You can jazz up your video chats with ooVoo.
You can make your next video conference more interesting with ooVoo, a video conferencing company. This is a program that you can download from the Internet (see Resources) that monitors your video conference call (or video recording) and lets you add famous faces, funny eyeglasses, strange hairdos or cartoon eyes. The software knows where your face is, so the effects stay in place while your head is moving, and you can change the selection anytime you want.
Getting Started
You can download the ooVoo software for free from dozens of different places on the web. Be sure that you start a video call before you start the download so ooVoo will know where to install the software. A download wizard will appear on your screen once the data transfer is complete. The wizard will lead you through the usual download procedure where you have to click a couple of "next" buttons, one "I agree" button and a final "Install" button. An "Enable Effects" button should appear in the upper left corner of your video conference frame. You only have to do this once. After the initial download, the "Enable Effects" button will always appear on your video frame.
Using ooVoo
If you are video chatting with your boss, a recruiter, someone you are trying to impress or someone with no sense of humor, you can do the video chat as you always have---if you do not hit the "Enable Effects" button, ooVoo stays in the background and nobody will know that you have it. When you do hit the "Enable Effects" button a palette of funny faces, bizarre eye wear and amusing hairdos will appear. Only you can see this palette. If you click on an effect it is immediately attached to your image, and will move as your image moves so it seems to be really attached---the eyeglasses will stay on your eyes and the hairdos will stay on top of your head.
Other ooVoo Effects
Attaching things to your face or putting George Bush's face over yours is not the only thing you can do with ooVoo. You can also distort your image in several fun-house-mirror ways. It is also possible to change the true colors to colors that look like thermal scans, or create color substitutions such as making your image just shades of blue and green. You can even split the screen into four parts and make each of your four images be in a different color range---very reminiscent of Andy Warhol. There is also a "scratchy" contrasting background and foreground quite reminiscent of Maurice Sendak. Some of these effects are not available on the free download version---you have to pay for an upgrade.
