Apple officially acquires Faceshift, the company behind motion capture tech used in Star Wars

Earlier this year a rumor began floating around that claimed Apple had acquired Faceshift, the company behind the motion capture technology used in Star Wars. Now, TechCrunch reports that the acquisition has become official and Apple has acquired the Zurich-based Faceshift startup.

Apple has not directly confirmed the acquisition, but issued its standard statement regarding its purchasing of smaller companies. “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” the company said.

This isn’t the first motion capture startup Apple has acquired. Over recent years, the company has acquired PrimeSense, Metaio, and Polar Rose, all European-based motion capture, facial recognition, and virtual reality companies of some sort.

It’s still unclear at this point as to how Apple plans to use the talent and technology it has required in the virtual reality field. Early indications were that Apple was planning to implement some of the technology into the Apple TV, but none of that has yet to come to fruition, despite the newest generation model being released earlier this month.

Faceshift’s technology is used in the most recent Star Wars film to make non-human characters have features, characteristics, and expressions more similar to real humans.