Facebook VR/AR announcement roundup / Snapchat adds World Lenses / Google Earth VR update — Inside VR & AR

In case you missed it...Facebook announced new VR and AR efforts during CEO Mark Zuckerberg's keynote at the company's F8 Developer Conference. 

Facebook is publicly rolling out Spaces, its most ambitious social VR effort to date. Announced this morning at the social giant's F8 developer conference in San Jose, the platform is now available as a beta for Oculus Rift users. Rift users can join up to three other people in a virtual playground. In the experience, users can watch videos, take photos and engage in a number of different VR activities together. The project was unveiled at the Oculus Connect conference last October. — THE VERGE

Facebook has rolled out a platform for developers to integrate AR experience within the social giant’s in-app cameras. The effort, titled AR Studio, will operate in a closed beta where developers can build photo and video filters, games, art projects and more. CEO Mark Zuckerberg showed off a variety of different AR-powered camera effects operating with Facebook’s “Stories” feature, during his F8 keynote. Zuckerberg also admitted that the company has been late to adding AR features in its in-app cameras, but said its object recognition and machine learning technology would give it an advantage over competitors, like Snapchat. — NY TIMES

REACTIONS ABOUT FACEBOOK'S VR/AR DEVELOPMENTS

Here’s what Twitter had to say about Facebook’s latest VR/AR developments announced at F8…

"the VR social demo of Facebook friends meeting and playing in virtual reality is a horror show of torsos floating around a bedroom" — @MikeIsaac

“Facebook AR, much like Facebook chat bots, provides a templatized rut which is easy but not automatically innovative.” — @panzer

“The developer tools for Facebook AR are the most powerful, easy to use tools thus released. The code level is low enough to have wide use.” — @BrianRoemmele

Here’s what media outlets think of the developments… 

Wired thinks Facebook’s new Spaces app is exactly why the social giant acquired Oculus. 

Fast Company says Facebook Spaces “is reminding everyone of that ‘Black Mirror’ episode with the creepy avatars. 

UploadVR thinks Facebook has found VR’s killer app: friends. 

RoadtoVR has already found a hack that would allow Vive users to join Rift friends in Facebook Spaces. 

What do you think about Facebook's moves? Tell us by replying to this email! 

Snapchat has added World Lenses as the company continues its AR push. The Lenses work very similar to the app’s AR face lenses and overlay dynamic graphics and images on photos and video using the rear-facing camera. A cloud, a rainbow, flowers and floating “OMG” text are part of the initial lineup of World Lenses, but the company says the effects will change daily. — THE VERGE

Google Earth’s VR experience allows users to enter any address and fly over it in 3D using a VR headset. The tech giant has also added VR support for the Oculus Rift and its touch controller. Google has added 27 hand-picked locations to the VR app, including the Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany and the Table Mountain in South Africa. The app is available for free in the Oculus Store and Steam. — LIVESCIENCE

VR is changing the home-buying process, as companies ramp up virtual home floor plans. Grit Virtual Construction allows perspective home buyers to "walk through" a home design that has yet to exist. "For a builder to make a model home, they cost hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of dollars. It’s the chance to show people something before you've created it in reality,” said Paul Gray, a home builder who uses VR. — KWCH

SketchAR uses AR to overlay virtual images on paper, making it easier to sketch images using a smartphone. The app is preloaded with a variety of drawable sketches or users can convert photos from the camera roll into easily traceable images. The AR drawing concept was released on the Apple App Store this week, and has plans to expand to Android Tango and Microsoft Hololens. — THE VERGE

SCOBLE'S CORNER

Periodically, we share musings from mixed reality evangelist Robert Scoble's Facebook feed. Here's Scoble's thoughts on hanging out with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. 

Mr. AR.

I just arrived at Meta to hang out with Meron, who basically just had his augmented reality vision validated by Facebook and Zuckerberg (this photo was shot earlier today at F8). 

So great to hang out with Mark again. Yes I do get nervous when I get a few minutes with Mark. Mixed reality is about to get real.

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