Snapchat’s latest feature Lenses will change your virtual world

No matter how silly and ridiculous they complain the feature is, even non-Snapchat users have appreciated the novelty of Lenses.

That’s the special-effects tool on Snapchat that allows people to warp themselves in video messages to sprout bunny ears, bee wings, pop star hairdos or their best friend’s moustache.

Snapchat now has a new type of lens – one that naysayers could find additional reason to respect. The update involves lenses that change not people, but the environment around them. People can customise and interact with them in a new way.

Users can drop a resizable virtual rainbow anywhere around them and then walk around it – or crawl under it – on video. They can frolic through a digitalised garden of red roses and purple tulips. Or they can film a friend dancing around 3D word art. That’s a bit more interactive than swapping faces with animals and classmates.

The virtual objects may not get people moving around as much as Pokemon Go, the popular smartphone game that received praise from health experts for inspiring people to explore their surroundings, miles at a time. But Snapchat’s world lenses evoke a similar feel. And they eventually could lend themselves to scavenger hunts or other games that layer digital scenes and live smartphone video.

Many companies are designing products meant to drop 3D digital renderings into the real world. There’s Microsoft trying to bring the blocks, bridges and buildings of the Minecraft video game into mixed reality. Facebook-owned Oculus VR is attempting to recreate paint strokes and people virtually. Those companies are leaning on expensive new head-mounted devices to power those experiences, though.

Snap has gained a head start in what the technology industry calls augmented reality because it’s introducing comparable experiences through the smartphones people already own. Though said to be working on new devices, Snap has moved cautiously relative to peers in pushing them out.