Prisma can turn Facebook Live broadcasts into artistic affairs

Prisma's latest update gives you the power to air artistic videos on Facebook Live. When you switch from Photos to Videos, you'll now see a "Live Stream" button that broadcasts whatever it is you're capturing on cam. You'll be able to apply any of the eight available art filters onto your broadcasts, which means you can transform any ordinary event into a moving painting on the fly. Unfortunately, this feature has a pretty limited reach: you'll only get Facebook Live integration if you have an iPhone 7 or a 6s. Prisma says it's because videos are processed locally on the device -- the update also improves overall video quality -- and requires the phones' power.

In its announcement, the company said it knows both Facebook and Google are working on their own Prisma-like offerings. The social network launched artistic filters along with Snapchat-like features for Live a few days ago, while Google revealed that it's working on its own style-transfer technology at the same time. Prisma CEO Aleksey Moiseenkov says it's "really cool that Google and Facebook are trying to copy" the company's app, but he thinks "that's the evidence that style transfer and all this on-device deep learning stuff matters a lot for every big company in the world."

Besides announcing the new feature, the company also assures Android fans that it still plans to bring offline processing to the platform, even though it's taking some time to do so. Prisma promises to launch GIF support, to add social sharing options and to improve photo quality and offline processing time, as well.