Thursday, June 25, 2009

Big Stage Adds Animated Avatars Into Skype

Pasadena-based Big Stage Entertainment, a developer of 3D avatar creation software, has released new software today which allows users of the popular Skype voice calling application to lip synch spoken words through a photo-realistic avatar. Big Stage said its new beta software--Blabber for Skype--is a free, plug-in for Skype's internet phone system, and works with avatars created in Big Stage using user provided digital photos of themself. Phil Ressler, Big Stage's CEO, said that the firm is looking to also deploy similar voice-sync capability to video games, virtual worlds, virtual conferencing, and social networking sites like Facebook. Big Stage is venture backed by Mission Ventures, Selby Ventures and Tech Coast Angels, and is based on technology developed at the University of Southern California.

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