@jasonkoebler "Large Geospatial Models will help computers perceive, comprehend, and navigate the physical world in a way that will seem equally advanced [to LLM's]"

The more I learn about LLM's the worse they seem, so this might not be the selling point they think it is.

Even their example is weird: the average church has x behind it, so we can safely assume this one will too! But that's... not how the built environment works. I'm not sure how confidently telling a user there's a parking lot behind a church when actually there's a big construction pit would ever be helpful.

@jasonkoebler I hate everything about this lmao

> Niantic’s LGM builds upon its Lightship Visual Positioning System (VPS), which allows players to pin virtual items to physical locations in the world with “centimeter-level accuracy.”

I don't buy that they made a system that can deliver survey grade accuracy without the equipment used by surveyors

> No church is the same, but many share common characteristics. An LGM is a way to access that distributed knowledge.

The similar characteristics are that all churches are buildings lol

Like congrats, you made a model that predicts that a church will have a fire exit at the back. Well done, thanks for emitting a small industrial nation's worth of GHG to tell us that.

Also why would using made up data based on "distributed knowledge" be useful for positioning? If you have someone looking at the back of a building you don't have data for, you could still determine position by the geometry and skew of the building's face, no making up features required.

@jasonkoebler Ha ha!

Fuck.

@jasonkoebler

And look what the advertising did:

@jasonkoebler Unwittingly, unwittingly... I was aware of the underlying spying nature of #pokemonGo, and I tolerated it while I got a quid-pro-quo. In fact, I was prepared for Nyantic to sold my data (I accepted that in its EULA), but not for my phone provider to sold my data, as it did against my will.

I disabled RA mode, but it turned evident that Pokémon Go wanted you to map everything, thus the "RA scanning" of pokéstops.

@jasonkoebler couple with this other recent news of a parternship with savvy games (founded by MbS/the saudi regime). all that sensitive user location data is valuable.

https://www.pocketgamer.biz/savvy-games-group-signs-memorandum-of-understanding-with-niantic-for-mena-expansion/

https://savvygames.com/his-royal-highness-the-crown-prince-announces-savvy-games-group-strategy/

@jasonkoebler

Bastards. Utter bastards. Explains a lot about how much data and battery the damn app used too, christ.

(I used Pokemon Go for two months in the pandemic to prompt myself to exercise but stopped because a simple walk down the street was eating up several gigabytes.)