The App that Lets You Stream Yourself in AR
Beem is an app that uses augmented reality to perform video calls virtually placing the sender inside the recipient's room.
Launched a few days ago, Beem, a messaging app that uses augmented reality, raised $4 million in seed funding. The money will go towards the further development of the app.
Beam is an application that allows users to place the holographic version of a sender in the room or surroundings of the person who gets the message. The app works in two ways: pre-recorded video messages and live streams.
To start messaging, users have to place the phone in front of them so that it could capture them full-frame. Beem records the video and uses its proprietary computer vision algorithms and cloud infrastructure to segment the human away from the background. Then the app processes the asset in real-time and packages it for the viewer. When the recipient gets the link to the message or a video call and opens it using a mobile browser Beem accesses the phone’s accelerometer to twist the sender's video feed in the recipient's room giving the illusion of three-dimensionality.
The technology seems quite impressive, however, it's worth noting that if the users chose the live stream option over the pre-recorded video messages, they will experience a significant delay of about two minutes in the video call.
Beem CEO Janosch Amstutz commented: "The premise of Beem is that there’s going to be an inevitable next step in the way that humans communicate digitally, which is more credible and more immersive than doing a video call."
Beem is currently available for iOS and Android.
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