[pwny]

This is somewhat surprising but not THAT much considering Autodesk makes a lot of creative finishing products and are trying to penetrate the consumer/indie space. (for example, Autodesk Smoke 2013 will cost ~25% of what Smoke 2012 did: http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/autodesk-smoke-2013/)

While this doesn't seem to be that much in line with their current product line, they can experiment in the mobile space, acquire a good team and maybe develop some new integration between creative finishing and mobile video.

I have faith.

[stephengillie]

Autodesk has apps[1] which work pretty well. I think they're trying to expand into the photo-measurement space, competing with companies like E-Template[2], measuring walls, rooms, and objects by analyzing a photo.

If they could morph SocialCam into an app to take photo/video, upload to their servers to do the math, then output to their app (or another part of their ecosystem), they would provide an incredible mobile utility that would both heavily impact the photo-measurement industry, and provide a massive gain to the 3d-printing early adopters. This is the kind of disruption that photo-measurement and 3d printing need.

[1] http://www.autocadws.com/mobile [2] http://www.etemplatesystem.com/