A moving gift from Google

Back in 2015, cyber world awed when Apple announced Live Photos. The live, animated GIF versions of the still images captured on iPhone 6S or 6S Plus were certainly a matter of bewilderment. The shaky images, however dissipated the fascination in no time. Indeed, it undeniably continued to be a wonder in comparison to its counterparts such as HTC’s ‘Zoe’ model and similar frail attempts by other brands. The ‘motion’ pictures are back in the headlines, thanks to Google. The tech giant has just announced ‘Motion Stills’, an iOS app to stabilise the frail Live Photos and make it shareworthy GIFs and video clips.

If Apple incorporated the moving element by catching a few frames before and after clicking the camera, the app wants to prune the elements of distortion and bring out a smart end product. The app is available for free download on the App Store. “With Motion Stills, we provide an immersive stream experience that makes your clips fun to watch and share. You can also tell stories of your adventures by combining multiple clips into a movie montage. All of this works right on your phone, no Internet connection needed,” reads Google’s official blog.

You read that last line right. The app is a super performer in offline mode, meaning you need not sign in to a Google account to make it function. Make sure you access right into the camera roll and Motion Still would take care of the rest. The app concentrates on moving the image centre while keeping the background area still, a factor contributing to ward off the shakiness.
“We pioneered this technology by stabilising hundreds of millions of videos and creating GIF animations from photo bursts. Our algorithm uses linear programming to compute a virtual camera path that is optimised to recast videos and bursts as if they were filmed using stabilisation equipment, yielding a still background or creating cinematic pans to remove shakiness,” Google details its mode of operation.

Once done, the GIF can be mailed, messaged or shared on other apps. The app arrives after Microsoft’s Hyperlapse time-lapse video apps for Mac to stabilise first-person videos. Probably, this can be assumed to be a source of inspiration for Google. Until now, other than third party experimentation of similar kinds, Google had not disclosed its plans to replicate the technology into Android phones.