7 ms·
Niantic Labs splitting from Google
- afarrell 11y agoI wonder if that convention they were planning to hold is still going to happen.
- Sanddancer 11y agoProbably. They're saying additional backers, and google's staying on, which strongly suggests that they're in it for the long haul.
- reilly3000 11y agoApparently the N namespace was already reserved on the alphabet.
- jmgrosen 11y agoHmmm.... does this mean totally independent or part of Alphabet?
- banderon 11y agoI haven't seen Ingress get to the front page since I joined, so I needto take this opportunity to shout out to my fellow resistance crew!
- afarrell 11y agoHow do you feel about Justinian's actions in response to the riots?
- LeonB 11y agobackground: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots ...from AD 532.
- kelt 11y agoHello there! :D
- brianzelip 11y agoCheers! Keep given em hell!
- gkoberger 11y agoGiven that they didn't mention Alphabet, it seems safe to assume they mean really independent, not Alphabet-independent. I wonder if this was Niantic's or Google's decision. EDIT: I assume Google still has equity, hence why they were mentioned. You can't spin out without the parent company getting something.
- jfoster 11y agoBut they also say: "... with some amazing new partners joining Google as collaborators and backers." The timing would also suggest that it could be part of Alphabet. On the other hand, why wouldn't they even mention Alphabet if they were becoming a subsidiary? I'm confused. At a minimum, it sounds like Google is somehow still involved.
- Yhippa 11y agoThis is very interesting to me. I guess this means Alphabet has enough confidence in Niantic to essentially spin them off. They wouldn't do this if they had negative future prospects right? I honestly had no idea Niantic was this big to warrant spinning them off from Alphabet.
- gkoberger 11y agoOr, more likely, Niantic was doing badly (financially) and they wanted them gone. If they were doing well, why would they let them go?
- sloanesturz 11y agoI feel like this has to mean becoming a subsidiary of Alphabet (and is probably the first of many Google divisions to become an Alphabet subsidiary).
- QuercusMax 11y agoNope. Not part of Alphabet. Definitely on its own, but still partly owned by Google. (I'm a Googler who works with somebody who just transferred out of Niantic.)
- nadams 11y agoIngress is a great idea - but poorly implemented. I have cheated (not with malicious intent - I just wanted to prove that it could be done), and heard of other potential cheating cases as well. I definitely wouldn't use GPS as a sole indicator of someone's position for a game.
- simonw 11y agoDo you think that's a solvable problem? I would imagine it isn't, outside of using statistical analysis to spot obvious widespread cheating.
- Zigurd 11y agoGamers develop sophisticated cheats, and, yes, multi-player game companies do look for outliers. It's not a solvable problem but it is an advanced arms race.
- troymc 11y agoThe solution is to use other sources of location information in addition to GPS.
- cpitman 11y agoUnless that source of information is not on the phone, it will have the same problem. And I'm not sure I want cell phone companies reporting in to external parties where my phone is.
- jklp 11y agoCan't those other sources also be spoofed?
- nadams 11y ago> Can't those other sources also be spoofed? It's a lot harder to spoof say for example APs near you, signal strength to a cell tower, and/or IP geolocation - than a GPS signal. If you can spoof all of that - you probably aren't interested in playing a game like ingress. You have your own more interesting game you play...
- mappu 11y agoThe Ingress game was a thinly-veiled way to fill in location data where Google didn't have coverage in it's own database, right? Why would they let this strategic asset go? I bet Mozilla MLS would love to have this kind of popular data source. It's like how DNS queries to 8.8.8.8 can allow Google to find more of the web to spider.
- manicdee 11y agoI suspect Niamtic have found all the low hanging fruit, thus no more Seer badges. It is also possible that Google has refined a "find local points of interest" algorithm which is based on where people stop for longer than might be indicated by traffic lights, pedestrian crossings or other signifiers. Then there is metadata from images (crawl places like Flickr and SmugMug for example). Add to that the cost of having people review portal submissions and you can invent reasons why Google would want to let Niantic go.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago> It's like how DNS queries to 8.8.8.8 can allow Google to find more of the web to spider. Any links discussing that?
- mappu 11y agoNothing clear-cut, sorry. Although their policy does say they permanently log all requested domains. Anecdotally, i run a private community site on "foo".dyndns.org with no inbound links anywhere, never submitted to google webmaster tools, but it shows up in a google search for "foo". Google public DNS is widely used amongst community members.
- ChuckMcM 11y agoI haven't seen any links but I wouldn't be surprised. It was a theme (meme?) at Google to create a free service to generate data for other stuff. They create their 411 service to collect voice recognition information (for example). And I do believe Ingress (game) was originally a way to augment their maps data.
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- brianchu 11y agoInteresting hearsay on Reddit (via Twitter) https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/631630506300448769 https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/631630506300448769, claiming it was spun off because it wasn't considered valuable.
- morganvachon 11y agoThe Resistance (including me) and Enlightened in my area have really scaled back lately; even Hangouts/Slack chat is getting quiet. I don't know if that's a sign of things worldwide (it seems Japan is hot and heavy in the game right now according to one of our agents who just got back from there) but it appears a lot of the long-time players are stepping out of the game. We also see a ton of newbies come and quickly go, often never reaching past level 3 or so. I think that is partly due to the group mods no longer actively recruiting them into the group and helping with training. I realize churn is a common occurrence with any MMO, but Ingress always seemed like more than a game; our group socializes outside of the game and I wouldn't be surprised if we all remained in contact long after Niantic shuts it down.
- numinit 11y agoStill very active everywhere I've played.
- greyman 11y agoI am playing in Europe for about 12 months, and while the game is still going on, the number of players doesn't increase...some are joining, and about the equal amount leaves. So I wonder if the game had its peak already. After a few months it becomes kind of repetitive... but anyway, it's a good game, I enjoy playing it, especially if I come to some new city.
- lnanek2 11y agoGood news for them, I guess. This way they can write iOS, Windows Phone, etc. clients to go with their Android one. Also ditch the unsupportive parent company (more wood behind fewer arrows and all that) known for killing projects.
- syntheticnature 11y agoAn official iOS app already exists.
- kissickas 11y agoNiantic has been notoriously slow at infrastructure upgrades, shutting down huge parts of the game (like the Intel Map[0] practically required for large-scale operations) during peak hours, which are always of course during events. Could it be that they needed to spin off from Google in order to get access to AWS, among other things? [0] https://www.ingress.com/intel https://www.ingress.com/intel
- karl42 11y agoI don't see a reason why they wouldn't be able to scale on Google's could. So I don't think that has anything to do with the spinoff.
- ArekDymalski 11y agoIf NIA isn't becoming a part of Alphabet, I'm quite sure soon I'll have more free time to pursue other hobbies. My reaction is quite ambivalent...
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- Kiro 11y agoHow do these splits work? Is Google still a shareholder or something? If not, why would they just give up on this for free?
- jploh 11y agoA source inside Niantic hinted something to do with 3D, not sure if it's related to Project Tango. Target release is the same time on the next event series (Oct-ish 2015). Some employees that I know were originally Googlers chose to stay with Google. I do hope Niantic Labs finds more success in this move.
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