Niantic Spatial, a spin-off company, transformed the scans into a vast 3D map to be used when satellite signals are unavailable, allowing machines to locate and navigate themselves by sight in the absence of GPS.<\/p>\n
In December, it announced a partnership with Vantor, which specialises in spatial detection software for drones, including military UAVs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe partnership addresses a critical vulnerability in modern operations: GPS unavailability, spoofing, interference, and jamming,\u201d said the announcement. \u201cWhen satellite signals are compromised, autonomous systems and field teams lose their ability to orient, coordinate or maintain accurate situational awareness.\u201d<\/p>\n
The companies told Guardian Australia that ground scans from the game were not directly given to Vantor but instead were used to train Niantic\u2019s foundation models.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Niantic Spatial told the outlet: \u201cAR [augmented reality] scans collected through Pok\u00e9mon Go were submitted voluntarily by players who opted into the feature and were subject to the applicable terms of service and privacy policy at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
In February, Vantor was awarded a contract worth up to $217m (\u00a3162m) from the US army for training software.<\/p>\n
GPS jamming and spoofing \u2013 where a counterfeit radio signal is emitted to suggest a false location \u2013 are used in a host of conflicts, including the Ukraine and Iran wars. They are designed to mislead kamikaze and reconnaissance drones as well as GPS-guided missiles.<\/p>\n
The Visual Positioning System, an alternative to GPS, allows for determining location using a camera that matches what it observes against a pre-existing, detailed 3D model of the environment. It is immune to traditional signal jammers.<\/p>\n
Niantic Spatial and Vantor have been approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Niantic Spatial, a spin-off company, transformed the scans into a vast 3D map to be used when satellite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[733,215213,160075,3235,4332,5438,208138,86,56,54,55,4297,4298,4299,231],"class_list":["post-637089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-virtual-reality","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-drones-aircraft","tag-live-priority","tag-pokemon","tag-pokemon-go","tag-standard","tag-sunday-telegraph-news","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-virtual-reality","tag-virtualreality","tag-vr","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}