Niantic, known for augmented reality mobile games like Pokémon Go and Peridot, revealed a new mixed reality experience on Tuesday. Titled “Wol,” it can be played on Quest headsets and features an “AI-enabled” talking owl discussing the redwood forest.

I packed a lot into that sentence, so let’s break it down. While you can check out this experience on your phone, it differs from Niantic’s AR mobile games because you can also try it using the passthrough video feature on VR headsets like Meta’s Quest 2 and Quest Pro. To use it, you visit a URL — MeetWol.com — meaning you don’t need an app to try it. In the experience itself, a large portal into a virtual redwood forest will appear in front of you, and then Wol will fly over and start...

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