Google launches three new experimental photography apps as part of its "appsperiments" program

Photo: Google

Christmas has arrived early for photographers and Google is playing the role of Santa Claus.

The company announced that it has launched three new photography apps.  These apps come as a result of the company's "Appsperiments” program," which is focused on utilizing technology that is in development at Google to create  functional apps.

Inspired by last year's Motion Stills app, which turned Apple's Live Photos into universally shareable gifs, some of the technology used for these apps include object recognition, person segmentation, stylisation algorithms, efficient image encoding,  and decoding technologies.

For the first installment of the program, Google launches Storyboard, Selfissmo!, and Scrubbies. 

Below is a breakdown of each app:

Storyboard (available for Android only)

Storyboard scans a video and selects the best six stills and arranges them into a comic-book like storyboard layout. 

"Storyboard transforms your videos into single-page comic layouts, entirely on device. Simply shoot a video and load it in Storyboard. The app automatically selects interesting video frames, lays them out, and applies one of six visual styles. Save the comic or pull down to refresh and instantly produce a new one. There are approximately 1.6 trillion different possibilities!"

Selfissimo! (available for iOS and Android) 

Selfissmo is an automated selfie photographer app that takes a black and white photo every time you strike a pose. 

"Selfissimo! is an automated selfie photographer that snaps a stylish black-and-white photo each time you pose. Tap the screen to start a photo shoot. The app encourages you to pose and captures a photo whenever you stop moving. Tap the screen to end the session and review the resulting contact sheet, saving individual images or the entire shoot."

Scrubbies (available for iOS only)

Scrubbies lets you manipulate the speed and direction of video playback and produce video loops that highlight actions. 

"Scrubbies lets you easily manipulate the speed and direction of video playback to produce delightful video loops that highlight actions, capture funny faces, and replay moments. Shoot a video in the app and then remix it by scratching it like a DJ. Scrubbing with one finger plays the video. Scrubbing with two fingers captures the playback so you can save or share it." 

If you do download, try out any of these apps, and want to provide Google with feedback, you can do so here. 

SOURCE: Google Research Blog