Technology
Eerie website turns photos of long-dead relatives into ‘ALIVE’ Harry Potter-style video portraits
AN EERIE new website lets you bring old photos to life with artificial intelligence.
Deep Nostalgia is a tool that animates any human portrait photo you upload with the aim of making your family history come alive.
We tried it out with big historical figures like Abraham Lincoln and Queen Victoria and the results are pretty creepy.
The tool can be found on the My Heritage website.
An explainer states: “Animate the faces in your family photos with amazing technology.
“Experience your family history like never before!”
All you need to do is quickly create an account and then start uploading your images.
A few seconds after the upload you should see the image moving like a Live Photo on an iPhone.
AI selects the best and most realistic facial movements for each photo.
It was trained to do this using pre-recorded facial movement videos.
The site says it doesn’t send your photos to any third parties.
Alright, I’m joining the game and animating some ancient stuff. This is from the Acropolis Museum in Athens
Kinda fun, though it won’t work on ancient animals! I’ll add more as I get some OK ones pic.twitter.com/AwG9fA99Lj
— Flint Dibble
(@FlintDibble) February 28, 2021
The AI only works on pictures of faces but those faces don’t have to be from a photograph.
It worked on the Mona Lisa and a painting of Henry VIII.
One bemused archaeologist even tried it on ancient statues with some hilarious results.
Dartmouth lecturer Flint Dibble tweeted: “Alright, I’m joining the game and animating some ancient stuff. This is from the Acropolis Museum in Athens.
“Kinda fun, though it won’t work on ancient animals!”
Another happy user animated a photo of her grandmother when she was younger.
They tweeted: “oh my! @MyHeritage has created such an extraordinary photo animation tool. Here is my grandmother!”
What is artificial intelligence?
Here’s what you need to know…
- Artificial intelligence, also known as AI, is a type of computer software
- Typically, a computer will do what you tell it to do
- But artificial intelligence simulates the human mind, and can make its own deductions, inferences or decisions
- A simple computer might let you set an alarm to wake you up
- But an AI system might scan your emails, work out that you’ve got a meeting tomorrow, and then set an alarm and plan a journey for you
- AI tech is often “trained” – which means it observes something (potentially even a human) then learns about a task over time
- For instance, an AI system can be fed thousands of photos of human faces, then generate photos of human faces all on its own
- Some experts have raised concerns that humans will eventually lose control of super-intelligent AI
- But the tech world is still divided over whether or not AI tech will eventually kill us all in a Terminator-style apocalypse
Most read in Phones & Gadgets
In other news, Spotify has removed hundreds of K-pop songs after a dispute with music distributor Kakao M.
Twitter has launched paid subscriptions that let you charge followers to see your “exclusive” posts.
And, Apple could be releasing as many as nine new iPhones this year, according to rumours.
What do you think of the animated pictures? Let us know in the comments…
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