This App Turns Your Photos into Music If You Want to Do That For Some Reason

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Tech CEO Thomas Fisk started with a simple goal: make an app that turns one thing into another thing. He says his new service PicSong can do just that. (Brought To You By HBO's Silicon Valley)
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[@codediporpal]

Onion Talks Ideas Worth Shredding

[@manicabawse2867]

If you are still alive holla at a nigha

[@solandge36]

How dare you, sir?

[@mintgardener]

Gold

[@TheMW2informer]

Manica Bawse he’s dead

[@user-dp7ye3cg2z]

Only 1.5k likes? This deserves way more than that

[@slurpingmario8006]

I love how confident his voice sounds but he’s literally saying “I don’t know why or who I made this for but I made it”

[@hoid9407]

I love that it sounds like he's completely riffing who it's for. "Deaf people, oh yeah deaf people might like this... Babies who understand noise better than light? They might exist." Onion used to be so great.

[@aualga]

And after the talk, it suddenly hit him. "Oh yeah! Now I remember why I made this app! Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to take all that LSD at work."

[@tibbsazoid]

Haha, for my Uni project I wrote software that converts an image into sound and music. I struggled when people asked what the point of it was, if only I'd had this video.

[@-nathun8507]

Toby Bull can I have the code?

[@TheJudge064]

Wow! You're that guy?

[@magnuspeacock5857]

Can it be made into an app? I would genuinely like this to be a thing!

[@hgfuhgvg]

Did you remember to delete the original picture?

[@gangstasteve5753]

@@-nathun8507 its easy. My approach would be to get the rbg of each pixel of the image (with lowered resolution) and use that rgb color to play a song. There can be a red tone, a blue tone, and a green tone, and it would play them all at the same time for each pixel.

[@Pandamasque]

"As an innovator I have one simple goal: to make an app."

[@skeletonbuyingpealts7134]

Yep, that's in the video

[@honey3693]

I'm baffled how this comment has almost 2k likes but only 2 replies, now 3.

[@reinux]

This has to be one of the best lines to come out of the onion

[@user-dp7ye3cg2z]

Whatever it is

[@myczxr]

brilliant

[@bobobsen]

"But can it turn your music into photos? No it can't. Do you get to keep the original photo? No it gets deleted." Amazing

[@chaminadecrew79]

Always back up your photos before using PicSong

[@VivekYadav-ds8oz]

Funny thing is, deleting photos isn't usually a consequence of loading a photo, so they deliberately deleted the photo after making its song, for some reason.

[@skeletonbuyingpealts7134]

Yep, that's in the video

[@TheGreenReaper]

@@VivekYadav-ds8oz Sounds like a great opportunity for an app to turn music into photos. 🎶📲🖼️

[@nathanlittle8626]

@@chaminadecrew79 why did I read up to this point while he was saying it

[@prismarinestars7471]

“As an innovator, I have one simple goal. To make an app.” Too true.

[@krombopulos_michael]

MAKE AN ANDROID VERSION ALREADY!

[@user-uv1tw3so7r]

Krombopulos Michael Still relevant today (-_-)

[@patrikfrroku7215]

@@user-uv1tw3so7r Still relevant today (-_-)

[@sdc303]

@@patrikfrroku7215 Yeah, still relevant today (-_-)

[@Pichipieify]

@@sdc303 no it's not

[@average_person444]

Yes it is. Picsong has not released on android yet​@@Pichipieify

[@Eudaletism]

The Onion is like an app that turns the truth into humor.

[@Paralellex]

If you want to do that for some reason.

[@bigfatitalian7298]

Fuck off buttershit

[@ryanmarbut1035]

@@bigfatitalian7298 Why are you asking him to turn the "fuck" off. I'm using it!

[@theself5738]

Wow!!

[@Caesar88888]

I hope truth doesnt get deleted

[@TimLavey88]

This man is the new Steve Jobs. Such brilliance and innovation. I'm sure I need to turn my photos into music for whatever reason.

[@ignilc]

what reason?

[@jsquire5pa]

ignilc are you trolling?

[@stevewhite7084]

Maybe blind people might like it. There you go,he gave you a good reason. Why they might need it,have no idea but its a reason.

[@adamwho9801]

I have been to a lot of Silicon Valley company pitches that were a lot like this.

[@atthesunrise]

That's the joke.

[@Thrifty032781]

I love that his company created an app with no purpose or market, and he's up front about that fact.

[@jesseleeward2359]

True story

[@unfetteredparacosmian]

If only most companies were that honest

[@delcarm]

I respect it, makes me wanna buy it

[@DibbzTheLoner]

I'm genuinely surprised a program like this doesn't already actually exist.

[@baconinvader]

it probably does, in many different forms

[@abdicolestudios8899]

I just made one in under 2 hours

[@christobanistan8887]

@@abdicolestudios8899 Is it on a store? Tell us the name.

[@gangstasteve5753]

it does. many programmers make it as a project. It just never gets released as an app for whatever reason.

[@mostpassiveuser8904]

Apparently it does. www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2014/04/09/262386815/can-you-hear-a-photo-see-a-sound-artist-adam-brown-thinks-so

[@tuseroni]

reminds me of a script i made in javascript which took images and turned them into 3d spheres for some reason. it looked at the pixels and grouped them by colour, for each colour it detected to made a sphere who's size was based on how often that colour showed up and who's location in 3 dimensional space was based on the value of the colours (so #FF00FF was the vector 255,0,255) also the colour of the sphere was the colour it's location was based on. so if you wanted to do that for some reason, i made a script for that.

[@Muykle]

where can I get this?

[@3798penisholder]

I should of known how much of a nerd you are by ur profile pic

[@CanelaAguila]

Kind of disappointed by the RGB solution dude, not even using a fancy API to shape the spheres according to the emotions conveyed in the pictures? Something to consider for the next update

[@r.alexander9075]

Uhh yes i need multicolored balls for research... wheres the link

[@crankfrank3592]

A method very similar to this is actually used for image segmentation, if you're interested. By finding objects of similar color that are relatively close (spatially) to each other, you can identify, for example, individual cells for cell counting in biology labs.

[@adh0c468]

“Do you want to know what how you look sounds like?” Best line.

[@marvincool3744]

Not particularly

[@marlesimms]

"As an innovator, I have one simple goal: to make an app." God if that doesn't sum up most innovation

[@NosDarkly]

But why do my pictures of rotting corpses keep turning into John Maher songs?

[@GIFT1FROM1THE1GODZ]

let me guess, they're all off Battle Studies?

[@oliverklozhoff]

Sounds like the app is a true aural translation of the images

[@moistnugget4147]

holy fuck lol

[@builderphill1361]

@@GIFT1FROM1THE1GODZ john maher isn't john mayer

[@Phildiculous]

@@builderphill1361 but John Maher doesn't have any solo work ... did they mean John Mayer?

[@viron6734]

'No, it gets deleted' Spat out my drink at that one.

[@KamilDrakari]

It's an app and it works? That's like, two of the things that are practically required to make a great app! I'm sold.

[@GSBarlev]

_The Onion_ predicted multi-modal generative AI by almost a decade. Mad respect.

[@kieran.grant_]

Exactly what I was thinking, lmao

[@Joemamashouse69]

I want a photo that turns apps into music. I think that would be far more impressive

[@winstonsmith-ministryoftru1609]

"Bottom line is: it's an app, and it works." Wouldn't it be awesome if Bill Gates could say that someday?

[@VineFynn]

Dude's already the richest person on Earth, why would he need to make apps?

[@nukecorruption]

VineFynn actually he's the second richest nowadays

[@abdicolestudios8899]

NukeCorruption not after Jeff’s divorce

[@wb8211]

Or John Mcaffee

[@PhantomAyz]

Apple workers definitely could

[@KyleRayner12]

I kind of wish this existed. Hello, lazy custom ringtones for my friends.

[@pocobull]

I've taken a lot of photos in my life, and I can honestly say I've never wanted to turn them into music. And after watching this helpful video, I still don't.

[@codediporpal]

Half of Ted talks are just as absurd as this. Kudos to Onion for calling them on it.

[@silvereagle2061]

Closing their eyes wasn't enough, they had to shelter themselves. lol

[@slotgrinder5596]

Imagining that they have a lot of photos and they need them to be music for some reason or some other problem I don't know

[@c02c02]

ridiculously ahead of its time.

[@vrockchick89]

I can finally appreciate how beautiful and meaningful staplers truly are.

[@Densegrandeduvan]

This is totally coming some day.

[@whatdoesthisthingdo]

For some reason.

[@michaeljurado7224]

Steps to make ap: 1)train an autoencoder for image dataset. 2) Take the outputs of the dense layer and apply arbitrary function to map to mp3 of fixed time interval 3) return useless mp3 file. 4) Make money and have midlife crisis at age 40

[@rcbif101]

I used this app on my girlfriend and all it does is emit a shrill, obnoxious screeching noise.

[@MilkandDyskit]

That was a microphone recording, not the app, silly.

[@amitthehuman]

The app or your girlfriend?

[@deadgoon9705]

Amit Stein probably both

[@rajthomas5785]

It means the app worked. Congratulations!

[@tincanstantheman]

is your girlfriend Hillary Clinton?

[@sinekonata]

"Are thee babies like that? Idon't know..." That one did it for me :D

[@DMontez3]

The overuse of the word, "things" did it for me.

[@htsgm]

we have this too now The Onion just reports from the future

[@pluntchgunster6156]

Where?

[@htsgm]

@@pluntchgunster6156 Melobytes it turns photos into music if you want to do that for some reason

[@B3ARCAT]

2:54 “Do you want to know what how you look sounds like??” 😂

[@skyshoesmith6098]

It makes me really uncomfortable that there's one camera angle where he's very clearly not standing at the right angle but somehow not falling over, like at 3:19

[@grandmothermud6498]

What the heck, it must be a green screen

[@thephony1651]

Nah he’s just Michael Jackson’s cousin

[@wesleyanderson2721]

This was literally my Software Engineering I project. You have no idea just how accurate this is!

[@Anonymous4045]

Fun fact, recent developments in assistive technology actually are for this. For example, describing the curvature and trends of a graph in music, so blind people can "see" some digital media that can't really have alt text

[@gabe8168]

This could actually be a really weird way to store images in another universe

[@Skullmiser]

You can't use picsong to turn songs into pictures. He said so. I'm sure there are lots of other reasons you might need to use this software, though. What are they? That's up to you.

[@lampoilropebombs0640]

This is a good way to convey information in images to blind people.

[@amog8202]

This'd be used to make Bad Apple with Bad Apple, and then it will never be used again

[@GenderFun]

Yeah but can it turn VIDEO in to Music?

[@crazychri1]

WOAH WOAH WOAH we are years away from that type of technology!

[@Xbob42]

No, you idiot! It turns video into strings of text! Here's a video of my cat playing the trombone: kjewjfjJJKZPp1o1oAZTTT9290430{}{}{|||||>>

[@Slyguy846]

Xbob42 Here's my response video to your cat video: ks@$%aafnzafew&^$/danf1o921+_(58bear13aqtfacn>)(!@#!$@%!a15 *agfawbugeaw!@%#!H%IU%!#BHABUAB%!5bu25b* a̶r̶f̶a̶w̶e̶g̶@̶!̶%̶&̶s̶d̶a̶j̶i̶a̶h̶r̶!̶@̶$̶!̶@̶h̶%̶!̶#̶^̶!̶#̶a̶r̶n̶a̶e̶i̶!̶@̶ Not really impressed.

[@PeterMeijer1]

The vOICe for Android app does video play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=vOICe.vOICe

[@alexnejako777]

i have an app for that.. not as silly though

[@Rajeevyoutube]

“I can’t tell you why you need this it’s not my job”

[@phillustrator]

As usual, the onion was prophetic. Years later, we have image to sound AI.

[@1simo93521]

Great onion talks are back. Love this series.

[@Pierreism]

A stapler sounds like a Frank Zappa song. Good to know!

[@amirriddle]

This sounds like the inane thing that ppl would love on tik tok or snapchat

[@Thejugglingbum]

Haha he sounds like one of your friends pitching an idea he thought of while drunk or high

[@cyin974]

This actually brings a powerful message: confidence sells.

[@jacquesmalan5950]

I don't think so

[@KRABPXL]

The funniest part about this is that this actually exists, this is a totally real thing someone made

[@sainttheresetaylor2054]

what's it called?

[@KRABPXL]

@@sainttheresetaylor2054 Melobytes, its a website

[@DarkCartoon_music]

I love how a stapler sounds like a game over theme from an E-E10+ rated PS2 game.

[@madnessbydesign1415]

Finally! Now, I can turn my photos into music for some reason, if I ever need that sort of thing, which I won't know until I do it, which is why I need the app! Thanks, PicSong!!!

[@hb3393]

Onion predicts AI in music. Damn.

[@jcrowley1985]

First thing I thought of was Windows Media Player on my old Dell from 2004.

[@whateverlolawants]

Dude. I could have written this comment.

[@maxungar516]

yeah, well i just as easily could've written your comment. why don't ya suck on that, big boy

[@Ben-do1bf]

For anyone wondering this guy is now one of the chief marketing officers at OpenAI.

[@safapresley]

I might use this app for some reason

[@parkkinglot892]

This was actually many years ago. They already developed an app that turns music into videos. In fact, this video is actually a converted music file.

[@GoPieman]

Crazy because to make videos rather than pictures you need four-dimensional music yet here we are

[@Gredddfe]

Build it and they will come! In 30 years our grandchildren will laugh at the fact that we once only experienced photos with our eyes.

[@flyingdics1]

I love that in my subscriptions feed, the video above this was a TED talk titled: "Bran Ferren: To create for the ages, let's combine art and engineering". Either one could be the joke. Perfect timing.

[@MusicBankTv]

Crazy AI people are now working on this somewhere lol

[@ehtresih9540]

Once again The Onion has predicted the future

[@TheTexas1994]

This is actually something I could see a future app developer making for some reason

[@MaxZomboni]

As an innovator I have one simple goal. To make an app.

[@Florkl]

My local planetarium actually does this and it just doesn’t make sense. Nobody visually impaired will go to an hour show for 5 minutes of weird sound, and for everyone else it’s exactly as awkward as this video makes it.

[@hop-skip-ouch8798]

This is how Juicero started.

[@The_Charlatan]

Wow, how do you remember that?

[@davezak]

is this out yet? how much is it?

[@eightcoins4401]

Love the detail of all of them being terrible midis being played back over windows wavetable

[@massimookissed1023]

_"TErD: Ideas worth keeping to yourself."_

[@TheTerp97]

"Includes paid promotion"

[@portalbuilder7021]

There was a kickstarter or indigogo campaign for a program that turns songs Into recipes for meatballs. It was made by Swedish art students

[@jeffreykalb9752]

"Are there babies like that? I don't know!"

[@brandonm1708]

If they just had one of the pictures turn into someone screaming this would’ve been like 10x better

[@d007ization]

I like how diligently they all covered their eyes.

[@lasaboteuse]

I thought "oh it's like the Tantacrul video about how most sonification is completely pointless" and then saw it came out way earlier

[@Mr_Yeah]

And now we have Google's Gemini AI, which actually can convert images into sound or text. 😅

[@joaquindplanc9826]

Jaw-dropping technology. Never would have dreamed something like this could happen in my lifetime.

[@aaronking2020]

This is real now

[@Rapscallion2009]

It reminds me a little bit on "Anthem" in one of the Douglas Adams novels. It took financial records and turned them into company anthems!

[@globalincident694]

That green screen work was just painful.

[@REHANKHAN-en5zn]

'Close your eyes'. Audience closes their eyes with their hands.Great joke.

[@VivekYadav-ds8oz]

I clicked a photo of my trash and it played Baby.

[@returnoftheredeye]

I reckon a photo of me would sound like "Because I Got High" by Afroman.

[@NOAHPCPRO]

bro some one at youtube maerked this for including paid promotion why?

[@portalbuilder7021]

Thats so funny omg

[@Buphido]

You know, there's actually already an algorithm that does something eerily similar, and it's based on the work of a mathematician in 1822. The fourier transformation transforms an image into a unique assortment of waves of different frequencies and amplitudes. Waves like that could be directly converted to sound and bam, you're done.

[@2dayBlue]

Still makes more sense than ted

[@cookiecakeeater6340]

Not good enough, I need it to turn my music into photos

[@aukir]

Artificial Intelligence will now do all this for you.

[@AlexanderJaredSanchez]

Why all pictures of me & my girlfriend keep turning into circus music thoe?

[@AsaNodelman]

Skullflower's legal department wants a word...

[@Fatherlake]

The fact that this is actually real now...

[@zvuho]

Yeah I made SoundPaint 15 years ago and found out the hard way that nobody really wanted to do that.

[@msbkay]

thx onion for reminding me why i fell in love w u in undergrad. thank u.

[@CristobalRuiz]

I'm watching this in 2022 and this hits the nail right on the head about "IoT", "digitalization", "digital transformation" and so many other stuff product marketing blows up smoke about.

[@anponmon]

Now that we’re getting AI to turn Spotify playlists into images for some reason, I think we’re clear that onion is a time travelling news agency

[@bboi1489]

Well duh, they have that satilite that can see into the future

[@Thumb_]

Duh… haven’t you seen Onion Future News?

[@nickellis1553]

"As an innovator I have one simple goal... to make an app" funny because its true. nobody invents anything anymore its all just apps and mediocre robots

[@geometryflame712]

We can actually do this now

[@Olflix]

10 years later, this actually became real

[@Cat-xn8js]

Impractical Joker vibes i love it. Onion should keep making these

[@onemorefreak]

I thought this was morronic then I noticed it was the onion. Genious

[@LockenJohny101]

I can imagine someone seriously doing this in 2019.

[@lavasharkandboygirl9716]

Apple inventing Live Photo’s in 2017: 👀

[@armanvranka7520]

“I can’t tell you why you need this” 🤣

[@theHAL9000]

This is the future. Sell your house, car, anything you have, and invest it in this now.

[@deathrabbit8710]

I lost it at the dramatic stapler music.