Fakebooking

I thought this was very clever.  Photoshop can be your best friend or your worst enemy.  We’ve talked about this at Fox News joking around saying these fakebookers think they are so funny.  “They say they are eating exotic food when really it is just Ramen.”  You have to be clever to pull these things off.  Pulling the wool over your friends eyes isn’t something everyone will appreciate it either.

Doing this sort of thing is tempting.  People get so interested in others when they have life changing events happening to them.  They may act interested if they haven’t known the person at any point in their lives and feel comfortable reaching out to that like or comment button when people jump out and do those things.  They could also be genuinely interested.  The motives behind doing this may be called into question, but clearly she was okay with that.

FAQ on Ingress

What are the must-have apps that you use as support in playing Ingress?

Use Ingress Intel Helper, Integrated Timer for Ingress, Google Maps, and Hangouts regularly. This is a good question, and would probably receive more attention if it were a standalone post.

This is an FYI for jailbroken iOS users:

You will need to download “tsProtector p” from cydia and block ingress access in order to get ingress to work Properly on your device. With ingress being free, the $1 or so for this cydia purchase is beyond worth it.

 

1. Does that on apply to fields? Or Links as well?
2. Does that mean that a poorly placed link can fuck up an attempted larger field?
3. Does that mean you can use links to “wall off” areas?
4. What happens to enemy portals that are encased within a field? Are they autoflipped? Locked?

 

1. You can’t cross links. Fields are made of links so fields can’t cross. You can enclose field in another. You can’t link while under a field, but you can link from the corners of a field to the interior. So, if you have a field and portal in the middle, you can connect the corners to center for three more fields. Remember the links must be shot inwardly not outwardly.
2. yes
3. yes
4. They stay enemy fields and portals. But the enemy can’t build fields off them. But neither can your teammates build while under your field.

If a friendly field is encircled inside another field, do the Mind Points stack?

Secondly

If someone new like me fucked up an attempted friendly field with a missplaced link, what is the opinion of attacking friendly portals to break the link in the name of the “greater good”?

It depends. Most people don’t care if you kill it for the greater good.

Some people are throwing stupid links and may not realize or care that you flipped it.

A very few people are crazy and will freak out no matter what happens. And some stupid teammates will kill your big giant giant field to build stupid little fields where they are.

Ingress and NianticLabs beginning

Niantic Labs, or NianticLabs at Google (also known as Niantic Project), is an internal startup within Google. The Labs takes its name from a whaling vessel that came to San Francisco during the Gold Rush.  In September 2012, Niantic came out with its first product, a free Android app called Field Trip.  In November 2012, Ingress, an invite-only augmented reality game was launched.

In October 2013, Ingress became an ongoing open beta accessible with Android.  In December 2013, Ingress came out of beta on the Android platform.  In July 2014 Niantic released Ingress on the iOS platform.  In the future, Niantic Labs will release a new game accompanying a set of books and a movie. It will be called EndGame.

The game has been catching fire and has seen rapid growth.  It’s biggest meetups change nearly month-to-month and its exposure is on the rise.  Admittedly, I hadn’t heard of Ingress before this week.  It is all over reddit and blogs.

Google’s Ingress

I think this could revolutionize gaming and the way it is being played.  This sounds an awful lot like the geocaching that we talked about in class, but different degrees are often what make a product jump it seems like.  For example, if Xbox only offered football games people would probably chose to go with the Playstation instead.

You must control more portals than the other faction to win it sounds like.  Adding competition to this geocache spin off would seem like a good idea.  It becomes a virtual hide and seek game too it seems like.  You can leave clues and keep the waypoints off the grid.

The game is not offered in any corner of the globe.  They believe it will be soon.  “The coolest thing about Ingress has been this real-world, social phenomenon,” said Hanke. Last year, meetups started with less than 50 people, and now hundreds routinely show up to take part — this weekend’s conclusion to the “Helios” event in Munich, Germany is expected to be the biggest yet, with some 2,000 people expected to show up.

It is a popular, booming game that will only continue to reach a larger audience.