Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday that the social networking giant is debuting a new platform—essentially a suite of developer tools—that coders can use to build augmented reality apps on top of Facebook’s core service.
Unlike companies such as Microsoft (MSFT) with its HoloLens AR headset and Snapchat (SNAP) with its freshly debuted glasses that overlay flashy graphics on pictures, Zuckerberg said Facebook (FB) wants to focus on incorporating AR on smartphones.
Fortune‘s Jonathan Vanian weighed in from the scene with this report while Mathew Ingram opines about how Zuckerberg’s team is building on the groundwork laid by the success of Snap’s popular 3D “lenses.”
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Other tidbits from the conference:
- You can now stream music and other services, right within the Messenger chat app.
- The Workplace collaboration app now comes with tighter access controls.
- The company’s international push is working—more than 80% of the developers building on top of the platform now hail from outside the United States.
- You can now “meet” your friends in a virtual version of the social site.
- The list of companies now using Messenger for customer services includes Wells Fargo, which has built a chatbot for sharing account information, and Subway, which now uses it to accept orders.
- On Thursday, Facebook unveiled two new high-tech cameras that it wants companies to use to film 360-degree video.
Facebook F8 continues in San Jose on Wednesday, and this post will be updated with additional coverage.