All of Apple's Face-Tracking Tech Behind the iPhone X's Animoji

A couple years ago, Apple went on a shopping spree. It snatched up PrimeSense, maker of some of the best 3-D sensors on the market, as well Perceptio, Metaio, and Faceshift, companies that developed image recognition, augmented reality, and motion capture technology, respectively. It's not unusual for Cupertino to buy other companies' technology in order to bolster its own. But at the time, it was hard to know exactly what Apple planned to do with its haul. It wasn't until last month, at the company's annual talent show, that the culmination of years of acquisitions and research began to make sense: Apple was building the iPhone X.