Despite the popularity of competitors like Instagram, Snapchat’s still an insanely popular messaging app. Hell, it even managed to hit one billion installs on Android before Google Messages. That doesn’t mean Snap Inc. has stayed confined to developing its smartphone. Experiments like AR glasses and original programming have pushed Snapchat far beyond its original concept. With a newly-reworked iteration of Scan, the company’s looking to bring AR search results to its massive fanbase.
As first reported by The Verge, Scan is getting a significant overhaul starting today. It’s now accessible directly below the main record button in the app, making it much easier for users to find than its previous location. It’s closer than ever to taking on Google Lens, with new results for nutritional information, dog breeds, plant varieties, and even clothing items, all based on whatever’s in your viewfinder. Of course, it’ll also sync with Snapchat’s Lenses, pulling suggested AR filters, effects, and music from the environment around you with the new “Camera Shortcuts” feature.
Snapchat is utilizing a bunch of third-party applications to detect what’s in the frame, like Vivino for wine bottles and PlantSnap for plants. It’s also using one of its recent acquisitions, Screenshop, to let users shop for similar clothing to what’s included in your photos. The company says it’s planning to integrate with new partners down the road, including Allrecipes to suggest meals based on the food in your cart.
Scan is pulling information from Google’s Open Image Dataset, custom-made machine learning models, and the “Our Story” public feed alongside its own in-house tech. It’s not monetized yet, nor is it currently being used for ad targeting, though that isn’t out of the question down the road.
The Verge’s hands-on does say its results are very hit-or-miss right now, with plant identification working well, but other tricks — including shopping for clothes — frequently misrepresenting what’s in the real world. It’s also relatively limited, especially considering Google Lens gained the ability to do most of this since it debuted in 2017. Still, Snapchat hopes it’ll continue to grow as more users put it to work while helping to expand the reach of Lenses made by its audience of fans.
That said, it’s tough to imagine most people adopting this technology for the same reason that most people don’t have Google Lens pinned to their home screen. Until it’s perfectly accurate 100 percent of the time, it’ll almost always be faster to search “zucchini recipes” than to take a photo of the zucchini in your hand and wait for the results to load. Even clothes matching, which seems like the most likely feature to catch on with Snapchat’s younger audience, feels like an advertising bonanza waiting to happen.
This new version of Scan begins arriving today, with “Camera Shortcuts” limited to iOS devices before an Android expansion by the end of this year. Whether users will start thinking of Snapchat as anything more than a messaging app, however, remains to be seen.
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Snapchat’s got some goofy new AR features for you to try
Source: Poinoy Wattpad
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