Google's People Hopper 'morphs' Orkut users' faces

Just came across a rather strange little project in Google Labs called People Hopper.

Launched in late January, it's a gadget that runs in Orkut, Google's massively successful (if you live in Latin America) social networking site.

From what I can see (I am not a member and have not been able to try it out in person) you drag your profile pic into one square, drag a friend's pic into another square, and the app fills in the blanks inbetween, showing a series of faces that start by looking like you, then end up looking like your friend.

It's not quite Michael-Jackson-video-level face-morphing technology, but it does look like a fun, if somewhat disturbing, way of finding out who else on Orkut looks like you. Why? Because all the faces inbetween your face and that of your friend are random strangers whose profile pics have been scanned and analysed by the Googlebot. Unless they opt out, which people don't tend to do.

Weird, huh?