Apple may be ready to tap into the Adult Make Believe Market
Over the years, Comic-Con has become the focal point for the world of comics conventions. The event continues to offer the complete convention experience: a giant Exhibit Hall; a massive programming schedule (close to 700 separate events in 2014), featuring comics and all aspects of the popular arts, including hands-on workshops and educational and academic programming such as the Comics Arts Conference; anime and film screenings (including a separate film festival); games; the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the "Oscars" of the comics industry; a Masquerade costume competition with prizes and trophies. It's so popular that we reported in February that the Woz is backing a new Silicon Valley Comic Con event, which actually starts tomorrow in San Jose. The attendees at these conferences love to wear costumes of their favorite comic book heroes. It's a huge market beyond kids playing make believe all the time. And this is a market that Apple will be able to tap into big time in the not-too-distant future with their reported Faceshift application.
To make that app come to life in a new dimension will require a powerful dual lens iSight camera on a Mac or iOS device with integrated next-generation 3D scanning software from Apple's PrimeSense engineering team. In fact this week we reported on one such technology in a granted patent of Apple's covering a short (and long) range LIDAR system.
Intel's RealSense 3D camera, as illustrated below, is illustrated on a future tablet or smartphone scanning the users face to create an avatar and/or used to unlock a device through advanced facial recognition.
At this week's gaming developer conference, the advances in the next-generation Unreal gaming engine was revealed during an Epic Games keynote showing off a 'live motion' capture demo of the Hellblade game noted in the video below starting at the 4:52 mark.
During this video you'll see how the realtime live motion was created. This type of experience could be coming our way with Apple's Faceshift in conjunction with the next-generation dual lens iSight camera. It will be able to create unbelievable avatars communicating in realtime.
Imagine a future FaceTime conference experience where two comic book fans could communicate with each other in total character – like Batman talking to Superwoman or … Lord of the Rings characters … well you get the point. The very Comic Con fans that love to meet at annual events will be able to be in character anytime they want in a virtual way. Something tells me this could be a huge hit for Apple and a lot of fun for Apple fans within the next year or so. Whether that's true or make believe – only time will tell.
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