Facebook Renames Its Camera Effects Platform To 'Spark AR', Expands To Instagram

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Facebook has announced that it’s renaming its Camera Effects Platform to Spark AR, citing huge growth and future AR ambitions.

Facebook launched its Camera Effects Platform in April 2017, bringing “the power of augmented reality into the hands of all developers and creators.” Indeed, huge growth in the field followed, and today there are entire communities of people building innovative experiences for 1.5 billion people.

These experiences now go “beyond animations, masks, and playful effects,” and so Facebook is taking a step forward, renaming Camera Effects Platform to Spark AR. The app that the community used so far was AR Studio. This too has changed to Spark AR Studio. If you had the old version, Spark AR Studio comes as an update, but your old app doesn’t change name for some reason.

Facebook is taking a step forward, renaming Camera Effects Platform to Spark AR, and opening a beta program for Instagram.

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The name change isn’t the only thing to note. Facebook’s announcement also brings an expansion of Spark AR’s capabilities beyond Facebook itself, and onto Instagram as well. This, of course, isn’t something new; Facebook also teased this at F8 earlier this year.

As of today, Facebook is accepting applications “for an extended beta for Spark AR on Instagram” explaining that “accounts like Kylie Jenner, NBA, Ariana Grande, and Gucci have created effects for their followers in our early closed beta – and we want to put the power of Spark AR on Instagram in the hands of a wider variety of individual developers.”

As of today, Facebook is accepting applications “for an extended beta for Spark AR on Instagram”

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Participants of the beta can use Spark AR Studio to design experiences and make them available on Instagram. Interested parties will need to submit an application.

For further information about Spark AR, visit SparkAR.com, or join the Spark AR Community Facebook Group.