Posts Tagged ‘ video

Interactive Video Manipulation

Dan Goldman from Adobe’s Creative Technologies Research Lab has been working on some pretty amazing software that allows you interactively manipulate videos.

We’ve all seen basic face-tracking software in webcams, including ones that can paste objects on top of someones face. This takes that a lot of steps further, allowing you to assign text/graffiti to any object in a video and it applying throughout the video; being able to draw arrows that track people through a video; and drawing speech/thought balloons that stick to their source and don’t overlap with anything.

However, the best of these features is the dynamic selection of frames. You can video someone, then drag their face around to select a decent frame, or just to drag them around like a ragdoll. A more practical application is where you can get a perfect still image, by selecting the best frame for each individual person.

Check out the video to learn more:


Interactive Video Object Manipulation from Dan Goldman on Vimeo.

Skype hits 500 million downloads

Today sees Skype reach another land mark figure with more than 500 million people having downloaded Skype, extending its mark as one of the most popular free downloads of all time.

Not content at that, the number crunches over at Skype have seen fit to provide us with some handy facts including the statistic that six people download Skype every six seconds, whilst the number of registered users has grown from 54 million on September 2005 to over 171 million registered users worldwide in 2007.

Skype