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At a press conference Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled a new version of their video-chat service Skype designed specifically for couples in long distance relationships that degrades the quality of its video stream to match a pair’s emotional intimacy over time.
The tool’s developers told reporters they hope the tool will be accessible to anyone who wants to make the process of slowly drifting apart from the person you once saw yourself spending the rest of your life with as streamlined and easily accessible as possible.
Using proprietary machine learning technology, the software detects just how emotionally separate its users’ lives are at any given moment, and blurs the screen in accordance with how little each member of the relationship actually understands the life their partner is currently living without them.
“Before this invention, slowly phasing someone out of your life was a major hassle,” Roberts said. “But now, Skype For Long Distance Relationships can make it easier than ever.”
“It’s really amazing,” said Joan DiGroot, who uses the service to have stiff, forced weekly conversations with her boyfriend who lives five states away in Ohio.
During one such conversation, Skype For Long Distance flashed a suggestion to “Lie and tell Jim you have to get drinks with a friend.”
“I told him I had to meet up with Jennifer,” said DiGroot, referring to a person Digroot’s boyfriend has never met. "I could see the video get grainier right in front of my eyes.”
The tool will ramp up its feature set as the relationship deteriorates, eventually changing the user’s availability status to “Busy” even when they’re just watching Netflix alone and replacing all instant messages with “can we talk next week or something instead.”
Roberts said that though initial plans for the service were to involve decreasing the frequency with which users could log in to their accounts, the developers eventually concluded that people could take care of that part on their own.
