China's Baidu, Paramount Pictures unveil AR-featured Transformers' Bumblebee emoji

An attendee walks past a display at the 2018 Baidu World conference in Beijing, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018. Chinese technology company Baidu announced on Thursday that it is partnering with Swedish carmaker Volvo to develop electric cars with autonomous-driving capabilities.[Photo:AP]

China's top Internet search engine firm Baidu Inc. and Paramount Pictures said Friday that they are rolling out new emoji features in Baidu's IME keyboard apps that are built from the theme of Bumblebee, the latest film of the "Transformers" series.

The Bumblebee Augmented Reality (AR) Emoji is modeled on Baidu's sophisticated face-tracking AI, the hyper-realistic AR rendering of everyone's favorite Autobot that mirrors the user's expressions and enables them to take selfies or create one-of-a-kind GIFs.

These Bumblebee-themed offerings for mobile phone apps are the latest additions to Baidu's extensive libraries of emoji, customizable themes and skins for Baidu IME keyboards that deliver diversified, colorful and innovative funs in their conversations while texting emoji-themed messages such as "High Five!" and "Bee right there," said the two companies.

The offerings also include two Bumblebee-themed Sticker Packs that bring immersive messaging features to the fans of "Transformers" movie series.

The new yellow Bumblebee-themed features are now made available for about 400 million Baidu IME users who can download them via their mobile phone apps.

"This is the first partnership of its kind between Baidu's global business unit and a major Hollywood studio, and it couldn't be more fitting," said Jiang Feng, director of Baidu's global business unit.

"The Transformers films have nurtured a thriving community of fans, and Baidu prides itself on fostering a similar environment for its keyboard app users, where technology can be as fun as it is sophisticated," Feng said.

The two companies said users can interact with other Transformers fans within the app by downloading their favorite sticker combinations.