Snap has launched new Scan partners, a feature that allows users to gather more information about real-life objects just by pointing the app’s camera at them. Snapchat users will now be able to use this feature to identify breeds of dogs, plant and tree species, and nutritional facts about packaged food.
Snapchat has been investing in AR for a long time, including object recognition technology. Back in 2017, The Information reported that Snapchat was working on a way to scan objects in the real world. Since then, the scanning capability of the Snap Camera has grown, ranging from stupid to handy.
Users can access dance figures and animations when they point their phone to a flat surface or a piece of pizza, and they can also use technology for more useful tasks such as identifying a song that plays with Shazam, recognizing real-life items that can be bought on Amazon, and even solving math equations on homework. Snapchat’s Scan objection-recognition feature debuted in 2019 at Snap’s Partner Summit, the only event the company launched
last year to compete with the annual developer conferences of tech giants such as Facebook, Apple, and Google.
This year’s Snap Partner Summit, which took place on 11 June, was forced to go virtual due to the coronavirus pandemic.