A new rumor floating around the web today indicates that Apple may have recently purchased FaceShift, a Swiss tech company specializing in real-time markerless facial motion capture. It wouldn’t be Apple’s first purchase in the area of facial motion capture or gesture control, though outside of the new Apple TV, it’s unclear what they might be using it for.
While Apple and FaceShift haven’t yet confirmed the buyout, there are some interesting details that seems to point to that being the case.
[tweet https://twitter.com/ejdeon/status/637039264539111425 align=’center’]
A few former employees of the company have recently adjusted their LinkedIn profiles to note that they’re no longer working for the company, and the company’s board of directors has been replaced by a firm that typically handles Apple’s Swiss IP according to a recent filing.
Furthermore, the company’s main product, FaceShift Studio, has been discontinued without much fanfare. The same thing happened at Camel Audio‘s Alchemy synth just before Apple’s acqusition of that company became public.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLfAmNDNgHk]
Whether this technology is intended to tie into the new Apple TV as part of a gaming platform (think Xbox avatars) or will tie into some other new or existing Apple technology has yet to be seen, but it’s clear they’re invested in this area.
We’ve reached out to Apple for comment.
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Interesting, I think I like this move…..if true.
Think this relates to Apple wanting to start its own production studio for TV & Movies. Pretty huge step for 3D animated film telling if an actor can right away see how the 3D character looks as they put there emotions forward. Would save an enormous amount of money, and time.
Wouldn’t be surprised to hear Apple start poaching people from Pixar within the next year if they are truly serious about producing their own stuff.
This is not directed to professional environment, this is a consumer’s technology.
Wow imagine how this could translate expressions into emoji on future iterations of the watch with its camera (s)
I kinda doubt a watch is going to have enough processing power to do anything like this.
They’ll figure it out.
Perhaps it could push a future version of emoji to become the true shorthand it used to be on Japanese Keitais & not today’s fiddly tap this tiny button & then scroll forever just to share a nuance, or a gesture.
Not only could they figure it out, but it could communicate real emotions across all iDevices – which is what the kidz want.
And is what they’ve shot for and failed at in today’s watch.
Yes they’ll figure it out.
You can’t just “figure out” how to fit workstation-grade animation software into a watch… :P
It’s workstation grade because it’s video and real time.
On the AW, they can use iPhone’s power…
What about server side though? (iCloud). It would be a fantastic (& very natural) input for avatars and digitial communication along with multi user iOS.
I’d like to see it incorporated in to FCP X / Motion though too!
For a WATCH EMOJI??!! Are you serious? Of all things to use this tech for…
Photobooth 2
Could make FaceTime a lot of fun.
Why do you even reach out to Apple for comment ? You know the drill : Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans
It’s just another means of input – only instead of being manual or verbal, it can utilize facial expressions as another method of data entry.