Ondrej Holzman Apple has made an interesting acquisition in the field of virtual reality. He took under his wings the Swiss startup Faceshift, which develops technologies for creating animated avatars and other characters that mimic human facial expressions in real time. How Apple will use Faceshift technology is not yet clear.
The purchase of the Zurich company was speculated several times this year, but only now is the magazine TechCrunch managed to get definitive information and finally confirmation from Apple itself that the acquisition had taken place. "Apple buys small technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our intentions or plans," the California-based company said in a traditional statement.
Apple's plans are really unclear, but the field of virtual reality is constantly growing, so even the iPhone manufacturer does not want to leave anything to chance. In addition, Faceshift focuses on a wide range of areas, so the possibilities of use are different.
The main content of Faceshift was visual effects in games or movies, where using Faceshift technologies, game characters could take on the real expressions of players, which results in a more realistic gaming experience. In the film, on the other hand, the animated characters increasingly resemble the real actors and their facial movements.
The fact that their technology was used in the creation of the latest work can also speak for the fact that the "Faceshift solution revolutionizes facial animation", as the Swiss boast Star Wars (see image above). The characters have much more human expressions in the film.
Not only in movies and games, but also, for example, in a corporate environment, Faceshift technologies could gain ground, for example as security features for facial recognition. Apple already earlier bought companies dealing with similar technologies – PrimeSense, Metaio a Polar Rose –, so it will be interesting to see where he will go with virtual reality.
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