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Facebook hopes to prove AR is more than selfie filters and games
As I sit surrounded by software engineers in a conference room with no natural light, playing augmented reality games on an iPhone, I forget for a second that I'm in Seattle visiting Facebook. Not Amazon or Microsoft. Facebook, a company that's evolved from a simple social network to a full-on technology behemoth. Here, inside the company's largest engineering hub besides its Menlo Park headquarters, Facebook says people are working on many of the projects that will impact its 10-year road map and mission of "bringing the world closer together," including Games, Groups, Messenger and, of course, ads. But I'm here to talk about one particular emerging technology that the company believes will be key to its future: augmented reality.
Facebook continues AR push with tracking, audio and location tools
Last year, Facebook revealed Camera Effects Platform and the associated AR Studio — tools to make it easier to create interactive experiences using the Facebook camera. The latter enabled developers to add animated frames, masks and effects for Live broadcasts. Today at the F8 summit in San Jose, California, Facebook is announcing a new version of AR Studio that the company says will make it even easier to create and distribute AR experiences.