Facebook buys face swap app Masquerade

Facebook has bought popular app Masquerade (also known as MSQRD), which should let them cash in on the current face-swapping craze.

The sale was announced in a blog post written by Masquerade's CEO Eugene Nevgen, who said the company was excited to join forces with Facebook "and bring the technology to even more people."

By getting on board with the social networking giant, Nevgen said the team would be able to bring their app to Facebook's nearly 1.6 billion-strong audience, a scale which they "never imagined was possible."

Masquerade uses software to digitally swap the faces of two people, transplanting their expressions and facial movements and letting them take pictures and videos.

It also offers a range of filters that can turn you into anyone you want - in honour of the Oscars, a recent filter was released which transformed users into Leonardo DiCaprio, letting them give their own acceptance speeches.

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg tried out the Iron Man filter, posting the video to his page and welcoming the Masquerade team to the company.

The standalone Masquerade app will remain up and running for the forseeable future, but you can expect to see face-swapping making its way to Facebook soon.

The price that Facebook paid hasn't been revealed, but given Masquerade has consistently been near the top of the App Store and Google Play Store charts since its launch in December last year, it was probably a lot.