Microsoft's Hyperlapse Is the Latest Shot Fired In the Video Arms Race

Microsoft’s new mobile video technology, Hyperlapse, smoothes shaky Android and Windows Phone videos via a new processing algorithm. Unlike the Instagram version of Hyperlapse on iOS, it uses data processing rather than a phone’s hardware (no gyroscopes or accelerometers necessary). That means you don’t have to specifically shoot a Hyperlapse-enabled video. The algorithm works on essentially anything digitally shot, which is pretty amazing.

By way of example, here's a before-and-after Hyperlapsed video of a skier:

Hyperlapse is the latest advancement in idiot-proof video content creation. For the time being, you won’t be able to find it in an Apple app store —  Microsoft told The Verge that they prioritized Windows and Android because there wasn’t yet a hyperlapse solution available on those platforms. 

By no means is there a shortage of solid photo and video editing apps for mobile platforms. Five bucks at the Apple Store gets you iMovie, which is powerful and more or less easy to use. On the Android side, VidTrim, as its name would suggest, trims videos and adds Instagram-like filters. What the new program represents is evidence that we’re moving from the “we can do that” stage to the “we can do that well and efficiently” stage.

At some point, however, we’re going to have to start asking ourselves tough questions like, “Where’s the app to train people to hold phones horizontally rather than vertically and how many extreme-sports-animal-encounter-GoPro type videos does humanity need?” The answers are out there.