A new artificial intelligence service lets you animate old photos. It can bring everything from old photos of a relative to a portrait of a historical figure to life.
The service called “Deep Nostalgia” is from the company MyHeritage and uses technology to turn still images into animated videos of your friends, family members, or even historical figures. The innovation animates the photo through a predetermined sequence of movements and gestures, such as blinking your eyes, smiling, and turning your head. The service is completely free and lets you use any photos you have stored on your computer.
According to MyHeritage, more than eight million animations have been made in less than a week since the service was launched.
Still, the technology is far from perfect. Although it brings some realism to the image, you can still see some unnatural movements. One of the limitations is that it can only create a “deep fake” of a single person, from the neck up. Thus, the technology does not work in group photos, writes Big Think.
There is no limit to the kind of animations that can be experimented with. In some cases, certain users have experimented with the faces of neanderthals. “Some people love the feature with ‘Deep NostalgiA’ and consider it magical, while others think it’s scary and don’t like it,” reads the “MyHeritage” website.
“Indeed, the results can be controversial and it is hard to remain indifferent to this technology. We invite you to create videos using this feature and share them on social media to see what your friends and family think. This feature is intended for nostalgic use, that is, to bring beloved ancestors back to life.”
