What the Tech? App of the Day: Wombo
If you’re a fan of stupid silly apps, Wambo is a new one on the radar. Like other shape-shifting apps such as Face Swap, Gradient and ReFace, Wombo creates a short video or GIF from a selfie.
Using artificial intelligence Wombo stitches adds eye movements, shoulders and head turns and mouth movements so it appears your still shot selfie is lip syncing the words to popular songs.
You can take a selfie with your camera in the Wombo app or add one from your photo library. You can also use still shot images of celebrities. Once the selfie is recorded you can choose from a selection of today’s top hits. HipHop songs are the best to use.
DJ Snake’s “Turn Down For What”, “How Deep is Your Love” from Calvin Harris and “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi are among the top 10 songs the app has rights to use. There are also selections from memes. Once you’ve taken the selfie and choose the song, Wombo creates the magic.
The results are pretty impressive, fun and silly. But that’s the point of these apps isn’t it? Just stupid fun?
In our tests I found for best results the lighting needs to be bright, a blank background keeps from shifting any artwork or TV screen in the room. It’s also best to smile a bit in the selfie. Not a big wide grin, but Wombo suggests a smile big enough for the app to see your teeth.
Wambo is a free app for iPhones and Android devices but the free version has ads and a limited number of captures and Wombos you can do at one time. There’s a subscription of course.
$4.99 for a month and $29.99 for a year and unlimited videos. There is a free 3-day trial if you sign up for the annual subscription but like similar apps, you’ll need to cancel the subscription within 2 days to avoid being charged for the entire year.
(hint: you can cancel the trial right away and still use the premium version until the trial ends without being charged anything)
As far as safety is concerned, Wambo says in its privacy policy that it does not keep the facial data once the video has been created. I also did not receive a warning from Apple that Wombo will collect nor share data from apps and websites that I happen to use after downloading the app.
