Facebook is becoming a little more like Face/Off as it acquired mega-popular real-time video effects company Masquerade. Their video filters app, which enables users to overlay things like Leonardo DiCaprio or a monkey over their own face, is ranked near the top of both the Android and Apple app stores.
Their app, MSQRD, also allows users to create or edit custom filters, which can be acquired through the filters store. If you don’t have the app, you’ll recognise it as the source of your friends’ cool Snapchat stories that you’re too cool to ask about or directly reference.
Mark Zuckerbeg announced the acquisition via a video that showed him coding with a virtual Iron Man mask on. During the video, he said he was working on an AI “like Jarvis,” a reference to Tony Stark’s virtual personal assistant.
Masquerade echoed Zuckerberg’s enthusiasm in a post to their blog. They expressed excitement about the potential to reach Facebook’s huge user base and provided a short preview of what a partnership might look like.
“While we will be partnering with Facebook to integrate our technology, the app will stay up and running so you’ll continue to record fun selfies and keep using the product,” Masquerade wrote. “You can also expect us to keep adding fun features!”
Eugene Nevgen, Sergey Gonchar, and Eugene Zatepyakin, Masquerade’s founders, will be based in Facebook's London office according to a statement given to Tech Insider.
Posted by MSQRD on Wednesday, March 9, 2016