Online genealogy platform MyHeritage has brought countless people together, filling in question marks with family history and completing unfinished stories. Throughout the last decade, the science and technology behind genealogy has evolved massively, allowing DNA testing to be easy and accessible to everyone. But the technology doesn’t stop at family trees and DNA matching.
MyHeritage has launched a groundbreaking tool called Deep Nostalgia, which allows you to see your ancestors come to life, using old family photos.
The tool, powered by D-ID, is based on different sequences of gestures that can be applied to a photo, such as blinking, head movements and smiling. Since launching a few weeks ago, Deep Nostalgia has blown up the internet, with 72 million people creating animations of their loved ones.
This reaction has caused MyHeritage to keep the features coming, with 10 new movement options available, doubling their numbers from when they launched. The new animations include some real tear-jerkers, such as blowing a kiss, nodding with approval and smiling wholeheartedly.
It’s similar to taking a live photo on your iPhone. When you hold your finger down on a live photo it moves, which is kind of what these animations look like when they move. Like a motion photo, or a hologram.
The technology behind this incredible feature is really quite simple. They’ve based each of the different gestures on simple expressions that can be conveyed through a photo, originating from a pre-recorded driver video that they’ve created using the faces of MyHeritage employees.
In order to utilise this tool you’ll need to sign up to MyHeritage.
The Deep Nostalgia™ feature is accessible from 3 locations:
- The Deep Nostalgia landing page
- The Photos section in the family site
- The MyHeritage mobile app for iOS and Android
When you animate a photo, the initial animation is selected by default so as to match the pose and angle of the person in your photo perfectly. That initial animation is always one of the first 10 general animations, which you can access by creating a free account. The special animations, which are the further 10 that have been added, need to be selected manually and are only available to Premium users.
You can sign up for MyHeritage now to get started.
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