Puppets is a new feature now available on SwiftKey Beta for Android. You can choose one of five different animals (Panda, Cat, Dog, Panda, Owl) with which to record a 30-second animated message, and your facial movements will be transposed onto the creatures by way of a tracking technology.
The Swiftkey Puppets feature is similar to Apple, Samsung, and Xiaomi‘s AR emoji functions, as a virtual character mimics your expressions and movements. Swiftkey says users can choose a dinosaur, panda, cat, owl or dog as their avatars of choice.
The team says it uses Microsoft’s 3D face tracking technology as well as a deep neural network to figure out your expressions.
Swiftkey’s team notes that you can record videos of up to 30 seconds in length before sending them via “almost any chat or social media app.”
Much like Samsung AR Emoji, Swiftkey Puppets doesn’t rely on 3D cameras to function properly. Instead, the team says it works with your standard selfie camera, opening the door for many more phones to gain the feature.
It’s not a brand-specific feature either, it will work with any Android phone use Android 7.0 and above. Microsoft says that those with more recent and powerful smartphones will have the best experience.
We wanted to give SwiftKey fans a fun way to communicate with their loved ones beyond pre-defined GIFs,” said Deepak Paramanand, Product Manager at Microsoft.
We created Puppets, a group of cute and furry friends that people can control just by being themselves. Choose one of five animals, record a message of less than 30 seconds and share it via one of the many popular communication apps supported by Android devices. It’s a fun way to stay in touch.
Version: 7.3.4.17
Updated: July 4, 2019
Category: Productivity
Requirements: Android 5.0+
Price: Free
Developer: Microsoft
Contains Ads: No
In-App Purchases: No
