[imagesource: MyHeritage]

There is a lot of creepy technology out there.

Deepfakes have managed to make the internet even more confusing by creating ultra-realistic videos of people by pasting their faces onto someone else, the most recent being a deepfake of Tom Cruise on TikTok.

He plays golf, falls over in a clothing store, and so on. It would all be mundane if it wasn’t for the fact that its almost impossible to pick up on the fact that it’s not Tom Cruise.

Then there’s Deep Nostalgia, which uses similar technology to bring old family photos to life.

Per Gizmodo, a company called MyHeritage, which provides automatic AI-powered photo enhancements, is now offering a new service that will turn images of relatives into short videos that make them look like they’re settling into a pose before saying “cheese”.

Observe:

The process is automated. You simply upload a photo through the MyHeritage website, where it will be sharpened and enhanced before a deep learning algorithm is applied to make it move.

The orientation of the person in the photo is analyzed to determine the direction of their head and eyes are looking, and then a matching driver video—a modern recording of a face making movements as if it were posing for a photo—is selected to guide how the photo is animated.

Here’s a demo if you’d like to see that algorithm in action:

Someone used it to bring famous historical figures to life, including Einstein:

It does have limitations. You can only select one person at a time, so images with multiple subjects can’t be animated in their entirety. You can also only animate the head and neck, so no action shots.

It’s probably best not to spring this on an older, tech-impaired relative if you’ve gone ahead and animated their late family members.

[source:gizmodo]