Facebook along with engineers and technologists are creating a new way to present the user interface on the network. Introducing a new software that animates still photos on your timeline.
Siggraph Asia presents a new technology for facial animation. There is a fascinating twist to this new technology in relation to older software models. The difference is, older models require videos of captured frames from the individual in the still photo. The new model created by Siggraph, works from the still photo without video. To accomplish this, this new software uses a completely different algorithm. The software tracks facial expressions of the captured individual without the need of a 3D camera.
What is most fascinating about this is bringing your Facebook feed to life. With the installation of this software, users can bring any image to life – photos of friends, family, celebrities, etc. You can use your Facebook like buttons to control still images. For example, if you love a photo the person in the photo will animate emotions of love. If you respond angry, the person in the photo will animate emotions of anger.
Facebook and the engineers are considering whether or not they should allow this software to become a public usage. As this new software could cause controversial issues. For an example, someone could use this technology to turn still photos into videos of people saying inappropriate or impolite things.
Diaz, Jesus. “This Magical Software Makes Facebook Profile Pictures Come Alive.”Co.Design, Co.Design, 30 Nov. 2017, www.fastcodesign.com/90152755/this-magical-software-can-make-facebook-photos-come-alive.
Im not sure how I feel about this as I have a few different concerns. First of all, I think this is extremely creepy. If I am liking a post on Facebook, I don’t need the face to all of the sudden come to life as I click the button. I feel that the picture barely moves or “comes to life” and in that case I don’t ever think it should be a real feature to Facebook. In addition, I feel like this is very similar to the idea of a “gif”. Gifs are basically pictures that move for a few seconds, kind of like a very short video. I don’t think Facebook needs something like this as Mark Zuckerberg and his team have already dominated the social media industry for the past decade or so. To conclude, I don’t see this as a necessary feature to Facebook and in fact, I think most people would not find this helpful to their platform, instead I think they would find it a little creepy.
I believe that coming up with ideas like these is very beneficial for companies and thats why Facebook is very popular/successful. I think its important for companies to think of new technologies and adapt to the times. Not only are they thinking of new creative ideas that they could develop more in the future they are creating awareness and driving attention to their brand. I feel like the companies that do things like these end up being always getting a lot of media attention and usage. However at the same time I believe one must also actively think of any negative attention that could result out of things like these. For example, one could do this on someone else photo and make them say or do things that are inappropriate or could hurt them.
Facebook is bringing about many new feature to keep their users engaged. Similar to the live pictures, the company has introduced at component that allows for 360 degree view of everything around the video. Live streaming has been even become mainstream. The 360 degree view allows users to scroll around the camera and see real time all surrounding. It is an astounding innovation when it comes to the evolutino of filmmaking and portraying live events. You can be in the comfort of your own home and be able to view all the surroundings of what another individual is filming. These types of innovations are limitless and can provide many opportunities in the futrre for advancement of filmmaking and social media.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/23/16190584/facebook-360-degree-photos-app-camera
This technology is interesting but I also think it is creepy. It is cool that it shows an advancement in face recognition. But I do not think it is useful and can make enjoyment to our life. If people want to see their interaction, they could talk with them face-to-face or use video chatting. And in the video, the picture of human makes me feel like they are robots. It is pretty uncomfortable. It is like iphoneX’s animoji, but animoji imitate cute animals and cute emojis. This technology imitates real human beings. I think this advancement can be used in another way which can make our life better.
This technology is interesting, and I believe we will see a lot more facial recognition technologies emerging. I am not sure how successful this specific application will be, because many people will interpret it as creepy, and it is likely that people will not want pictures of this nature to exist. I can see facial recognition used in many other applications, like solving crimes. Everyone uses technologies, like Snapchat, that can develop a knowledge of their facial features instantly, and this data could be sold for many applications. Some good, and some criminal. It will be interesting to see how we react to the emergence of new technology.
I totally feel exicited about this. When the facebook photos brings to life, it can be possibly touch and feel it. In addition, it will be cool to change people lifes when the photos can be true. But in the other hand, I think it will take a lots of money in order to do it, and it will be kind of wait for the photos to come. Furthermore, it will brings people imagination to life.
Although I find this technology cool, it leans more on the unnecessary and creepy side for me. Having a computer interpret what my friends and my own expressions would look like in a situation seems strange to me since they weren’t actually doing the expressions themselves. I personally see it as creating an even bigger divide between human interaction. If implemented, some may say that there would be less reason to have face-to-face interaction regarding topics because their profile picture already showed how they felt.
I think that this technology is pretty cool, but also kind of creepy. Also I feel like I have used software like this before, but I am not exactly sure where. Having this feature on Facebook seems to be kind of useless and weird. If I upload a picture, I don’t think I would want it to be making expressions that I am unaware about. The reason I upload the pictures is because I already like it how it is. Also I feel like not many people upload selfies on Facebook, at least on my Facebook feed. Maybe I would end up liking it when I get more used to it. In the future maybe every picture will be like this. Although I am not a fan of it now, maybe it will just take time to get used to. I also think it would be cool if selfies uploaded would react to real world events and weather. It kind of fits into the stuff in the video about how they could react to peoples likes. The software is pretty unique and cool. Something that I do enjoy is on my iPhone how when I take a picture, it records moments before and moments and moments after the picture. It is called a live picture. The reason I like this is because it captures the moment a lot better than just a still picture. Although I didn’t know this was a thing until my friend pointed it out, here is more information on what live photos are and how to use them on your iPhone.
https://iphonephotographyschool.com/live-photos/
I’m not sure how exactly I feel about this kind of thing. On one hand, it’s kind of cool that things like this are becoming possible from a coding standpoint. But also, it is taking it a little far. If you really wanted there to be an expression you should have taken that picture or video instead. I suppose it could be cool to have the option there to use it if you wanted it.
While I of course find this technology pretty impressive, I also find it to be a bit unnecessary. I personally am very much content with Facebook photos being still, and I feel that this is a lot of trouble to go to for the photos to move only slightly and a bit unrealistically. Seeing my friends move around in a robotic way would probably creep me out more than excite me, and I certainly have no desire to see my own photo be animated in this slightly strange way. One aspect about this that I do not like is that it is attempting to make Facebook more like real-life interactions, while in reality, it still doesn’t even come near them. It is so important for us to understand that Facebook can never replace face-to-face interactions, and it worries me that making animated photos may be moving away from this understanding.
This article discusses the use of this same animation in the iPhone X’s “animojis”. The iPhone X allows its users to record themselves making a face, speaking, or even singing, and send this in an animated emoji. I don’t find this quite as creepy, because the animation is 1. not of an actual person and 2. is not as robotic as the photos are. While the animation is pretty impressive and the emojis are cute, again I don’t find this to be very necessary. I think that with the huge number of emojis making every possible face it is excessive to now give an animated emoji that makes a face that probably already existed. Despite my opinions, this article discusses the great popularity of these animojis, saying that there will likely be more emoji options in the future. In general, I feel as though this advancement is not particularly useful, and that time could be better spent on something that provides a purpose.
Source: https://www.macworld.com/article/3235993/ios/animoji-faq-everything-you-need-to-know-about-apples-adorable-animated-emoji.html