March 31, 2008

Another Fun Tool From Aviary: A Photo Time Machine

Michael Arrington

38 comments »

When we hear from Aviary it’s bound to be something entertaining and fun. The New York based company remains in private beta but adds to its suite of image manipulation products regularly. The newest tool is called Dodo, a web-based time machine.

A video demo is below. You upload an image to the service and it will “age” it based on user input. An example: upload a picture of yourself, tell it how many years out you want it to age you, tell it how much you drink and smoke, and not any planned plastic surgery. It will then show you what it thinks you’ll look like down the road.

Aviary says the tool isn’t just for fun - that it may also be useful for “tracking down long missing children,” and “determining if a girlfriend will end up looking like her mother.” Demo video below.

What’s the technology behind it? Well, it’s pretty close to magic. Anything is possible in early April, it seems.

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  1. Andrew

    You put this out a day early Michael!

    :-)

  2. Jason

    Hilarious, an app that doesn’t suck!

  3. Tim

    Got a typo in the Aviary url.

  4. Andrew

    sorry Michael - and the 1st aviary link is wrong - I think you just crashed the servers of some nice bird-fancing people! :-)

  5. Yasser

    Date of the blog article: “April 01, 2008″.

  6. Nifty

    This is pretty nifty

    Oh, has anyone heard of this site?

    AudacityOfChange.com

  7. Michael Arrington

    we’re covering all the news, even the stuff pre-dated 4/1

  8. Another Guy

    Ha Ha, sounds like Michael took the bait.

  9. Andrew

    @7: LOL

  10. Steen

    Please do everyone a favor and invest in a adequate domain name.

  11. Tom

    michael nice joke.

  12. Avi Muchnick

    Hey, Michael - The first link is pointing to the wrong URL (aviary.com instead of a.viary.com).

    You’re putting some poor bird store out of business.

  13. MikeT

    I really hope this is not an April fool’s joke.
    This app is amazing, if it’s real.
    Endless fun and awesome graphics - loved the video presentation.

  14. 113.com

    Shouldn’t it do it 2ways… forward.. and.. rewind… of time… older or younger… :-o

  15. sourceroot

    LOL is Stephen Colbert writing for techcrunch now?

  16. bob cobb

    ummm bird supply store?

  17. tommy

    early april fools i suppose :)

  18. Jason

    cool their servers will go nuts come opening day. i cant wait

  19. 113.com

    @16
    obviously was wrong link to http://www.aviary.com :->

  20. bad link

    Your first link in the article is wrong. It is currently aviary.com but should be a.viary.com!

  21. Adam

    Another company using “magic” or should it be “illusions!?!”

  22. james

    Can’t these Schmucks pick a good domain name. This is so dumb! Spend all these times building an app to promote a pet store-LOL

  23. Mosley

    Is it April already? ;)

  24. grip

    Did you seriously bite on this obvious April Fool’s joke?

  25. Sunil

    It’s fun. Great website

  26. diystartupnews.com

    Best april fools so far

  27. Samuel Powers

    Winner.
    I love you, Aviary.

  28. dave

    The Michael Jackson transformation in the vid gave it away

  29. CARversation.com

    I DONT KNOW WHAT IS REAL ON TC AND WHAT IS AN APRILS JOKE.

  30. Michael Arrington

    carversation - you may have to wait until 4/2 before you be sure.

  31. JYC

    Michael Jackson XD

    Oh and in the last part: “Biblical —————–|- Scientific” XD

  32. Irene Smith

    This is essential for any one thinking of getting married. See how your possible partner may look like in 10 years time. If you don’t like the results, move on before any damage is done ;)

    Irene Green lasers guide

  33. Wilco

    rofl @ jackson, best one i’ve seen so far today.

  34. Ashwin

    Eager to know what might be the technology behind this?

    Bellur Ashwin - http://people.csa.iisc.ernet.in/ashwin/

  35. micfo.com

    I suspect about the results unless the technology is scientifically proved.

  36. Arc Tangent

    You know, the idea behind April Fools’ Day is not “lie and make it sound true.” With all the automatic photo doctoring that goes on, it’s very easy to build a rudimentary version of “photo time machine.” There already IS software that understands input like “there’s a car in this photo” that also 1) finds the car, 2) removes the car and 3) replaces the with a Flintstonesmobile. Since we already have this technology, it is therefore not funny to lie about such-and-such company releasing the technology. No?

  37. chiffmonkey

    i never watched the vid, and without it it looks sensible. on top of that its still on the site ages later. as said just before, april fools bullsheep is a total waste of time