Niantic LightshipはNianticが開発・提供するゲームを動かす一連のツールやサービスを含めたNianticのプラットフォーム全体をカバーしたり、スマートフォンで高度な拡張現実(AR)を使うアプリを開発するためのプラットフォームの名称。Niantic Real World Platformから改名した。Niantic Lightship ARDKは開発者用キットの名称。
Niantic Chat complements COMM and the Forum by enabling Agents to join and create their own public or private groups directly from Ingress, no app-switching required. Agents can coordinate events, farms, or meetups with reminders pinned to the Niantic Chat world map. And Agents can optionally choose to temporarily share their location with their groups to help with coordinating ops.
tl;dr: Ingress is powered by Niantic Lightship, and Adventure Sync and Portal Scan Meshing are coming soon.
We've been working to move Ingress onto the Niantic Lightship platform leading up to Ingress Year 9 on Nov 15. To date, we’ve shipped many Lightship features, including Portal Scanning with feature point visualization, the Niantic Profile, the Niantic Chat Closed Beta with Niantic Friends, and daily syncs of accepted Portals from Niantic Wayfarer. But there’s another Lightship feature that Agents have also asked for, especially after we added the Kinetic Capsule to the Ingress Scanner.
Adventure Sync is coming soon. It connects with Google Fit or Apple HealthKit to record your walking distance even if the Ingress Scanner isn’t open. If you choose to turn it on, then your walking distance will be tallied in the background and applied towards your Trekker medal and Kinetic Capsule Programs. When enabled, it should improve our accuracy of how we record your walking distance.
Please note that Adventure Sync is optional and can be turned on or off at any time. Kinetic Capsule Programs will continue to be limited to a max 40 km traveled per day. And recording walking distance in the background versus requiring Ingress to be in the foreground with your screen on should help improve battery usage.
Additionally, we’re adding Lightship ARDK’s Real-Time Mapping to enable Portal Scan Meshing. Like Adventure Sync, Meshing is also an optional feature, and it allows Agents to better see what has and hasn’t been scanned during a Portal Scan. We’ll start with a shortlist of supported Android and iOS devices, then expand this list over time. Crowdsourcing Portal Scans allows our Lightship Team to build a 3D map of the Portal Network that can be used to make future augmented reality (AR) features in Ingress more realistic.
Animation GIF: Portal Scan Messing by Brian Rose
By working with our Lightship Team, we’re able to scale our team’s efforts and focus on growing the global Agent community. We've got more planned for Year 9 and beyond, so stay tuned and hack the planet.
