Niantic’s New Peridot Virtual Pet Is a Test Vehicle for the Future of AR, AI and Shopping
I'm playing fetch with my bubbly little green-and-black virtual pet, a fuzzball my kid and I called Leopard because it looks like a leopard. I toss a virtual tennis ball by tapping my phone screen and see the ball bounce off the floor and armchair, and Leopard looks like he's chasing after it. This is all on my phone, using the same type of augmented reality tech that's been around for years on apps like Pokemon Go. For Niantic, the makers of Pokemon Go, it's also a prototype for where the company sees itself in a future world of AR glasses that may arrive sometime in the next decade. Did I mention that it's also the debut of a new Amazon shopping service, too?
That's a lot of pressure on a little cuddly virtual pet. Peridot, a free app that's available now on Android and iOS, really is more like an AR-enabled Tamagotchi. ...
It's how the Peridot interacts with the world that's unique. The game maps surroundings instantly using the phone's rear camera, knows to navigate obstacles, and can jump on tables or seem to run behind things. That's the sort of tech Apple has leaned on its lidar sensor on iPhones to accomplish, but it happens on a wider range of phones seamlessly here. ...
Just add Amazon?
Then there's the merchandise, which is where things get weird. This pet game is the debut of a new Amazon service called Amazon Anywhere, which adds a built-in store for real-life merchandise that's based on Peridot....
Like any free-to-play game, it's full of optional paid microtransactions. Amazon Anywhere's additional merchandise store doesn't overlap with any of Niantic's virtual product sales right now, but could it someday? Amazon is focused on the physical retail angle at the moment. But augmented reality is a fluid and fast-moving space, and it's unclear how any of it will evolve. ...
See the full story here: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/niantics-new-peridot-virtual-pet-is-a-test-vehicle-for-the-future-of-ar-ai-and-shopping/
