Facebook vs Google’s AR Future
My take on how Facebook and Google will make use of AR and AI
Background:
Last month, Mark Zuckerberg took the floor at the F8 conference and told everyone that they were “making the camera the first augmented-reality platform”.
Just this May, Google introduced their new technology, the Google Lens, which will allow you to identify a restaurant or the kind of flower you’re currently pointing at with your smartphone’s camera.
Both companies focused on providing info on inanimate objects or adding virtual objects (ex. face masks) to your face or environment, but did not talk about a certain aspect: What if I point my camera at a person I don’t know?
Note: This is just my idea of how they might go about using AR-AI on people in the near future. I also made use of smartphones since there is no relevant AR glasses product out there yet (coming soon from FB? Magic Leap? Google?)
Facebook’s AR UI:
With Facebook’s vast library of personal photos, your contribution of tagging your friends, and their improved image recognition technology, you can point your FB camera at a person and get to know public information about them such as their name, university, place they’re living in, etc. I’ve also included their featured photos to add more personality.
The two major actions one can do is Add friend (faster than typing their name, looking them up among other profiles, and adding them) and Message Me (if enabled, you can easily send them a message on Messenger).
If you’re already friends, the info might change to show their latest update or post.
Google’s AR UI:
While Google does not currently have the billions of personal photos Facebook has, it does have its search engine linking to all your relevant networks as well as a growing stash of photos from Google Photos.
All of this will enable it to give you enough context about a person when you focus your camera on him/her.
These are similar to the results you can find when you search for your name. Your networks, your images, videos, articles, etc.
Unlike Facebook, the action you can take to create a personal connection is through the craft an email icon.
You obviously have to allow this feature to be used and not as a default (dreading all those emails one could receive from all kinds of people).
Conclusion:
Again, these are just some ideas I’ve been thinking about that Facebook and Google might implement in the near future. Will people stop them? Will people complain about their privacy? Those are some important questions that will need to be addressed.
Let me know your thoughts on this concept as well as some features that I may have missed.
Follow me on Twitter @renzzemistal
