Facebook releases it’s future on us all

At F8, Facebook’s developer conference, the social media company introduced the way that it wants you, the end user, to see the world.

How’s that? Well, augmented.

Facebook’s augmented reality camera, or camera platform as FB calls it, will place digital imagery on the world around you. Think Pokemon Go, except…useful, realistic, change the way we see the world type stuff.

From the Sauce, Mark Zuckerberg:

“Facebook is so much about marrying the physical world with online, when you can make it so that you can intermix digital and physical parts of the world, that’s going to make a lot of our experiences better and our lives richer. Facebook is so much about marrying the physical world with online.”

From now on (actually, for a while now, but here’s where the action really starts) the camera is no longer just a tool that you use to capture images.

Now, you can change the world with it, manipulate the images that you capture as well as the environment you see through it. You’ll be able to display and intake information, add digital objects, and enhance existing objects.

Again, from the Zuck:

“The camera needs to be more central than the text box in all of our apps,” he said. “We’re making the camera the first augmented reality platform.”

At F8, the demos were on an Oculus headset, but soon, the plan is that you’ll be able to create and interact with augmented reality right on your smartphone. Or whatever replaces the smartphone – which may well be lightweight glasses, according to Zuckerberg.

And so the race begins to see who wins on creating the end augmented reality platform. Will the end product be shaped more by software, rather than hardware? What mix will we end up with?

Over the coming months Facebook plans to give developers a chance to use its tools to create their own filters and effects for Facebook’s cameras. Developers who want to build their own apps, games, and art will be able to do so, perhaps taking the Camera in unanticipated directions.

Hi Future! *Waves* We’re in you…almost!

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