In a bid to build on its Augmented Reality (AR) ambitions, Facebook has acquired German computer vision startup Fayteq, which is known for its video-editing technology that makes it possible to add or remove objects from existing videos.
Facebook has confirmed the acquisition but did not share any additional information on its plans.
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Startup Fayteq:
- The social network major can use the technology for object tracking in live videos as part of its AR efforts and also for applying digital effects to captured videos.
- Fayteq had been selling plug-ins for video editors like ‘Adobe After Effects’.
- That allowed video-editors to track objects in videos and then add or remove objects with help of the tracking data.
- The company on Friday told its customers that its products and services are no longer available for purchase.
- Earlier this week, Facebook rolled out “Watch”.
- Watch, a video platform for creators and publishers which will be available to a limited group of people in the US on mobile, desktop, laptop and TV apps.
Read also:Facebook introduces ‘Watch’, a new video platform!
Facebook tries to enter China incognito:
- In a bid to explore the high-potential Chinese online market.
- Facebook has authorised the release of a new app here that does not carry its name.
- The app called “Colorful Balloons” is a photo-sharing app that shares the look, function and feel of Facebook’s Moments app.
- The app, which is designed to collate photos from a smartphone’s photo albums and then share them.
- It was released by a local company called Youge Internet Technology.
- In addition,which is registered to an address in eastern Beijing, without any hint of affiliation with Facebook.
- However, the room number listed in company registration documents could not be found amid a series of shabby, small offices on the building’s fourth floor.
- The director of the company, a woman named Zhang Jingmei, appeared in a photo of a meeting between Facebook and the Shanghai government.
- Sitting next to Facebook executive Wang-Li Moser, indicating she is likely associated with the company.
- Neither Facebook nor Jingmei has issued any official statement regarding their partnership.
- It is unclear whether China’s internet regulators were aware of the app’s existence.
- The under-the-table approach could cause Facebook new difficulties with Chinese government that has maintained strict oversight and control over foreign tech companies.
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Facebook was banned in China:
- Facebook was banned in China in 2009.
- Followed by its photo-sharing app Instagram in 2014 and its messaging app WhatsApp was partially blocked last month.
- Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg has made a big point of meeting with Chinese politicians, studying Communist Party propaganda, Mandarin and even speaking it in public.
- China’s internet censorship has left big players.
- Like Facebook, Apple and Google out of the huge Chinese market with an audience of more than 700 million internet users.
- Last month, in a crackdown on Internet services by the government.
- Apple had removed all major VPN apps from the App Store in China.