广州科技翻译公司：The man who put Pokémon on the map
约翰·汉克：把口袋妖怪融入现实场景的人
广州科技翻译公司：约翰•汉克在十多年前领导开发了轰动互联网的谷歌地球，如今他的公司Niantic又开发出了火爆手游《口袋妖怪Go》。
A blockbuster new location-based application launches and breaks the internet. So overwhelming is consumer demand for the mapping service, its servers can barely keep up — which only fuels the hype about the new app.
一款火爆的现实场景新应用一经发布便风靡网络。消费者对这款地图服务的需求如此汹涌，服务器几乎跟不上——而这只是进一步助燃了这款新应用的热度。广州科技翻译公司。
It may sound like Pokémon Go this week, but back in 2005, millions of consumers were seeing their home from space for the first time using GoogleEarth — knocking out the search company’s servers in the process.
这或许听起来像是在描述本周的《口袋妖怪Go》(Pokémon Go)，但是早在2005年，数百万用户使用谷歌地球(Google Earth)首次从太空中鸟瞰自己的家，导致这家搜索公司的服务器瘫痪。
In charge of the launch of both apps was John Hanke, whose experience in building both multiplayer games and digital mapping services has left him running what analysts are already calling the biggest mobile game in
负责推出这两款应用的都是约翰•汉克(John Hanke)，凭借开发多人游戏和数字化地图方面的经验，他现在执掌这款已经被分析师称为美国史上最轰动手机游戏的《口袋妖怪Go》。广州科技翻译公司。
Pokémon Go was launched by San Francisco-based Niantic, an augmented reality start-up where Mr Hanke is chief executive. The company, which is named after a Gold Rush-era ship that now lies buried under downtown San Francisco, was incubated inside Google before spinning out last October.
《口袋妖怪Go》是位于旧金山的Niantic公司开发的，汉克是这家增强现实技术初创公司的首席执行官。公司名字取自淘金热时代的一艘船（如今埋在旧金山市中心地下），它曾是谷歌内部孵化的公司，直到去年10月独立出来。
Mr Hanke, now 49, had spent more than a decade with the search giant after it acquired his previous company, Keyhole, whose rich digital cartography and satellite images formed the basis of both Google Earth and Maps. For Mr Hanke, who had worked for the US State Department in
现年49岁的汉克在谷歌收购他之前的公司Keyhole后，在这家搜索引擎巨头工作了十多年。Keyhole丰富的数字化地图和卫星图像形成了谷歌地球和谷歌地图(Google Maps)的基础。汉克曾经在缅甸为美国国务院工作，后来来到旧金山湾区在加州大学伯克利分校(UC Berkeley)读MBA。对他来说，Keyhole是他被收购的第三家初创公司。之前两家均是视频游戏公司，Keyhole原本也是从另一家游戏公司剥离出来的。广州科技翻译公司。
However, the early 2000s was a difficult time to launch a new internet venture, remembers Brian McClendon, who hired Mr Hanke and served on Keyhole’s board.
然而，曾经聘请汉克的前Keyhole董事布赖恩•麦克伦登(Brian McClendon)回忆道，2000年代初是创办新互联网企业的艰难时期。
“He was able to turn Keyhole into a company . . . and to keep it alive in the very dark times of 2002 when you could not raise money and start-ups were dying like flies,” said Mr McClendon, who worked at Google from Keyhole’s acquisition until last year.
“他有能力把Keyhole变为一家公司……在2002年那段非常黑暗、融不到资、初创公司大批死去的时期让它活下去，”麦克伦登说，在Keyhole被收购后他在谷歌工作到去年。
“Google Earth was one of the biggest internet launches of all time,” says Mr McClendon, who is now at Uber. “Pokémon Go is now in exactly the same situation.” Under pressure, Mr Hanke “can get intense but he stays calm”, he adds.
“谷歌地球是有史以来最轰动的互联网产品之一，”现在在优步(Uber)工作的麦克伦登称，“《口袋妖怪Go》如今的情况完全相同。”在压力之下，汉克“可以变得紧张起来，但是他也可以保持冷静，”他补充道。
By 2010, after working on Google Maps and helping strike the deal to get it built into the first iPhone, Mr Hanke was looking for a new challenge. He set up what was then called Niantic Labs “specifically to explore that intersection between mobile apps and geolocation and entertainment”, he said in an FT interview last year. “The notion was that it was augmented reality but it doesn’t require special glasses.”
在开发谷歌地图并帮助敲定了把该款应用内置到首代iPhone的交易后，到了2010年，汉克已开始寻求新挑战。他创建了当时名为Niantic Labs的公司，“专门探索手机应用、现实场所和娱乐之间的交集”，他在去年接受英国《金融时报》(Financial Times)采访时称，“我们的理念是，它采用增强现实技术，但是不需要特殊眼镜。”广州科技翻译公司。
Its first success, attracting 15m users to date, was Ingress: a sci fi-themed game which sees two rival factions fighting for control of thousands of “portals” scattered all over the world. It still has many loyal players, with up to 10,000 people expected to show up at a Tokyo event this weekend.
它的第一个成功之作是科幻主题游戏Ingress，迄今吸引到了1500万名用户。在这款游戏中，两大对立阵营争夺散布于世界各地的数千个“传送门”。目前，该游戏仍有很多忠实玩家，预计将有1万人出席本周末在东京举办的一场活动。
Although more involved than Pokémon Go, Ingress’s GPS-based gameplay and user-contributed locations would form the basis of Niantic’s later hit. “The game is icebreaker and glue,” Mr Hanke said. “The real fun that people get out of it is going out of the house.”
尽管相比《口袋妖怪GO》更加复杂，但Ingress基于GPS的游戏玩法和用户贡献的地点将为Niantic以后推出爆款游戏奠定基础。“这款游戏是破冰者和粘合剂，”汉克说，“人们从中获得的真正乐趣在于走向户外。”
Among Ingress’s fans in
在日本，Pokémon Company的首席执行官石原恒和(Tsunekazu Ishihara)也是Ingress的粉丝。Pokémon Company是由任天堂以及游戏开发公司Game Freak和Creatures共同持股的。2014年，谷歌曾和Pokémon Company联手在网上进行了一场愚人节恶作剧，把口袋妖怪隐藏在谷歌地图中。广州科技翻译公司。
Mr Hanke struck the deal to work on Pokémon Go before spinning out from Alphabet, when Niantic raised $30m from its former parent, Nintendo and the Pokémon Company. It was an unusual move inside Google that took negotiation and perseverance but Mr Hanke says it was essential for his start-up to flourish.
从Alphabet剥离出来之前，汉克签署了开发《口袋妖怪GO》的协议。当时，Niantic向谷歌、任天堂和Pokémon Company融资3000万美元。这在谷歌内部是一种需要协商和耐力的不寻常举动，但汉克表示，这对于他的创业公司的蒸蒸日上是至关重要的。
“We greatly benefited from the resources at Google, in terms of technical know-how,” Mr Hanke said. But being standalone made dealing with companies such as Nintendo and Apple “a little bit easier”, he said — “just because Google is Google.”
“在技术能力方面，谷歌的资源令我们受益匪浅，”汉克说。但独立以后，跟任天堂和苹果(Apple)等公司打交道“稍微更容易一点儿”，他说，“就因为，谷歌毕竟是谷歌。”
Google — a move he now says was essential for Niantic to flourish. He says he is motivated by an urge to get people out from behind their computer screens and do more exercise, as players chase Pokémon around its virtual maps.
他说，他受到了一种冲动的激励，那就是让人们离开他们的电脑屏幕，更多地锻炼，正如玩家们围绕虚拟地图追逐妖怪精灵一样。广州科技翻译公司。
“I don’t think we were built to sit in a dark room with a piece of electronics strapped on our head,” he says, in a swipe at virtual-reality goggles such as Facebook’s Oculus Rift. “I’m more enamoured of going outside and building real social connections.”
“我认为，我们生来不是要在头上戴着一个电子装备坐在一间黑屋子里，”他说，言下之意批评着Facebook的Oculus Rift那样的虚拟现实眼镜，“我更喜欢到户外去，建立真实的社会联系。”
Safety campaigners and owners of property that has been overrun by Pokémon hunters may debate the overall benefit to society, while it is yet to be seen whether the app can sustain its current level of usage.
被大批精灵搜寻者打扰到的安全倡导者和业主们或许会质疑社会得到的总体好处，而这款应用能否维持当前的使用水平，目前尚未可知。
Pokémon Go is slowly overcoming its teething troubles, with launches in Europe and Asia being rolled out. Mr McClendon says Silicon Valley engineers are always aspiring to make a “positive impact on the world . . . ohn has done it twice.”
随着在欧洲和亚洲上市，《口袋妖怪GO》将慢慢克服初期问题。麦克伦登说，硅谷工程师们总渴望“对世界产生积极影响……约翰已经两次做到了这一点。”
