Steve Perlman's latest

I never actually joined Microsoft as an employee. I turned into one when the startup where I worked, WebTV Networks, was acquired in 1997. The president of WebTV, Steve Perlman, is one of the most charismatic technology people I know, so I pay attention when he does something new.

Today's San Jose Mercury (and yesterday's Wall Street Journal) describe Steve's latest idea, a company called Muvo that makes Contour, software for substituting any face on an actor. You could do a movie where the "real" Johnny Cash's face appears on whoever is doing the acting, for example.

The articles don't mention this, but knowing Steve's interest in consumers, I'm sure a future version of this will work for home videos too. Imagine spicing up your kid's bar mitzvah videos with super-realistic appearances by Avril Levigne or Ichiro Suzuki.