A face mask app for iPhone X changes the data in the "privacy" of users

December 29, 2017

Developers working in Augmented Reality are rapidly bringing elements of science fiction into the real world, most recently leveraging the TrueDepth camera on the iPhone X, which incorporates the Cloaking technology made famous by movies like Marvel's Predator and The Avengers.

Japanese developer Kazuya Noshiro, shared a demo version (discovered by Design Taxi) on Twitter of his own "hiding technology", which uses the TrueDepth camera and its face detection capabilities to make Kazuya's face disappear, leaving his mouth and eyes visible in the void that has been created.

According to his tweets, Noshiro developed the app in Unity, using a static photo for the background, with the intention of making the user's face disappear. Although generally such proposals make you bow down, especially when technological achievements are described, in this case, the result is a bit special.

Of course, this demo is actually a poor version, showing a man making his face disappear, in a technology that is already in development for military purposes. In one case, special material was used on the soldiers' clothing, which, through a component, trapped light, making them invisible. Something like Harry Potter.

It's not yet clear at what point Noshiro will publish the app on the App Store through his software company, ViRD. Of course, if you're interested in ViRD's Augmented Reality (AR) content, the company has Makebox AR available. This app allows users to build AR models in 3D through blocks, much like the famous Minecraft game.

So far, the active existing apps that make use of the TrueDepth camera are far fewer than those that support the ARKit platform, which makes sense, considering the reputation of the iPhone X and the reputation of ARKit-supported devices in general.

In addition, we should point out that experimentation with the TrueDepth camera is not as feverish as we saw for example in the beta versions of iOS 11 with ARKit.

Gradually, of course, the developer community has already begun to show interest in whether Augmented Reality is possible through the TrueDepth camera, in addition to Face ID and Animojis.

As we already know, Apple is very involved in Augmented Reality, having already made great strides, following its investments.

Whether the TrueDepth camera will eventually succeed in becoming a springboard for the creation of AR applications is, so far, something we could say is up for debate. Finally, Apple, as it has come to expect, will do its best to offer the best possible outcome regarding Augmented Reality technology.