In all the hype about streaming video content and wireless broadband, one company has concluded that the most powerful communications device is something we all have: the human face.

Anthropics Technology, a London-based startup, has developed a specialized video compression technology called Synthactor, which enables true TV-quality video of people's faces to be delivered over bandwidth as low as 7 Kbps. The technology also enables real-time image manipulation and special effects, humanizing Web sites with lifelike talking heads for customer support or online tutoring.

Anthropics was cofounded by Andrew Berend, now its CEO, and Mark Williams, the chief technical officer. They worked together at Cambridge Animation, which Mr. Berend founded in 1990 and which has become one of the world's leading suppliers of cartoon animation software, used in films like Space Jam and The Prince of Egypt.

The duo joined forces again in 1997 at Createc, a government-funded initiative with the humble mission of "inventing the future of digital media." Anthropics was established to commercialize Createc's technology, and its founders hoped their animation research might be useful to communication service providers.

Working with business schools in the United Kingdom to ensure the technology would have commercial legs, Anthropics developed compression software that could broadcast the human head and shoulders and enable humanlike communication using the minimum possible bandwidth. "There's a real technology need for a system that will project faces with all the subtlety and accuracy necessary for effective nonverbal communication," says Mr. Berend.

The technology was designed to complement media offerings like RealPlayer and Microsoft Media. One application is streaming video, in which Anthropics software allows a newscaster's head to be transmitted.

Anthropics claims that it can already make multimedia messaging a reality on existing GSM networks, and that its compression software will make streaming media much more cost-effective on faster second-generation wireless and third-generation wireless infrastructure, whenever that finally appears.

Anthropics closed an $8.2 million first round in August; it was led by Quester, a U.K. venture capital house, and included Skandia Media Invest, a VC unit of Skandia, one of Sweden's largest conglomerates, and SkyVentures, a Swedish venture house partially owned by Skandia. In the present bleak environment for what we used to call rich content, Anthropics may prove a tasty morsel for a media company, rather than a big business in its own right, but we loved that demo.