F8 Developer Conference 2017 : Big on Augmented Reality

If you are wondering what happened at the F8 2017 and missed the whole conference, do not worry, we have it covered here.

Facebook announced that is going big on the Augmented Reality applications. The Camera, yes the camera in all the FB apps is the start of that journey. The camera, again, is an open platform for developers around the world to contribute to AR based applications using it.

The basic use cases laid out in F8 were about mixing the physical and digital reality by:

• Overlaying Information – maps, directions, weather information
• Digital Objects – Create new digital object based on context.
• Enhancement – Enhance the images and videos based on context.

These basic use cases pose a variety of great applications that can be made using the Open AR platform the FB is providing.

A huge amount of AI is going to be used to make all this a reality. The future according to Mark is about helping people sharing anything and everything on the platform with ease. Some of the applications using the above mentioned use cases are already in beta testing and may see the light of the day soon.

The AR applications showcased at the F8 were

1) Using Precise location – Build 3D objects in mapping using AI technique (SLAM) for localisation and mapping.

2) Create 3D effects from 2D photos – 3D scene created from photos can be managed to give it a panoramic effect, or change the lighting or any effect that allows your to express more.

3) Real time visual understanding using object recognition.

There are updates on Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, Oculus, Facebook for Work, Facebook Lite, and the rest of the company’s portfolio.

The vision for FB going forward is bringing the communities together with use of Augmented Reality, AI and Virtual Reality technologies.