Have you ever wanted to turn Mona Lisa's smirk into a smile? You can with Kai's Power GOO, the first consumer product offering from MetaTools Inc. This product defines a new category of consumer software, "Creative Entertainment Tools." GOO turns pictures into images that feel like liquid on your screen as you stretch, grow, animate, fuse images or apply a host of other special effects in real time. Kai's Power GOO will be available in mid-June for both PC and Macintosh at astreet price of approximately $50.00. "Kai's Power GOO gives consumers who touch it an immediate creative experience by allowing people to interact with pictures in new and exciting ways on a PC or Mac," said John Wilczak, company founder and CEO. "I just love seeing the smiles GOO generates on people who never thought of themselves as being creative. This product is Funware!" Targeted to users with a wide range of computing and artistic abilities, Kai's Power GOO features an interface that is designed to encourage exploration and creativity through direct, intuitive, real-time interaction with images. GOObies (those who Just GOO It) can simply choose from one of the many images supplied in the GOO CD-ROM image galleries that include kids, animals, politicians, world leaders and artwork, or can import from a variety of sources including: their own images from 35 mm film transferred to CD-ROM, diskette, digital cameras, scanners, capture devices, video recorders, or the World Wide Web. GOObies can smudge, nudge, smear, move, grow, shrink, smooth and mirror the image, changing it in real time right before their eyes. Progressive transformations of GOOed images can be easily dropped into a real-time animation that instantly transforms the original still image into comical, movie-like GOOVIE sequences. In addition to the GOO Palette, Kai's Power GOO features a Fusion Palette that makes it possible to GOO together different images. GOObies can superimpose one image (or parts of one image) on top of the other, creating a slick, professional composite picture. All GOOed images can then be printed out and saved for use on personalized t-shirts, mugs, screen savers, etc. "What we've done here is bring a whole range of professional special effects -- some previously available only on high-end imaging systems, mixed them with an easy to use 'GOO' palette, and created a program that fosters creativity and fun," said Kai Krause, senior science and design officer, MetaTools, Inc. Available for Windows 95 and Windows NT personal computers and Apple and Power Macintoshes, Kai's Power GOO also can produce images for online uploading, printing on color printers, QuickTime and AVI movies or output to high-end professional imaging software and hardware. It is built on powerful, proprietary imaging and user interface development engines.