On April 18, F8, the annual Facebook developer conference, kicked off in San Francisco, and will last for two days.

Last night, Zuckerberg posted a photo on his Facebook page that showed him busy preparing for the conference, but also hinted at one of the conference’s main features — AR cameras.

(I am preparing F8, and my beard is about to be shaved.)

However, after being blasted by TechCrunch, Facebook is trying to copy Snapchat again.

(TechCrunch claims that copying Snapchat is the first step in Facebook’s Facebook AR platform)

As fast and Furious 8 (also known as F8) hits theaters, Zuckerberg said at the start of the conference that F8 had been overshadowed by the movie F8. He then compared the Facebook family to a fast family, showing an unphotoshopped comparison:

Fast 8 is “never give up on family”, while Facebook is “never give up on app family”…

This joke is kind of cold! Everyone was silent…

And what small explore thinks of is baidu whole family bucket…

At last year’s F8 conference, Zuckerberg laid out a 10-year vision for Facebook. In the past, Facebook’s mission has been to “Connect People,” and now they will continue that mission with a focus on “Building Community.”

Seemingly inspired by the popularity of Pokemon Go, Zuckerberg sees AR as a strategic priority for Facebook after VR went out of fashion.

“People are taking selfies and sharing their lives in selfies, so let’s spice up the camera,” Zuckerberg said.

“We’re going to make the phone camera the world’s first AR platform!”

AR camera

Zuckerberg boasts that the new Facebook app will feature the most powerful camera ever.

“Remember when Pokemon Go became popular and everyone was out there? We’re going to make your own camera Pokemon Go fun all the time!”

In addition to the common knowledge that camera-based AR can accurately recognize objects, superimpose other image information on images of actual scenes, and beautify photos with special effects, Facebook is getting a full AR upgrade in the new beta version of the camera.

In this version, users can add dynamic 3D effects to photos, select a variety of dynamic filters, and add special effects to photos.

“That’s Snapchat, isn’t it?”

Snapchat’s stock jumped 3% today!

But Zuckerberg says Facebook Camera is on a mission to “revive” AR.

“Making the camera an AR platform, with features like photo filters, is just our first step, but today we’re talking about step two,” Zuckerberg said. (A face of mysterious sample paper looked at the small detective dumbfounded…)

It turns out that with Facebook Camera, users can use AR to overlay virtual and real worlds.

More importantly, this Camera Effects Platform with AR support will be the world’s first AR creative Platform. The open platform provides artists and developers with a range of tools including Frame Studio and AR Studio that anyone in the Facebook community can use to connect art and technology to create their own Pokemon Go!

(AR Studio)

Strong community + creative people, Zach is going to have an art party!

Zuckerberg then showed off several building blocks for AR.

The first building block is precise localization using SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Map Building).

For example, because the camera can identify all dimensions of the table, a bowl full of cereal on the dining table, after adding special effects, is perfectly placed in a dynamic 3D scene with small fish jumping around. The table seemed to turn into a beach in an instant, and the breakfast was teleported from Menlo Park to San Diego Beach.

Another building block of AR is object recognition.

The AUGMENTED Reality Nike app uses an object recognition feature that allows users to add headscarves, sweat, mileage, and other information and images to selfies. “It may look silly, but it’s the best way to use AR,” Zuckerberg said. The effect we want is not to let science and technology into life, record the moment bit by bit! (Plus, accidentally perfect placement of Nike ads!)

The third building block of AR is 3D effects.

With THE 3D effect, the static scene in real life is combined with dynamic 3D, even at the same time, several people facing a coffee cup, you can also play a wonderful tower defense game!

Facebook also partnered with photo sharing platform Giphy to launch Giphy Live. What is it? When the anchor broadcasts Live, if the user uses the comment keyword “#” in the comment, the picture associated with the most frequently commented keyword will appear in the screen.

Finally, Zuckerberg talked about Facebook’s solar-powered aircraft project Aquila, which the team is preparing for its second test flight in Arizona. Aquila will be an important step in Zuckerberg’s dream of a global Internet.

(Aquila aircraft shown at the scene)

After Zuckerberg finished Keynote, Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer took the stage to talk about ARTIFICIAL intelligence and augmented reality.

Here comes Mike Schroepfer, head of AI at Facebook, Yann LeCun, who has done a lot of early work on handwritten image recognition and is a pioneer in the field.

(Yann Lecun’s character recognition)

Mike also reviewed the evolution of computer vision from ALEXNET’s ability to identify only a few objects in 2012 to the ability to identify and locate most of them, and showed off Facebook AI’s current state-of-the-art Mask R-CNN image recognition and segmentation framework.

Mike also introduced the important SLAM technology behind AR, which stands for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping. In Chinese, it is a kind of location tracking and spatial Localization technology, which can be understood as the constant motion of sensors. We’re scanning our environment in real time and modeling it in real time, so that we’re aware of where we are even as we move.

Facebook has a strong track record in SLAM. Facebook Oculus launched a Demo of its Santa Curz headset that uses SLAM localization to navigate virtual worlds using its location tracking and spatial location technology.

VR Social product: Facebook Spaces

At the Oculus conference last October, Zuckerberg showed off a VR social product. Today, the product, called Facebook Spaces, launched in beta on Oculus Rift.

Using your 2D photos, you can simulate your avatar. Of course, if you are not satisfied with the avatar, you can change the features of the avatar, such as facial features, skin color, hair color, etc.

You can invite up to three friends, and then you can have fun together in the virtual world. It’s worth noting that Facebook Spaces allows users to draw 3D objects, such as a hat for your friends to wear.

Sitting in the room, you can change the scenery at will, you can choose the scene of the system, such as the underwater world, such as a place of interest. You can also browse through your Facebook account to find a 360-degree panoramic photo and set it as the scene. Imagine that you could pick a photo of you and your friend meeting for the first time and then talk as if you were meeting them for the first time

For now, users can only interact with their Facebook friends, but in the future, users will be able to play with people who are not Facebook friends, said Rachel Franklin, who is in charge of showcasing Facebook Spaces.

The experience will cost a bit — $600 for the Oculus Rift and a decent desktop computer (upwards of $1,000); Besides, these avatars still don’t quite fit my taste (PERSONALLY, I think Asian painting style lags behind European and American style), but it would be a great experience to be able to “gather” with friends from other places or even foreign countries to chat, play and celebrate each other’s birthdays.

Messenger: More comprehensive, more inclusive, and more profitable

At last year’s developer conference, Zuckerberg outlined the future of his flagship Messenger app, chat bots. After a year of practice, however, we realized that the chat Bots’ dream of dominance was a complete failure.

So today, David Marcus, Facebook’s vice president of messaging apps, took the stage to announce a series of changes to Messenger. Let’s look at these measures first.

(Four major Messenger features promoted at the conference: discover button, chat extension, ARTIFICIAL intelligence and games)

1. Discover button: APP Store for Chatbot

Messenger will add a new TAB, Discovery, to its login screen to help you discover and actively search for chatbot features and features. Discovery’s mantra is: connect businesses, places and services directly; The idea at Facebook is that if you have a chatbot dedicated to browsing pages, you’ll use it more often. — Despite David’s previous claim that Chatbot was “overhyped,” Facebook still has its thoughts on it.

2. Chat function: the third party “small program” join

Developers will have a bigger presence in Messenger in the future. The feature is similar to the app store in iMessage, but with a cleaner design and a similar shape to wechat’s mini program.

Notable partners include Spotify and OpenTable, which allow users to share music or save forms directly in chat. Apple Music will also be available soon, David said.

3. Artificial Intelligence: Advice from M

It’s a “human courtesy service” that Facebook hopes will lead to more business in the future. M will provide new intelligent suggestions based on the user’s chat content. For example, if you are talking about the latest online celebrity milk tea, M may offer to help you place an order through its partner Delivery.com. However, some people think that this approach is easy to annoy users.

4. Add the function of scanning two-dimensional code to strengthen the game function

Now you simply open Messenger’s camera function and scan a QR code to be directed to the content it represents. As for games: First, Messenger is starting to support turn-based games; Second, Messenger needs to add a game TAB to its home page to enhance its presence.

Looks like this is to keep up with Teacher Zhang Xiaolong!

But in a sign of weakness, the wechat team has launched a mini-program QR code a day ahead of schedule, allowing users to log in by scanning the code.

A Facebook QR code

In conclusion, Tan believes that these moves are not only about making Messenger more versatile and inclusive, but also about helping Facebook monetize it.

Finally, The social network is the foundation of Facebook, which once thought virtual reality was the future. It bought Oculus in 2014 and started the virtual reality craze. Can AUGMENTED reality give Facebook a second life after VR adoption has fallen short of expectations? Let’s wait and see.