Niantic’s Peridot, the Augmented Reality Alien Dog, Is Now a Talking Tour Guide

Niantic is giving its cute AR cartoon companions a voice that will let them guide you around in the real world and point out interesting facts. The feature is being demo’d first in Snap Spectacles.

Imagine you’re walking your dog. It interacts with the world around you—sniffing some things, relieving itself on others. You walk down the Embarcadero in San Francisco on a bright sunny day, and you see the Ferry Building in the distance as you look out into the bay. Your dog turns to you, looks you in the eye, and says, “Did you know this waterfront was blocked by piers and a freeway for 100 years?”

OK now imagine your dog looks like an alien and only you can see it. That’s the vision for a new capability created for the Niantic Labs AR experience Peridot.

Niantic, also the developer of the worldwide ...