It turns out talking paintings from Harry Potter are real and you can create one yourself. It’s fun and creepy at the same time. Who knew our very own Ryan Hoover could sing like this? 😜

There’s a new meme generator called Puppets.World that launched on Product Hunt just last week. Record a video and bring a static portrait to life with AI.

You can create your own puppet from any photo of a person, a portrait painting, or even a hand-drawn sketch. It even mimics facial expressions from your video. 🥴

While deepfakes can have some serious implications in the wrong hands, (identity theft, cybersecurity, anti trust to name a few) one of the makers, Svetlana Ragimova, explained the difference between deepfakes and the app’s tech, “The technology developed by Puppets.World may look like deepfake, but it's different. It's closer to face tracking, which is used in computer games and movies to create lifelike characters.”

It’s fun to prank your friends, send birthday wishes to your family, and create cringe-worthy memes to share on social media but the creators are optimistic about commercial cases, “it could be used in business: as an avatar for contact centers, with integration to chat-bots. We plan to do voice-only animation — when a puppet doesn't need a video, just voice recording. And later — only text.“

Here’s what the community is saying:

“I can see the memes coming!” – Jordan Westerman

“This is so scary but so awesome at the same time.” – Marcos Do Canto

“The quality is impressive.” – Jeffrey Wyman

If you want to have fun with your friends using AI, you may also want to play with these apps:

Familiar lets you deepfake yourself into fun GIFs with a single photo.

Impressions create your own high-quality celebrity deepfakes in minutes.

Alethea.AI positions itself as a Cameo-like marketplace for deepfakes.

Muglife is an app that creates 3D character animations from any photo.

Avatar SDK is an AI-powered 3D avatar creator.

FaceApp transforms your face using AI in just one tap bringing you realistic effects.

MakeApp is an AI-based app that adds and removes makeup from any face.

Avatoon creates cartoon-style avatars that stand out.

Cofounder Liz Eddy and her team are trying to make a taboo subject easier to talk about and plan for through the use of technology.

Lantern is your step-by-step guide on how to navigate your life before and after a death.