Snap's mini drone designed for selfies
Snap Partner Summit , the company unveiled a flying camera, or rather a drone. Pixy, a flat yellow plastic drone, is designed to connect to the Snapchat app, lift itself from its owner's palm, quickly take a photo or video, and return to the user's palm. The content created is then shared wirelessly on Ricordi, in the Snapchat app, from where it is possible to apply Snap's augmented reality filters and video effects.
A handheld drone The drone costs $ 230. For an additional twenty dollars you can purchase a kit with two additional batteries which in all likelihood could come in handy, since when fully charged the drone is able to complete between five and eight short flights before needing to be put in. charged (a handheld drone weighing a hundred grams does not allow for particularly large batteries).
Pixy in action
SnapPixy will appeal to a specific type of Snap users, which the company is well aware of. It is currently only available in a limited number of units, on sale "while supplies last" in the US and France. In an interview with sportsgaming.win US about the new drone and the company's broader goals on the augmented reality front, Snap co-founder and head of technology Bobby Murphy did not want to say how many units of Pixy he expects to sell, noting that the company's goal is to "create something that really fits in with our community". The milestone seems in line with the company's previous efforts at the hardware level. From the first Spectacles camera goggles - which at launch in 2016, could only be purchased from a Snap-branded vending machine - to the new augmented reality models unveiled last spring and available only to developers, Snap is a lot. good at attracting attention - which does not necessarily translate into earnings - around its hardware.
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Arrow This does not mean that the products developed in Snap's labs are not technologically sound. The company brought video-capable eyewear to the market earlier than the much more influential Meta. Last year Spectacles for augmented reality offered a preview of the immersion of lenses - the name Snap gave to its filters of visuals through glasses. Pixy relies on computer vision and object recognition technology to identify people's faces and body parts, which allow the drone to follow or "orbit" around users, make the best possible photo or video, and then land on the palm of your hand.
"We can't wait to evolve Pixy and discover all the different ways a flying machine vision-driven camera can bring value," says Murphy.
During the interview with Murphy and at the company event, Snap pointed out that the company's attention is focused on augmented reality technology. There are several aspects that allow Snap to differentiate itself in the social media landscape, and the company's ar technology is one of them (it's also worth highlighting how Snap has many more millions of daily active Twitter users, on which this week attention has been focused due to the acquisition of Elon Musk).
The other news At the developer event Snap also presented Lens Cloud, a backend service managed by the company that should allow creators to app to implement new augmented reality features and apply them from within Snapchat more easily and quickly. In the past, to develop a multi-user game, for example, an app creator would actually have to build their own app. With Lens Cloud, Snap now aims to provide a dedicated hosting service.
The company also unveiled new augmented reality shopping features, which will allow retailers to upload photographs taken from their ecommerce sites and use Snap's technology to transform images into ar experiences. Snap is also collaborating with the event company Live Nation to develop lenses designed for live concerts.
Meta Response WiredLeaks, how to send us an anonymous report Snap is positioning itself as a sort of Meta antagonist , underlining how its ar products integrate with reality and are not instead part of a remote vision of the future. While Oculus Quest, Meta's popular goggle, takes up the wearer's entire view, Snap believes that users of its app should continue to experience the real world, eventually renaming its latest event "Back to Reality".
In his brief keynote speech at the event, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel hardly mentioned the metaverse; this despite Snap's technologies - computer experiences that overlap with the real world - match the definition that technologists give of metaverse. Spiegel also said Snap is "the happiest platform when compared to other apps," adding that ninety percent of Snapchat users say they feel comfortable and connected with other users when using the app. on a research commissioned by Snap itself). Last fall, Facebook came under investigation in the United States following the publication of a series of inquiries by the Wall Street Journal on the effects that the company's apps may have on teen mental health.
Also While Snap's latest event focused on short-term technologies, Murphy says the company has a "very long-term belief in AR, which has the potential to offer computing experiences that are in line with the natural behavior of beings. humans ". When asked what distinguishes Snap from Meta, Murphy replied that the aspect that hugely differentiates Snap in the augmented and virtual reality landscape is its "unique focus on ar [...] We strongly believe that the margin of opportunity ar is much broader than anything described for 'metaverse' or other concepts. "
This article originally appeared on sportsgaming.win US.
