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'Drive now, catch Pokemon later,' Wisconsin Department of Transportation says

'Drive now, catch Pokemon later,' Wisconsin Department of Transportation says
Posted at 12:23 PM, Jul 13, 2016
and last updated 2016-07-13 17:25:14-04

As smartphone app Pokemon Go's popularity explodes, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation is reminding drivers to stay focused on the road instead of their devices.

An account linked to the department tweeted a photo from a highway sign near Rockford, Wisconsin of a sign that reads "Drive now, catch Pokemon later."

The game allows people to catch virtual creatures known as Pokemon "in real life" through a technology called augmented reality (read a good explanation in the New York Times here).

While the latest iteration of Nintendo's beloved franchise has gotten legions of gamers off the couch, that's not to say the game hasn't attracted its fair share of negative coverage as well. A teenager in Wyoming stumbled upon a real corpse while he was hunting for virtual characters, and police in Missouri say criminals have used the game to lure victims into robberies.

Locally, two teenage boys were caught.