Niantic CEO Says AR ‘More Promising’ As VR Is ‘Isolating’

2016 marked the initial concrete steps of modern technology towards achieving the long held dream of virtual reality, with the release of the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift pioneering the field, and it seems that some debates are brewing between proponents of virtual and augmented reality with the boss of "Pokemon Go" developer Niantic weighing in.

Niantic founder and Chief Executive Officer John Hanke featured in an episode of Recode's "Recode Decode" podcast, as shared via Ubergizmo, where gave his insight into the budding market of the augment reality and virtual reality markets. Niantic is the developer of "Pokemon Go," the mobile entry into the "Pokemon" franchise which is currently one of the biggest examples of games featuring an augmented reality.

Hanke explained that he believes that augmented reality is "far more interesting and promising" for both technology and humanity. This is due to the fact that augmented reality merely superimposes digital displays over real visuals, enhancing what the human eye already sees in the natural world.

By contrast, virtual reality covers a person's eyes and visually immerses a user in a digital world while confining their senses of the outside world. "In a VR situation, you're isolating yourself from everyone around you and entering this completely virtual space," said Hanke whereas "AR is designed to add, enhance the things you do as a human being."

Speaking of Niantic's foray into game development, Hanke said that his company has always aimed at "encouraging people to go outside and see interesting places." But because of the limited capabilities of augmented reality technology tying visuals to smartphone screens and displays, Hanke has had "mixed feelings about people looking at their screen" while out in nature.

It seems that Niantic is hoping to lessen the reliance of people having to look at phone screens to experience augmented reality, with Hanke hoping that there may be seamless augmented reality glasses that can help that prospect. Google's Google Glass technology already exists of course, but the functions of the device are currently not quite what Hanke might be aiming for.