Skip to content
  • Texas | Arizona | Virginia | Idaho | Illinois
  • (888) 705-0930
  • info@therawragency.com
Facebook-f Twitter Instagram Linkedin-in
rawr logo short
  • Home
  • About
  • Solutions
  • Industries
  • Services
  • Blog
  • Contact
colorized icons 04
B2B Marketing
colorized icons 05
B2C Marketing
colorized icons
Online Visibility Management
colorized icons 07
Healthcare
colorized icons 08
Manufacturing
colorized icons 01
Brand Strategy
  • Graphic Design
  • Corporate Brand Identity
  • Sales Enablement
  • Editorial Calendar Management
colorized icons 02
Website Design
  • WordPress Website Development
  • Conversion Rate Optimization
  • eCommerce Development
  • Content Strategy & Copywriting
colorized icons 03
Digital Marketing
  • Digital Marketing Strategy
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Management
  • Content Marketing & Digital PR
  • Account Based Marketing (B2B)
  • Marketing Automation
Let's Talk

Facebook buys AR startup building a 1:1 digital map of the physical world

Screen Shot 2020 02 10 at 9.27.29 AM 1
  • February 10, 2020
  • General
  • Agency
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email

Facebook has reportedly acquired Scape Technologies, a UK augmented reality (AR) startup. TechCrunch estimated the purchase price might be around $40 million. If Scape were just another AR company, the news wouldn’t be that interesting or potentially significant — but it isn’t.

3D mapping the physical world. Scape’s technology is about creating a 1:1 digital representation of the physical world — it’s as much a mapping company as an AR startup. It’s seeking to build an infrastructure for the next-generation of “spatial-computing devices,” which includes wearables, autonomous vehicles and other devices.

Scape wants to make any physical location or place capable of displaying AR content. The challenge has been location precision. So Scape has created 3D renderings of the world with location precision that doesn’t rely on current location technologies like cell-tower triangulation, GPS or reverse IP targeting. The company claims its visual-positioning system “provides centimeter-level location recognition at a previously unprecedented scale.”

Rendering of persistent AR in the world

Source: Scape Technologies

Partly inspired by Pokemon Go. Scape was partly inspired by the game Pokemon Go, created by Niantic Labs which was spun out of Google. The founder and CEO of Niantic is John Hanke, who ran Google’s mapping and local products for years. Hanke was previously the CEO of Keyhole, which Google bought and which became Google Earth.

Google has been engaged in basically a similar project: mapping the entire globe digitally. However, Scape says it doesn’t require the enormous resources and data processing capabilities that Google has put into Earth, Street View and Maps and points to Waze’s traffic crowdsourcing as another inspiration. The company says it has already created 3D renderings or more than 100 cities globally (that was as of mid-2019).

Numerous applications for Scape’s tech. The ultimate objective is to be able triangulate precise user location anywhere in the world within centimeters. (I haven’t seen a demo so I don’t know how reliable these claims are.) That allows for AR content to be “pinned” to a precise location, building or object.

There are numerous applications for Scape’s visual positioning technology, if fully realized. The types of novelty AR and digital gaming we’ve seen to date are just a small part of that larger vision. Architecture, urban planning, education, and entertainment are some of the fields that could benefit. However the ability to locate users with extreme precision has numerous applications — targeting, attribution, competitive intelligence — separate from AR content. (Once people catch on Facebook may face some questions or scrutiny about the uses of Scape.)

Why we care. It’s probable that Facebook will use the team and technology to help it build out more AR experiences for Facebook.com and, to some degree, extend Facebook into the “real world.” It could also use Scape for offline attribution in places were Scape has built out its mapping infrastructure. But the technology could also enable Facebook to create new mapping and local search applications that it has so far not been able to build (the company once tried to buy Waze unsuccessfully). And there’s a lot more beyond that.

It will be interesting to see how bold the vision is that Facebook allows Scape’s founders to pursue.

This story first appeared on MarTech Today.

The post Facebook buys AR startup building a 1:1 digital map of the physical world appeared first on Search Engine Land.


Source: IAB

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn

Recent Blog Posts

The Future of Healthcare: Unveiling the Potential of Personalized Care

September 18, 2023

Roaring Customer Experiences in Manufacturing: The Rawr Agency to the Rescue!

September 6, 2023

Empowering Healthcare: Patient Engagement Tools at Play

August 29, 2023

Driving Towards a Sustainable Future: Embracing Decentralized Manufacturing

August 23, 2023

Embracing Patient-Centered Care in 2023: A Game-Changer for Healthcare Executives

August 15, 2023
View More
rawr logo short
Facebook-f Twitter Instagram Linkedin-in
Get In Touch
  • Texas | Arizona | Virginia | Idaho | Illinois
  • (888) 705-0930
  • info@therawragency.com
Send An Email

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Copyright 2023 | The RAWR Agency, LLC. |

Sitemap | Privacy Policy