MOST of the photos we take with our mobile devices and cameras end up buried in hard drives.
Storyo founders Filipe Vasconcellos, Leonel Duarte and Manuel Costa had a pile of untouched photos that had a lot to tell, but they did not have enough time or patience.
They realised that the data in those digital memories could be a better storyteller than any of them, hence the birth of Storyo in 2014, a photo stories application that allows users to create short videos from their photos.
What it can do
With Storyo, users can create videos by selecting groups of photos from their camera rolls, or by selecting photos one by one.
From there, the app creates short videos using the best photos from users’ selections.
The videos are 15, 30 or 60 seconds in length, with longer videos containing more photos.
According to Vasconcellos, Storyo is a data-driven storytelling app that creates video memories that capture the rich stories of their lives.
Using Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, the app creates a narrative by selecting the best photos and adding rich details (such as maps, social media, weather, etc) to document the best moments of the user’s life. All of this is done in seconds and on the fly on smartphones.
How it works
To create stories, users need to select the first and the last photo of an event and press “play”. The Storyo’s AI engine takes care of the rest.
“Our proprietary patent-pending technology clusters photos in time and space, divides the story into chapters within an allotted amount of representation time (15, 30 or 60 seconds) by understanding your photos metadata and the highlights of that sequence of pictures,” Vasconcellos says.
Then the Computer Vision engine will select the best photos, deletes duplicates and ranks photos with certain characteristics.
The app also suggests a theme and music. In seconds, users will have a video ready to be shared or edited.
Photosharing
The app also allows photosharing from more than one user as collaboration is one of the key features of Storyo 2.0.
“After creating a video memory, the user can invite friends or family to collaborate.
Invitees will receive a notification and will be able to share, through Storyo, their photos of that event.
“In seconds, Storyo blends everyone’s best photos, adds details, and turns them all into a meaningful group video memory,” he says.
Moving forward
Since its launch in 2014, Storyo has been used by more than two million people in more than 170 countries.
“We’re looking to empower people all over the world to take control of their data to do something beautiful with it and connect through stories. Malaysians are some of our most active users and we look forward to helping them tell the most significant moments in their lives.”
Storyo is available for free at AppStore and Google Play.
CUTTING-EDGE COMPANY
STORYO is one of10 SXSW (South by Southwest) Release It 2017 finalists out of thousands of entries from around the world. This competition selects the Top 10 “cutting-edge companies” that will be evaluated by a panel of judges, technology industry experts, venture capitalists and media to select the company that will most likely succeed in the marketplace.
STORYO FEATURES
1. Automatic labelling and maps:
Storyo automatically adds time
labels and maps to your story,
giving more context to your video
memory.
2. Data-driven social stories: Our
digital lives play an essential role
in how we celebrate our life. To
better bring all of these together,
each narrative has an extra data
source — Facebook — and
moves beyond the smartphone
camera roll.
3. Weather info: To give even
more context, you can automatically
add the temperature of a
specific day.
4. Professionally-curated footage:
Your best stories can now
be even better with access to
a curated collection of over
100,000 high-quality professional
videos from Shutterstock.
5. Automatic timeline of stories
from your camera roll: This new
section reads your camera roll
and understands when your
magic moments happened by
suggesting a script of new photo
stories.