For years now, Facebook has been rolling out some pretty technologically advanced features to the social media website. It’s no secret that when we have nothing better to do (or, even if we’re getting paid to do productive things) we’re sitting online, on our phones or tablets scrolling through Facebook. With such high numbers in traffic and high numbers of Facebook users, it’s really not a surprise Mark and the gang wants to keep us entertained and happy by giving us some new toys to mess with that has nothing to do with the 100 Candy Crush notifications your mom keeps sending you.
Now, Facebook is testing out a tool that will allow users to have an “animated profile picture.” Sure, we have been blessed with the choice to replace profile photos with GIFs and videos, but, now, we’re going to be able to upload a photo and change the expression, shapes and edit the crap out of them all at our own discretion – sounds cool, no? If you’re not sure what I mean – check out this video that kind of “shows” better than I can tell.
That looks pretty awesome if you ask me. It’s totally taking us into a brand new century of technology. Sure, we can take videos with our phone, but, it’s even cooler to be able to edit our beautiful selfies to do something even better – like a wink, or sticking out our tongue – anything of that nature. It’s not like this technology is super new, in fact, “New Scientist” reports that this kind of animation software has been around for a while now and it’s all about using a video of a completely different person and “photoshopping” their actions onto your face. According to NPR, it’s same technology people have used for years to create fake videos of celebrities and politicians – like former President Barack Obama.
The amazing part of this innovation and the advanced technology is that it’s completely unrecognizable to the naked eye that it’s been “photoshopped.” In fact, the animation video looks as though it’s been recorded of yourself, naturally – unedited. New Scientist reports that the feature could not only be used for profile pictures but even be used via Facebook Messanger to send “voice texts.” But, in all honesty – why not just do a Skype or FaceTime at that point?
But, the technology seems pretty awesome. The fact that technology has become so advanced that we can actually create videos from a photo is mindblowing. Remember when your dad carried around a huge video camera to record you in the bathtub and transferred them over to VHS’s that are now obsolete? Yeah, me too. Now you can make a splish splash taking a bath video of your kids without even really videotaping them. Just snap a photo and put on a few smile animations and boom – it’s like the good old days.
While it seems a bit confusing – it’ll be super easy to use, much like everything else on Facebook that’s pretty straightforward. I can’t wait to see what kind of awkward and embarrassing animation my mom chooses to put on her profile photo – good thing you can still block people on Facebook.