Snapchat dives head-first into AR with new World Lenses
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Snapchat has introduced its new "World Lenses", which are essentially the filters you know and love for selfies applied to the world around you. You use the rear-facing camera to add stickers and animations, as well as quotes and other fun embellishments to your photos and videos. These filters are very much akin to the face-changing filters already in place, but they take a decidedly more augmented reality approach to quick photo and video editing.
Snapchat announced the new lenses in a blog post, in which it never actually mentioned "AR" or "augmented reality", reports TechCrunch.
Snap notably doesn't use "augmented reality" or "AR" once in its blog post announcing the news, preferring instead to talk about how users can "paint the world" with "3D experiences." [sic]
As easy to use as the existing selfie filters, Snapchat says you just have to tap the screen and cycle through the available World Lenses. There's no word on when World Lenses will hit the iOS app, but you can be sure that third-party lenses won't be available at launch, though I'd expect to see them in the not-too-distant future.
