Google Launches Real Life Mobile Game

Google’s smartphone app team Niantic Labs has released a new multiplayer gaming platform for mobile users that turns your real-world location into a virtual world. For example, if you are in Times Square in New York, the app’s built-in scatter map technology knows where you are and adds a virtual layer to it. It leads you to real statues and landmarks to continue the game. Calling the game Ingress, players operate under the premise that a strange energy has been discovered by European scientists, and it must be controlled before it controls you. John Hanke, the location-based genius behind past successes and milestones like Google Earth, Google Maps and Street View commented, “We live in a world of abundant information and ubiquitous computing — why not play in it? For the first time, the world, not the screen, can become the basis for a mobile game — it’s a controller in the palm of your hand.” To request an invite for the trial stages of the game for Android via Google Play, head here.