New mobile video service with SeeStorm Talking Heads – now in Russia

June 6th, 2005

PlayFon, a leading Russian provider of mobile entertainment, announced launching of a next-generation mobile value-added service with Talking Heads, realized in partnership with SeeStorm, the leader in innovative synthetic video solutions.

Talking Heads are animated 3D talking characters (avatars) which are created with SeeStorm technologies and are able to expressively pronounce jokes, horoscopes, news, as well as congratulations, wishes and any other personal messages of mobile users.

A variety of characters available for rich-media messaging includes presidents and cartoon personages, celebrities and beauties. SeeStorm technologies enliven originally 2D static images by converting them into 3D models and endowing them with mimics, emotions and ability to speak in synthetic video messages of mobile subscribers.

Talking Heads are an original way to congratulate, amuse or just remind of the author by sending an SMS with a WAP link to a downloadable video file. A wide collection of various avatars and greeting texts enables subscribers to make a personalized movie suitable for the situation. The movie can be also delivered to the addressee anonymously, as a surprise.

Talking Heads can be used not only for video messaging, but also as a Caller ID in modern handsets.

PlayFon believes in success of this content now and in the future. "Avatar is an innovative means of personalization of both subscriber's SMS and MMS messages and the handset itself. It is very relevant to young people who constitute the major segment of the new service users. Today we are the only Russian company to offer this type of content and we are sure that Talking Heads will greatly contribute to strengthening our top position in the Russian mobile video market" - Andrey Demochkin, Playfon's Head of Products Supply Chain Management Department, says.

"The number of people owing 3GP video-compatible handsets is headily growing. Synthetic video greeting cards is one of the first services based on SeeStorm innovative technologies and solutions in Russian market. We are going to launch more sophisticated services which enable subscribers to create 3D characters from 2D pictures and record their own or synthesized voice", said Alex Drozdov, Managing Director of SeeStorm.

Currently, there are 11 Talking Heads available on PlayFon web-sites (wap.playfon.ru and www.playfon.ru) but this number will greatly increase, providing users with new opportunities for unique multimedia entertainment.

About PlayFon:
PlayFon^TM, the provider of wireless entertainment offers a wide range of services in Russia, UK, Sweden and Ukraine. PlayFon is a leader of Russian mobile game market (according to SmartMarketing). The company is listed among Top10 Russian content-providers (according to J'son and Partners). Playfon is a part of LCS Group, which is ranked 62nd in top 100 Russian IT-companies (CNews100) and second in the list of fast-growing companies in the Russian IT-market (CNewsFAST).

SeeStorm is the innovative developer of computer vision, sophisticated speech processing and speech-to-motion animation technologies, provider of ready-to-go and complete software solutions for synthetic video services on mobile and PC platforms worldwide.