On December 4, when you were doing whatever you were doing, a gamer who goes by the name of Artio was apparently chartering a plane to fly her to a remote town in Alaska. Why? So she could make a particularly powerful move in the video game Ingress.
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Niantic Labs’ Field Trip is a location-discovery app that runs in the background during your aimless wanderings, piping up when you stumble across something notable. Unfortunately, for software designed to help you travel, it’d only made the one journey itself — to the UK, and no further. Fortunately, the Google-owned company has sent the Android version of the app truly global, helping you find attractions in over 80 countries. Niantic Labs has also jammed in 30 languages and auto-translation, so if you find a restaurant review in an unfamiliar tongue, you won’t have to resort to negotiating with the locals.
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Google
Source: Google Play
While Apple struggles to figure out how to help its users find their way, the mapping experts at Google have just launched a way to get folks to diverge a bit from their given path. Field Trip, released for Android by Google-owned Niantic Labs, runs in the background on your Android handset, eagerly waiting for you to get near a point of interest. Once that happens, it leaps into action, showing you a card for one of thousands of cool locations — historic spots, museums, restaurants and the like. Google’s partnered with a bunch of taste makers for the project, including Flavorpill, Cool Hunting and its own Zagat, to get things done. You can vote choices up and down, change the frequency of pop ups and post your findings to Twitter, Facebook and that one Plus social network. There’s also a driving mode serves as an auditory tour guide when you’re behind the wheel. The app’s available now as a free download in Play. The iOS version, on the other hand, is coming soon.
Psst… yes, it appears to be US-only for now. Bah, humbug.
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile
Google’s Niantic Labs launches Field Trip app for Android, helps the working world play hooky originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Sep 2012 13:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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