海角大神

Pok茅mon Go is more than just a wildly popular game 鈥� it is a window, albeit a primitive one, into a new, potentially far-reaching technology.

While players today hunt Pok茅 monsters, which pop up in real-life gathering spots, in the future the technology will be able to foster communities that meet face-to-face, give businesses new ways to bring customers to their location, and allow firefighters to 鈥渟ee鈥� structural vulnerabilities in burning buildings and plot exit routes.

It has also sparked privacy concerns. By marrying 鈥渁ugmented reality鈥� or AR, which projects computer video onto physical space, with geolocation, the game can track where a player is. That carries risks as well as benefits.

Pok茅mon Go is a 鈥減rimitive version of AR, to be sure,鈥� says Darrell West, founding director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution. But it鈥檚 also an advance look 鈥渋nto the technology our world will wield 10 or even five years from now.鈥�

Eight days after its July 6 release, Pok茅mon Go attracted 25 million users, becoming America鈥檚 most popular mobile game ever, according to . Since then, the numbers have fallen off somewhat, but it remains hugely popular.

At Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., for example, the campus is replete with Pok茅mon gyms and stops. 鈥淚t鈥檚 one of the better places in the entire city of Norfolk to go on Pok茅 Walks,鈥� says D.E. Wittkower, an assistant professor who studies the philosophy of technology and culture.

Since the launch of Pok茅mon, 鈥淲e鈥檝e seen a huge increase in students walking around talking to each other,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been really fabulous to see this very real community pop up where people are talking to each other about shared interests in public spaces. Some were together in those spaces before, but they didn鈥檛 have something they were doing together.鈥�

It led Dr. Wittkower and his colleagues to think about how they could use Pok茅mon to reach out to students, with plans to add Pok茅mon lures to bring students to temporary outdoor information desks, as well as placing counseling and writing center stops along Pok茅mon walks.

鈥淚f you buy $100 worth of Pok茅-coins, it鈥檚 about $1.90 per hour to set up a lure 鈥� that鈥檚 really cheap,鈥� he adds.

The game also has business applications.

鈥淭his is also the first time we鈥檝e seen an app that allows a business to actually create a vehicle to advertise that draws people physically to them,鈥� notes Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies Inc., a market-research firm in San Jose, Calif.

Restaurants or shops can purchase 鈥渓ures鈥� to draw Pok茅mon characters to their sites, which in turn draw players who might then buy a soda or snack.

For this all to work, Pok茅mon Go requires players to provide access to valuable data on their phones 鈥� specifically GPS and camera features.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the app requested 鈥渇ull account access鈥� to even more data, a fact that analysts found particularly troubling.聽Niantic has since said that the request was a mistake, and that they didn鈥檛 actually use any of it.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 think they were planning on doing anything nefarious with this data,鈥� says聽Adam Reeve, principal architect for the cyber security company RedOwl Analytics. But it鈥檚 almost irresistibly valuable for marketing 鈥� and any data companies collect is also data that can be stolen.

Then there are the security concerns that come with large gatherings of Pok茅mon players.

鈥淵ou have people in large groups going to places they might not normally go,鈥� Mr. Reeve says. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e not there for anything malicious, but now you could have a physical security problem. If you鈥檙e the police, you鈥檙e a little concerned by that.鈥�

Still, the technology is also allowing the campus police at ODU to expand community policing efforts, rolling up on lured stops to check in with players, and hanging out and walking with them.

This has resulted in an 鈥渁mazing boon鈥� for community policing efforts, building relationships, Wittkower says.

It is, he adds, 鈥渞eally cool stuff.鈥�