Photospeak is a cool app which lets an iPhone user snap a face portrait and, through some kind of magic, the user records some speech. Then, abracadabra, the photo begins to move and blink — and speak.
Though Photospeak is really cool, it’s a little on the creepy side. Not the concept itself, but in addition to the fake-looking mouth movements, a swipe on the screen causes the head in the picture to move. Eyes blink, heads move from side-to-side and up and down, and its all happening to a still headshot. That’s what is so disquieting.
It doesn’t help that I bought Photospeak a day or two after hearing a news story about some wacky, well-meaning scientists who hooked some guy’s brain up to a computer and he thought up a word, and the computer then spit out an image.
Because, essentially, that means that one day my iPhone will be intrinsically linked with my brain, and all I will have to do is think and my iPhone will make my calls, check my emails, speak for me and perform my tasks. Then I will be, essentially, superfluous.
The technology involved here in Photospeak is absolutely amazing, if you read the user-submitted reviews in the iPhone App Store. But its lack of any practical application puts it on par with apps that fart.
Future updates promise to allow Photospeak users to send a movie of the speaking app to friends. Which gives it a kind of purpose, I suppose.
