Apple Adds Faceshift To Their Growing List

This year, talks have been going on about Apple buying a start-up company. Now, Apple has just confirmed that they have bought the motion capture start-up Faceshift. The tech giant released a statement stating the company buys smaller tech companies from time to time, the purpose and plans for which is not discussed generally.

Faceshift is a Swiss company who specializes in facial animation using real-time motion capture. The small firm has developed software that analyzes human facial expressions in real time and transposes them into CGI avatars without the need for facial reference markers and using only commercially available hardware. They are also widely known for being the technology behind "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" movie, where they made the movie's non-human characters have features, characteristics and expressions more human-like.

The Zurich-based company has first showed off their features in 2012 using Microsoft's Kinect camera and earlier this year, showed demos of its technology through Intel's RealSense 3D cameras. Faceshift's Chief Technical Officer Brian Amberg said in their promotional video that the company's background is in animation for content production so they can have Hollywood studios use the technology to make their animated characters come to life.

And though the company never released any consumer products, preferring to work behind the scenes, the technology they have points out to the future of expressive avatars that can be used on video calls and video games. Faceshift's creative director Nico Scalpel comments that about two-thirds of communication is non-verbal and with the digital characters using their technology, they would appear to mirror the range of expression that humans have.

The start-up company is not the first of its kind to be acquire by the Cupertino company as they have also acquired Metaio, the Israeli 3D sensor company PrimeSense, and the Swedish facial recognition start-up Polar Rose. Apple has made no statements regarding plans to work with these companies and there are several hints that some might be incorporated into their Apple TV technology.