Facebook pushes augmented reality with camera-based platform
Facebook Inc. launched a new augmented-reality platform at its annual developer conference, F8, in San Francisco on Tuesday. In a keynote speech, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he no longer viewed glasses and spectacles - such as those created by Alphabet Inc. , Microsoft Corp. and Snap Inc. -- as the first mainstream augmented reality platform. Instead, he believes the cameras on existing smartphones will lead the adoption of augmented reality. Zuckerberg said the technology will be able to read the depth of the room to better recognize and interact with objects in the physical world. This would be a more advanced kind of augmented reality than what is portrayed in the trendy game Pokémon Go. In that game, digital images are placed over objects in the real world, however they have little other connection and interaction with the surrounding world. Facebook also launched AR Studio on Tuesday, which would help consumers and developers build their own objects in augmented reality. Shares of Facebook fell 0.2% to $141.13 in afternoon trade. They've gained more than 10% in the past three months, outperforming the S&P 500 , up 3%.
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