Skip to main content

Instagram’s video chat and new custom AR filters arrive today

By

Back at its F8 developers conference, Facebook announced a whole suite of new Instagram features that may have a big impact on just how social the photo-sharing app lets you be. Now, starting today and on the heels of the company’s IGTV launch, those features are all arriving on iOS and Android. That includes Instagram’s new video chatting feature, its custom AR filters designed by third-parties like celebrities and influencers, and the new Explore tab redesign.

Video chatting can be initiated from the Instagram Direct tab with either one other person or in a group of up to four people total. It will only work with people you already have an active Direct thread with, which requires both parties respond. Blocking or muting someone will also disable that person’s ability to video chat with you. The Explore redesign is also turning the search tab into a topic-focused area where you scroll through categories like “animals” or “architecture,” as well as trending hashtags.

The most interesting new update to Instagram is the custom AR filters for Stories. For the first time, Instagram is letting third parties create these filters, and it’s starting the launch with ones from Ariana Granda, the NBA, and BuzzFeed, among others. Like the Snapchat lenses that popularized the AR-style camera effects, these new Instagram filters will let you augment a photo or selfie with virtual effects and objects. And if you spot an AR filter being used on an image or video in someone else’s Story, Instagram is adding an option to add it to your own personal effects toolkit to try it out.



from The Verge - Teches https://ift.tt/2ItoVpW
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Magic Leap is shipping across (most of) the US

By
As Magic Leap holds the first developer conference for its Magic Leap One mixed reality headset, that headset has started shipping across the contiguous United States, instead of in a set of select markets. The Magic Leap One Creator Edition costs $2,295, just like before, but there’s now an installment plan that starts at $96 per month. All orders are supposed to arrive within 60 days. The Magic Leap One Creator Edition went on sale in early August, and while Magic Leap has touted it as a fully functional device, it’s basically meant for people who want to design apps, games, or art for mixed reality. We were ambivalent toward the hardware, which we found limited, and we noted that Magic Leap hadn’t shown off a lot of material that showcased its potential. The company’s developer conference keynote has revealed several new projects. Among other things, Spider-Man studio Insomniac Games is building an experience that will let you grow a holographic creature on your tabletop, and...
Post a Comment
Read more

The company behind the adorably doomed robot Kuri is shutting down

By
Less than a month after Mayfield Robotics said it was stopping production on its Kuri home robot, the company announced today on its blog that the company will be shutting down. Mayfield Robotics launched in 2015 as part of Bosch’s Startup Platform, but struggled to integrate with and find a business fit within Bosch. Since the cancellation of its Kuri robot, Mayfield Robotics had been looking for external partners for long-term technology development, but was unable to find investment to support its future. The company will cease all operations by October 31st. We first met Kuri at CES 2017, and it wasn’t yet able to showcase all the features it was promised to have in the future. The robot was supposed to have smart assistant functionalities like an Amazon Echo, but with a much cuter face and movable body. Promo videos showed it working as a moving home security camera that was controllable through the Kuri app, but in the demonstration we saw, it only had as much functionality a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Amazon’s plans for a New York office are under new scrutiny

By
A month ago, when Amazon announced that it would build regional offices in New York and Virginia at great expense to the taxpayers there, I wrote that it had misunderstood the moment : Perhaps the furor over Amazon’s regional offices will blow over. But it’s hard not to feel today as if the company misread the room — overestimating the public’s appetite for a billion-dollar giveaway to one of the world’s biggest companies, and underestimating the public’s ability to raise hell on- and offline. Amazon may yet feel that pain, in the long run. Today, Amazon met the room: 150 protesters who showed up to the first New York City Council hearing about the plan. According to reports from the scene, demonstrators’ concerns start with the $3 billion in incentives that New York plans to give Amazon in exchange for locating there — and, it says, creating 25,000 jobs. Here’s Leticia Miranda in BuzzFeed : ”You’re worth a trillion dollars,” New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson told the ...
Post a Comment
Read more