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Twitch streamers are getting Snap's AR selfie filters
As part of its Snap Camera announcement, Snap Inc. has revealed a partnership with Twitch that will bring augmented reality Lenses to users of the video-streaming site. This will give Twitch streamers access to thousands of Snapchat-style selfie filters, including those made by Snap and independent Lens Studio creators. There's no need for users to have a Snapchat account, though the company is hoping to drive Twitch viewers to its mobile app by letting them unlock Lenses that their favorite streamers are "wearing" during a stream. You just have to scan a Snapcode that shows up on the big screen.
Snap is bringing augmented reality Lenses to the desktop
Fresh off its Q3 2018 earnings report, in which it broke a revenue record, Snap Inc. is making another major announcement. Meet Snap Camera, a standalone application that will bring the company's popular augmented reality filters, aka Lenses, to the desktop. Interestingly enough, the new app won't require a Snapchat login, a move Snap says is part of its vision to expand the Lens ecosystem beyond mobile.
Valve explains 'progress' toward a new Steam Store content policy
It's been a few months since Valve announced an "allow everything onto the Steam Store, except for things that we decide are illegal, or straight up trolling" content policy and it's still working out the details. A new blog post provides some insight on how it plans to handle the store once sexual content is again admitted, and what kind of content will be banned.
Selfies are shifting our definition of beauty
Selin Pesmes says she uses selfie filters because they smooth out her skin and present a "better-quality version" of herself. That's likely the same thinking for the millions of other people who regularly post edited pictures of themselves on social media, which are often created using selfie-enhancing tech from apps like Instagram, Snapchat and FaceTune. While some of these filters are fun or creative (for example: They can give you dog or bunny ears), many of them are simply there to make you look prettier. With a quick swipe, they can get rid of blemishes, fix the nose you don't perceive as perfect or give you lips that resemble Kylie Jenner's expensive fillers. Some people love these selfie filters so much that they're going to plastic surgeons and asking for cosmetic procedures that'll make them look like a software-enhanced version of themselves.
Slack search filters help you sort through work chat clutter
Searching in Slack can be... difficult. If you're looking for a specific conversation or file, you may end up wading through pages of fluff to find that one chat you're looking for. Mercifully, it's about to become much easier. Slack is rolling out search filters that provide a much, much overdue ability to whittle searches down to narrower criteria. You can limit them by specific people, channels, file types and date ranges. Looking for what a coworker said about a project last week? You can probably track it down quickly.
LinkedIn adds Snapchat-like video filters because of course it is
Even LinkedIn can't resist the urge to imitate Snapchat, it seems. The job-oriented social network is adding eerily familiar-looking filters to its video capture tools for Android and iOS, letting you brag about your "side hustle" and other updates as if you're one of the hip kids. It feels forced, to put it mildly, but it could be helpful for describing a big trade conference or work project when plain footage might put viewers to sleep. The feature should be available today, so it's worth a try if you'd rather not post Instagram videos in your LinkedIn feed just to seem relevant.
Polygram is a new social network powered by facial recognition
There's a new social network in town and it's packed with some pretty smart and savvy features. Polygram's main contribution to the hard-to-break-into social media world is its ability to detect facial expressions, allowing users to to respond to messages with an emoji based on their actual expression. And rather than just tallying likes or a selection of reactions that viewers have to choose between and click, Polygram allows users to see the face-based emotional response of those that viewed their post.
UK turns to Snapchat to boost young voter turnout
The Electoral Commission has partnered with Snapchat to launch a UK-wide geofilter encouraging selfie-swappers to register to vote in the upcoming general election. It's live in the app right now and asks users to "Find your voice!" ahead of the May 22nd registration deadline and actual vote on June 8th. This nationwide geofilter follows a more localised campaign in Scotland last month, which was intended to get youngsters hyped for council elections -- 16 and 17 years old particularly, given it was the first vote they were eligible to participate in.
YouTube pledges to 'fix' Restricted Mode's LGBTQ+ censorship
After a post by Rowan Ellis, many people recently noticed that YouTube's Restricted Mode filter consistently blocked videos containing LGBTQ+ related content. Despite tweeting that it is supposed to only filter mature content, users tracked down selections like this Tegan & Sara video that were blocked despite being incredibly tame. In a blog post tonight, YouTube VP Johanna Wright stated that "we must and will do a better job."
Prisma lets you create your own photo filters
If you like to use filters in photo apps, you've probably had that moment where the available filters weren't quite what you were looking for. Wouldn't it be nice if you could craft your own? Prisma thinks so. It's updating its service with an option to create your own styles -- specifically, you're training the machine learning system to generate what you want. It's not the same as making a filter in-app, but it could go a long way toward giving your photos a personal touch.
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.
Trump's nationwide Snapchat filter snipes at 'Crooked Hillary'
Social networks have become an extremely important medium for getting younger generations engaged in politics, but they are also proving to be the perfect forum for playground tactics. Snapchat's location-based geofilters are particularly popular, and in the run-up to this year's presidential election, everyone from Clinton, Sanders and Cruz to outside organizations allied to one candidate or another have used them to push their agendas at debates, conventions and other events. The Trump campaign is kicking things up a gear today, though, launching its first nationwide geofilter attacking "Crooked Hillary" ahead of tonight's debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York.
Instagram lets anyone filter words out of comments
Instagram is making good on its promise to bring word filters to everyone. The photo-centric service has announced that anyone can now filter their comments to keep out abusive (or just plain annoying) feedback. If you're tired of dealing with harassment or "get more followers" spam, you won't have to spend ages blocking users or reporting individual comments. It's just a matter of choosing the right keywords to keep discussions civil.
Tesla puts its extreme air pollution filter to the test
When Tesla revealed that the Model X (and eventually, the Model S) would have a HEPA filter so effective that it could protect against bioweapons, people were understandably skeptical. Can it really save you from terrorists? Apparently, it just might. Tesla has revealed some of the in-house testing it conducted for the filter's Bioweapon Defense Mode, and its ability to clean the air borders on overkill. The electric car maker put a Model X into a bubble with extremely dangerous air quality levels (83 times dirtier than the EPA's "good" rating) and watched as the filtration system rendered the air so clean that sensors couldn't even detect what pollution was left. You could drive through a "military grade" attack and not even notice, Tesla claims.
Instababies: People are naming kids after Instagram filters
When it comes to deciding on a baby name, you could go with a family name. Or, like several couples did in 2015, you could look to your cellphone photography habit for inspiration. According to BabyCenter, some of the hottest trends in baby names shared monikers with Instagram filters. Yes, really. The site says that names of the photo-sharing apps presets were extremely popular this year for newborns, with Lux being the top choice. Additionally, Ludwig, Amaro, Reyes, Hudson and Kelvin all rose up the popularity rankings for boys while Juno, Valencia and Willow were routinely picked for girls. The site says it gathered its name popularity and trend data from 340,000 parents from around the world to compile the stats. Here's to hoping the trend continues in 2016 with babies named Lo-Fi, Inkwell and Nashville, because the internet.[Image credit: Shutterstock]
The makers of VSCO Cam unveil an Instagram-like app for GIF making
Let's face it: GIFs continue to be a popular way of expressing yourself, no matter how you'd argue the word is pronounced. There are a number of apps that'll help you make your own animations, and now the folks behind VSCO Cam are joining the fray, too. The company built DSCO: an iOS app that lets you easily capture a few seconds worth of footage to create the moving image. If you're familiar with VSCO, you know that its mobile photography app allows you to apply a number of presets to achieve the look you're after before beaming them to a social network, posting them to the company's own portal or just saving them to view later. The same is true with DSCO. Once you have the video, you can employ a number of filters, including a collection of presets developed alongside MTV and others, to put the finishing touches on that all-important GIF. You can then send it to the aforementioned spots for sharing or safe keeping. The app is a free download, but like we've already mentioned, it's only available on iOS.
Infltr gives Instagram addicts millions of editing options
Photo-editing apps like Instagram are great, but usually the options are limited to a couple dozen or so filters. That's not the case with Infltr, a $2 iOS app that claims 5.1 million unique hues. With this piece of mobile software, swiping across the edit screen traverses through the color wheel, applying various shades to your photo until you arrive at the perfect combo. There's no tapping on presets here. Instead, the user interface relies on those swipes around an invisible color map to make edits to your snapshots. To keep track of what's being applied as you move across the display, a small color bubble appears under your fingertip. What's more, you choose a color to apply before you capture an image for a more accurate preview of the final result. Sure, it costs a couple bucks, but if you're super into mobile photos, the app certainly offers a few more options to drive those creations.
Google lets you hide unwanted web notifications
When you launch a Google service like YouTube or Gmail on the web, there's always a little bell icon in the corner hiding a bundle of notifications. For many people, this feed is a complete mess and full of alerts for services they rarely use. Well, now Google is making it a little easier to focus its notifications on the tools that really matter to you. As Android Police notes, it's now possible to hit the settings cog and toggle alerts for Google+, Photos and YouTube individually. Never use Google's social network? Now you can remain blissfully ignorant whenever someone adds you to a circle or gives your post a +1. Likewise, if you only care about knowing when people have replied to your YouTube comments, it's now much easier to keep those notifications front and center. At the moment only a handful of Google services are supported, but if enough people start using it, we suspect it'll only be a matter of time before the company bundles in all of its web properties.
Google will pull 'revenge porn' out of its search results
An unintended side effect of the increasingly connected world we live in, is that sometimes your identity can be maliciously tied to information that should remain private. The proliferation of "revenge porn" that's often used to target and harass women has taken advantage of the internet's unforgiving search capabilities in exactly that way, and as a result Google is announcing a change in its policy to fight that. Soon, the search giant will accept requests from people to remove nude or sexually explicit images of themselves shared without their consent from its search results. According to the blog post, Google already accepts requests to remove info like bank account numbers and signatures, and calls this an extension of that "narrow and limited" policy.
The Daily Grind: Would you like community filters in your MMO?
I was browsing the Elite: Dangerous forums the other day when I came upon this ad for a PvE-only private group. It's a good idea in theory, as it's a way for a large, dedicated community to insulate themselves from griefers and other undesirables while still playing an online multiplayer title. I'm not sure if the functionality is a net positive for games with player-run economies and the like, but it's an interesting option for developers to consider going forward. What do you think, Massively readers? Would you like similarly large-scale ignore options and community filters in your MMO? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
