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Comment by TheHippo | Hacker News Reader

Some one should get all the Ingress players to install the app and contribute data. Larger city would be mapped in no time.

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The client UI a little geeky now, but we have some gamification ideas akin to Google's Ingress or Nintendo's Treasure World games:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingress_%28game%29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_World

Turn your API users into data suppliers by adding an optional GPS lat/long and accuracy radius to the API request. You could potentially enhance the position they already have with wifi data (like Google Maps claims to do), and collect the GPS to wifi correlations to help other users. This is potentially a much larger data source than people running dedicated stumblers.

Yes, we are aware of this approach, thx for reminding us. It wasn't a priority so far, as we don't have anyone using the search API's just yet.

Isn't this likely to be at least part of the point of Ingress in the first place?

I'm sure it is. Google obscures their involvement with Ingress by funding Niantic Labs, a "Google start-up company" that just happens to have the same address as Google's San Francisco office.

Both the Ingress website and the play store download page list "NianticLabs@Google" as the creator. Was it ever a secret? The ads were meant to be mysterious in general, but I can't remember any coverage that didn't mention the Google connection pretty prominently.

On a different note: I can't believe the game is still invite only. Do people still play it? I tried to get into it, but quickly grew tired of it because everyone around me was much better than me and I couldn't sustain the interest needed to learn the ins and outs of getting good at it.

Yeah, you are right. Google's participation is not "secret", but it's unclear (to me) how much access Google gets to Niantic Labs' user data.

Also, Ingress is "invitation only" in the sense that they will email you an invitation code if you register on their website. <:)

Huh? How do you map a city? Or what do you mean by mapping a city. We know a city's approximate lat, long and we know lat and long of various locations except we don't know exactly what is at a particular coordinate, or the road condition.

edit downvote without a comment is a crime.

I Think you are getting down-voted by misunderstanding what the parent was saying.

The parent is talking about mapping out WiFi and Cell data through a city. Mapping out it's radio spectrum spatially. Not a traditional human usable map such as a street map, road conditions, or whatever else you may be thinking.

I asked specifically to address his point.

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