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This AR feature is bringing exciting new interactivity to Snapchat’s core experience.

The camera in the Snapchat app has been able to understand faces for a few years, and it’s been able to scan dogs and plants since last year. Tapping and holding on these items on the camera screen allows you to activate fun filters and lenses that react to what your camera sees.

That technology—known at Snapchat simply as Scan—has gotten more and more advanced, and is now getting center-stage treatment in the Snapchat app.

The Scan feature can now be activated with an onscreen button (instead of requiring you to tap and hold on the screen to acivate a scan) and is now located in the middle of the main Camera screen of the app, just below the shutter button:

via GIPHY

As you can see, there are several features available for an extended experience as well. If you swipe up on the scan, you can:

• Edit and apply filters, lenses, and other multimedia and AR effects

• Identify and get information about what you scanned (such as through partnerships with Shazam, Dog Scanner, PlantSnap, Google Maps and several others)

• Identify a product

• Find health facts

• And more coming soon

Of course, there will be a built-in shopping component that has interesting monetization potential.

There will also soon be ways to scan images already on your device.

Why it matters

The world of augmented reality (AR) is advancing quickly. Snapchat is at the forefront of these offerings for now.

But, as aptly put by Mashable, these are great features that Instagram might copy before long as well.

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Here are a few more shareworthy items we’ve been reading this month…

Channel Updates & News:

• Facebook’s next hardware product will be “smart” Ray-Ban glasses (Ars Technica)

• View Once Photos and Videos on WhatsApp (FB News)

• Snapchat Profiles get a new look, with 3D Bitmoji (Snap News)

• Introducing longer videos on TikTok (TikTok news)

• The next phase for searching on YouTube (YouTube blog)

• Facebook Adds New Tools to Mark the 10th Birthday of Messenger (Social Media Today)

• Introducing Snapchat Trends (Snap News)

• Pinterest Launches 'Hair Pattern Search' Option to Boost Inclusion and Utility in the App (Social Media Today)

Stories & Analysis

• Facebook's VR Metaverse: Horizon Workrooms (Wired)

• How FB sound designers gave emoji a voice (Mashable)

• Social media is the most popular source of investment ideas for young investors (CNBC)

• How Social Media Makes You Feel Productive (Even When You're Not) (Forbes)

• Facebook bans academics who researched ad transparency and misinformation on Facebook (The Verge)

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