It seems like Facebook has been totally obsessed with its live video features.
It was revealed that the latest trend in technology is graduating from voice to video calls and in the next few years, 70% of the global internet traffic will surely be videos and its related features. The company has been trying its best to not just push this feature on all its platforms but is also putting out new updates so that live video streaming becomes easy to use for the users. The social networking giant has revealed that it is working on rolling out an app, which when powered by artificial intelligence can convert live videos to amazing work of art exactly like Prisma, the popular mobile app to add filters to photos. Facebook will be showcasing the new app at the famous Wall Street Journal’s WSJD Live Event.
What’s New
According to a report by Engadget, the Chief Product Officer of Facebook said that the app, on which the company has been working on quietly, will be called the “Style Transfer” app. This new app will essentially try to mimic and apply art filters to the painting style of the most renowned painters like Monet and Van Gogh to the live videos. The app will transfer the painting style of any painter and apply it to a moving object in a live video. The official was quoted saying that the company is working on investing right now to make the camera a very nice creative tool and so is working on bringing new, relevant and useful features to make creating videos and photos easier and interesting.
Facebook versus Prisma
Prisma, the popular filter-adding app, which is brain-powered by cloud-based artificial intelligence for giving special effects to photographs and videos, had made a splash in the tech market in the past couple of months. But it looks like Facebook is all set to beat the app at its own game.
Though there are lots of similarities in between both Prisma and the app that will be showcased by Facebook in applying the special effects and filters, there is a very notable difference with respect to the speed of applying filters to the images and videos. Prisma takes a few seconds for applying its filters with the chosen effects to the photos and video clips, whereas Facebook will be applying its filters into the live videos in real-time.
The official also mentioned that the filters are still just prototypes and are still in testing stages. It is not yet clear if the app will just be a new additional feature for the Live video streaming or if it will be launched as a standalone app. Even the different filters which will be made available with the new Style Transfer app have also not been disclosed yet.
Content Expression Policies
Upon talking about the new Style transfer app, the Chief Product officer and the Chief Operating officer of Facebook emphasized on the fact that Facebook is a technology-based company, which focuses on products and not a media-based company, which is all about stories. They also stressed on the point that though Facebook has content policies which are evolving constantly, it still decides on broadcasting the content keeping in mind the significance and benefits of the newsworthiness. There have been instances when a certain photograph or video was deleted automatically by the app’s logarithm as it violated the content policies of the company, but it was later reinstated because it let the users around the world witness incidences which could probably help the victims. The company is working out on evolving its policies which will support the freedom of expression of people on a wider range. One person’s expression could become another person’s hate. So the company is consulting and taking advice from many publishers and law enforcements and is carefully working on its policies. The social networking media giant said it is proud to be a part of the platform which allows the users from around the world to talk their minds and also allow them to witness situations which might help other people to garner the much-needed assistance from any corner of the world.