Big Ben Brought Back To Life Through Snapchat AR Lens

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: It's not a great time to visit the UK as a tourist. Besides all the Brexit nonsense and the December weather, one of our greatest tourist spots is under scaffolding and silent. Poor old Big Ben (and its Elizabeth Tower) are undergoing refurbishment at the moment, so there's not much to see if you want to snap a photo of the famous view. Snapchat's decided the way to fix this is with a Westminster-specific Snapchat Lens. When you activate the lens and point the Snap camera at the tower, the scaffolding peels back and Large Benjamin is there in all his glory again. Eitan Pilipski, VP of the Snap Camera Platform, said in a statement: 'We are thrilled to unwrap Big Ben for our Snapchat community in London. This holiday, we wanted to showcase the imaginative power of Snap's Augmented Reality experiences by deconstructing the scaffolding around Big Ben -- at least for a few special moments. We believe that every great AR experience reveals new possibilities. Our goal was to bring together the most cutting edge mapping and imaging technologies to create the kind of unique, location-specific experience that only Snap -- and perhaps Father Christmas -- can deliver.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.