Like meeting an old flame years later and finding out he or she did not age gracefully, revisiting the video games of our childhood can be a jarring experience. Those of us accustomed to lifelike, three-dimensional aliens snarling on the screen have a hard time taking all those pixilated baddies seriously; even elder statesmen like Space Invaders look like they belong more on a calculator than on a modern gaming console.
Enter Dani Lischinski of Hebrew University: Together with Microsoft’s Johannes Kopf, he developed (Hebrew-only) an algorithm that de-pixelizes and upscales low-resolution pixel art. Or, in plain English: He created a bit of computer code that takes all those sad-looking 8-bit video game characters of old and turns them into well-rounded, full-bodied beauties.