Manchester United was among the early beta partners for Facebook to use the company’s new tool AR Studio, which was announced Tuesday at the F8 Facebook Developer Conference as a way to provide augmented reality.
A video of fans watching on television a goal scored by Manchester United could have real-time animated effects overlaid on the video.
“It brings real-time data from an actual match that’s happening and adds it to your video,” Deb Liu, Facebook’s Vice President of Platform and Marketplace, said during the keynote. “So when Man U scores, you see the effects come up as GOAL, you hear the cheering, and there’s confetti. So imagine having this effect available for your favorite sports team in the next game.”
The goal came against Real Madrid, another team that was announced as an early beta partner using the tool that provides the filters.
“Imagine you had to build all these things on your own,” Liu said. “Imagine the kind of large engineering and design team you would have to bring together to make that possible. But AR Studios simplifies all of this. It allows you to create animated masks and interactive effects that respond to actual motion and data.
Nike, another AR Studios early beta partner, combined data and design to enable runners to share and visualize their runs in different ways.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg showed himself and Facebook VP of Product Partnerships Ime Archibong with videos side by side after runs where they wore animated Nike headbands and had animated sweat pouring out of them.
“As silly as effects like this might seem, they actually are really important and meaningful because they give us the ability to share what matters to us on a daily basis,” Zuckerberg said.
