Just like hanging portraits and pictures in newspapers could move, in the Harry Potter movies, historic photos of ancestors and famous personalities are resurrected with an Artificial Intelligence (A.I), known as Deep Nostalgia. The technology was released last month by an Israeli genealogy website – MyHeritage —a company that offers DNA testing to individuals wanting to trace their family history.
The technology lets people turn black and white portraits into video footage, with the subjects shifting their glances and blinking their eyes. Footages comprising real people exhibiting various facial movements were used to train Deep Nostalgia’s algorithm to apply motion to still photos. Deep Nostalgia employs AI to animate photos of people from the past.
The technology has since gone viral, with lifelike moving portraits of mathematician Alan Turing, abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and physicist Marie Curie doing the rounds on social media. The resulting images of the historical figures can blink, move their heads side-to-side, and even smile.
“Seeing our beloved ancestors’ faces come to life in a video simulation lets us imagine how they might have been in reality, and provides a profound new way of connecting to our family history,” Gilad Japhet, CEO and founder of MyHeritage, told USA Today.
Those who want to try Deep Nostalgia need to sign up for the platform and get five free animations. A paid account is needed for more.
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