The Future as Told by Pokémon Go

Granted. I’m among those who enjoy hearing about the weekly Pokémon Go Darwin Award Winners, including such feats as walking oblivious into traffic and wandering into inescapable caves.

That being said, I think that Niantic is on the cutting edge with this augmented reality game that is taking the world by storm. We’ve been talking about the type of location-based services that Wi-Fi enables for several years now. With Pokémon Go you can easily make the next leap to see how the GPS and camera on a mobile device used to create a new experience in the real world can be expanded indoors with Hyperlocation to open up the next generation of augmented and virtual reality experiences and services.

Business Insider/Julie Bort

I was fortunate to be able to hear Kevin Spacey provide the closing keynote during Cisco Live last week. Kevin talked eloquently about his belief that augmented reality and virtual reality represent the exciting future of entertainment, providing the ability to place ourselves into the story (which is what we do when we read a good book or see a good movie)..

He then went a step further, citing AR/VR filmmaking innovator Chris Milk who calls the technology “a powerful empathy machine”. Spacey’s point was that virtual reality may not only open up ocean floors and the human body for exploration, but can open up our hearts to feel what it is to live a human experience that’s not our own. It was a hopeful and inspiring speech

In the meantime, I think I’ll expand my birdwatching skills and go search for the elusive Zapdos. Hopefully you won’t find me listed as the next Darwin Award Winner.