Chapters (109)
- Part One
- ONE
- One day earlier
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- PART TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- FIFTY-SIX
- FIFTY-SEVEN
- FIFTY-EIGHT
- FIFTY-NINE
- SIXTY
- SIXTY-ONE
- SIXTY-TWO
- SIXTY-THREE
- SIXTY-FOUR
- SIXTY-FIVE
- SIXTY-SIX
- SIXTY-SEVEN
- SIXTY-EIGHT
- SIXTY-NINE
- SEVENTY
- SEVENTY-ONE
- SEVENTY-TWO
- SEVENTY-THREE
- SEVENTY-FOUR
- SEVENTY-FIVE
- SEVENTY-SIX
- SEVENTY-SEVEN
- SEVENTY-EIGHT
- SEVENTY-NINE
- EIGHTY
- EIGHTY-ONE
- EIGHTY-TWO
- EIGHTY-THREE
- EIGHTY-FOUR
- EIGHTY-FIVE
- EIGHTY-SIX
- EIGHTY-SEVEN
- EIGHTY-EIGHT
- EIGHTY-NINE
- NINETY
- NINETY-ONE
- NINETY-TWO
- NINETY-THREE
- NINETY-FOUR
- NINETY-FIVE
- NINETY-SIX
- NINETY-SEVEN
- NINETY-EIGHT
- NINETY-NINE
- GLOSSARY
- Acknowledgments
- Continue reading
- Part One
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
Nii grinned at their joshing but got serious quickly. “Okay, shut up and listen. You already know how we use fake technology for Skyping. We download a video from YouTube and convert it to media file with ClipConverter or KeepVid.”
They bunched together behind him, watching his laptop screen. “We go take as an example this one I already have of a beautiful Ghanaian woman I used for that American guy, Mr. Gordon. Now, formerly I exported the file to ManyCam, and on Skype I use ManyCam as my fake camera instead of the real one. Do you get it?”
The students nodded.
“Then when I’m Skyping with the American guy,” Nii continued, “he go see the video of this woman, but I can’t make the woman really converse with him, and sometimes her expression no match what the man is saying. So, maybe she dey smile when he hasn’t said anything funny. That’s why we tell the guy that the laptop make old, the microphone is broken, and the network make slow, so because of that we can only text the conversation.”
“And some of them go suspect it’s not real,” Bruno added. “That’s how we lose them.”
“Correct,” Nii said. “Now, what if we can make the woman smile, laugh, and converse with the guy in real time?”
“Not possible,” Timi-Timi said, looking at Nii as if he were crazy.
“Just wait, okay? I’m coming. Now, instead of exporting our media file to ManyCam, we open Face2Face and import the file of the beautiful lady. Once we do that, we play the clip for about three minutes so that the software can learn all her facial expressions—her smile and all that stuff.”
While that was proceeding, Nii moved to the nearby table where the Face2Face camera sat. He turned it on, adjusted some settings, and returned to his laptop. “Now we go to Skype. Instead of the real laptop camera, we click on Face2Face as our fake camera. Okay, now you see the video of the woman.”
Nii returned to the Face2Face camera and sat in front of it, tilting it so that it captured his face within a frame on the screen. “Bruno, you will be the American guy, okay? I’m going to call you and you get online.”
“Okay,” Bruno said.
The call came through and once the connection was established, the image of the lovely Ghanaian woman appeared on the laptop’s screen.
“Hello, my dear,” Bruno said in a brave attempt at an American accent.
Nii smiled broadly and batted his eyelashes, and so, correspondingly, did the beautiful lady on Bruno’s phone. But through the magic of the software, it was her smile, not Nii’s, and it looked natural.