at phone
And for me it is not just the lack of transparency. It is the power balance. I should not need to work for free, give my data, and god knows what to play a game. I should not be living knowing that I am being exploited at each interaction with software. Transparency is good, but not enough. "Click here to accept" and thousands of lines of legalese do not create a fair society.
> And for me it is not just the lack of transparency. It is the power balance. I should not need to work for free, give my data, and god knows what to play a game.
If you have such a (legitimate) stance, why don't you delete Pokémon Go (and Ingress) as fast as possible from your mobile phone and encourage other people to do the same?
It was obvious from begin that the whole purpose of the game was that naive players are to take pictures of objects that are of interest to Niantic for free. The "payment" is a short dosis of dopamine high. A lot of players seemed to be perfectly fine with this kind of "payment".
I'm encouraging people to regulate big corporations. Fighting individually against corporations larger than countries makes no logical sense. What you are asking me is to follow a losing strategy.
> It was obvious from begin that the whole purpose of the game was that naive players are to take pictures of objects that are of interest to Niantic for free.
Even if a scam is obvious, it is still a scam and needs to be stop by the rule of law.
I would be motivated to collect free data if it meant I was helping save lives, with that help not being behind a paywall.
I would be motivated to play a free game with ads just for the fun of it.
I would not be motivated to play a free game just for the fun of it if my playing of the game was furthering some faceless corporation's profit motives.
In fact, in that last scenario, I would feel tricked, and it would take a non-trivial amount of money for me to not feel that way.
The game is free, with doing so being the price. If you don't like that price, you can always pay $80 for a traditional Pokemon game.
As such, I don't get the handwringing. There is no such thing as a free lunch and never will be.
LOL: Remember when they literally said the Pope wasn't Christian enough.
PUSH your code to fit to find out more.
PIs need to live in the future too.
Swipe left/right if you want to take the job.
Huh? Does popsci not have copy editors?
I don’t know if there’s much substance to the delivery robot story. This could be a journalist trying to make the story relatable.
