When you do download this update to your Dropbox software for desktop machines, you should know that there are different versions for different Linux builds, but one version per system for Mac OS X and Windows. Dropbox also warns users that they should make backup sets of files while using this update specifically as this testing sequence is in place to test out stability primarily. Those of you updating in the future when the beta is over should have nothing to worry about.

This update will bring you 500MB of free space when you hit the automatic upload option, then 500MB more each time you hit the limit up to 4.5GB more total. This version fixes an infinite restart of Dropbox when the database is corrupted, an import error for iPhone, handles your quota issues on first import more effectively, and has a lovely set of smaller bug fixes. The 1.3 import’s biggest changes are the allowance of batch uploads and downloads of files and the importing of files from cameras, phones, and SD cards in a much more effective manner.

You can download your version of the software courtesy of David E from Dropbox in their community forums and don’t forget to heed the warnings! Nothing is truly free, do your duty!

This little wrapper comes in a burrito bag, and better yet it comes in a package from Photojojo with a Dinosaur toy in it if you’re lucky – but notably, it is packaged like the food it represents. All you do is unwrap it, click back the protective wrap strip embedded inside the wrap, and place your lens inside. This wrap is made to protect lenses that are big enough to be the representation of a burrito filling, but you can be that smaller lenses will do fine here as well.

This little beast will cost you a cool $20 from Photojojo today, and I reccomend you pick yourself up a couple. The craftsmanship is tops, the protection is real, and you’ll be baffling your friends in no time. The wrap is made of Tyvek, that being the same material that your best pal the hazmat suit is made of, so as Photojojo says, your lens will be safe even if you “drop your bag off a cliff, get attacked by a pack of wild honeybadgers, or get bored and need something to toss around.” It’s great, really!

Grab the Photorito Lens Wrap from the online Photojojo store right this minute, or forever hold your hamburger.

Now we’re taking multiple pieces of a file, telling the computer to see each similar piece as one piece of information, essentially, and sending. As publisher Devin Coldewey so elegantly puts it: instead of sending a music file over to your friend instrument by instrument, you just stack the sounds on top of one another, this resulting in a single file much more complicated than any of the individuals. This can all be simplified, says MIT researchers working to improve this “discrete” Fourier transform.

What they’ve found, or what they’re showing in the paper about to be published on the matter, is that the level of simplification that can be applied to this process can be rather drastic. For example they have an 8×8 block of values (64) in which 57 can be discarded – this happening without visibly affecting the file at hand, the file in this case being an image. What this could mean for our future is some gigantic things, ironically, especially in the fields of mobile computing and home computing – entertainment to the max. Have a peek at the paper as it’s titled now: Nearly Optimal Sparse Fourier Transform written up by Haitham Hassanieh, Piotr Indyk, Dina Katabi, and Eric Price.

[via MIT]

That means that the bulk of the photos users want Facebook to remove simply don’t make them look good, talk about vain. Facebook notes that users upload an average of 250 million photos each day. The intention of the reporting feature is to allow the users to report photos with violence and nudity since Facebook alone can’t patrol that many images.

Facebook will pull photos with nudity or violence, but won’t take down a photo just because the person in the photo doesn’t like it. This highlights the fact that just because a picture posted is of you, you don’t necessarily own the rights. Do you think people in the photos posted by others should have the right to force Facebook to remove them?

[via AllThingsD]

What more could you want than a camera that spins its head around in a circle so you can grab the whole scene? This obsession with capturing really, really long photos is not new, nor is it an abnormality here in this current mobile landscape we’re in. It’s become such an interest that the newest version of Google’s mobile OS Android has a built-in function to essentially do the same thing you can do with this camera. This camera though, is a fabulous piece of hardware in and of itself. Hold the pole and pull the string!

This camera is currently available for all you holiday shoppers who’ve got a bunch of Christmas cash (or something like it) burning a hole in your pocket over at the Lomography shop. This store is full of awesome, by the way, for those of you who’ve never been there before, especially if you’re wanting to grab a camera or three capable of photographing the same stuff you can get with your iPhone apps galore. This way is much, much more fun though, I assure you.

This camera is 7-megapixels strong, has a 1.5-inch LCD display for one reason or another, and has a microSD card slot for those of you not planning on instantly transferring your pics over to the iPad. Indeed you do not have to have the camera attached to the iPad to take photos, but if you want to hold the most awkwardly broad shooter in the world, complete with the most famous mouse in the world as well, feel free! This device will set you back $60 USD and works with a free app you can download from the iTunes Appstore.

The app allows you to do basic edits and add all sorts of Disney-themed graphics and backgrounds and all that good stuff, the transfer process from camera to app to Facebook, email, etcetera, seeming to be quite simple. You can do a similar transfer process if you’ve got Apple’s Camera Connection kit, but it’s not nearly as fun then is it? In this Mickey Mouse shooter you’ve got as close to an iPad-based quality camera experience as you’re going to get (until the iPad 3 rolls around, of course.)

[via Gizmodo]

What we’re looking at here, as details revealed this week will tell us, is a ball that has a diameter of 19.3cm. That’s just a bit bigger than something you’d normally carry around in your purse, but not so large you’d feel totally awkward tossing it around in the park. The diameter includes 1cm of protective foam all around the ball so if you drop the 752g of ball to the ground, you’ll more than likely not need to have a heart attack over your dropped camera.

The material underneath the padding is interesting in itself, it being 3D printed by Shapeways in a PA 2200 printer using SLS (Selective-Laser-Sintering). You can see above and in the gallery below how bits of the ball were produced in white, printed in 3D by Shapeways in their “strong yet flexible” masterful way. Have a peek here at a video made by Shapeways to show their printing process:

The center of the ball is weighted by the lithium-polymer battery the whole rig runs on. As for how the camera actually works, the most basic way to explain it is that upon tossing the ball into the air, the microcontroller inside the device processes data that comes from the accelerometer, finding the highest point the ball will reach, snapping its collection of photos there, falling then back down to the ground. Here’s how the team at TU, Berlin, explain it:

The microcontroller on the mainboard processes the data from the
accelerometer, integrates (sums up) the acceleration during launch and
from this calculates the launch velocity (speed at the moment when the
ball leaves the throwers hands)
• From the launch velocity it’s easy to calculate the rise time to the
highest point in the trajectory.

The ball is already in free fall when it flies up — one can visualize that fact when one knows how accelerometers work:
• There is a little test mass on a spring
• One measures the elongation of that spring
• When you hold the ball in your hand, the spring gets pulled down by
gravity.
• When the ball flies up, the spring retracts and ball, accelerometer and test mass fly happily next to each other.
• There is no difference between going up or down

Again that means essentially that you’ll end up getting a photo right at the top of your ball’s toss, and up there the photos are each taken individually (all at the same time) by the array of cameras around the ball. These images are transferred from the ball to your computer at home via USB where you can blog the heck out of them. Sound like the most fun you’ve ever had in your entire life with a ball able to take photos?

Have a peek at a few more example shots below, the demonstration and presentation video here again above, and let us know what you think of this project as its being developed in full. Also if you happen to know anyone in a position to make this project push forward into the future of full production, be sure to let us and our main man Jonas Pfeil, who has been so kind as to play a main part in the production of this ball and the promotion of the project as well – thanks Jonas! Contact the team through their project site and get pumped up for the future! We look forward to a the inevitable production model!

Now you’ve got another option with this band, you could launch it across the room and see if the lens will cut anybody’s eye out, but that’d be a rather expensive way to do such a thing when you could just do it with your phone you’ve already got. What you should end up doing here is pulling the band off the nice storage card you got it with, pull it across your smartphone, and make sure the lens lines up with your own. Then you’ll be in the business – the business of taking tiny sharp photos.

Then when you’re done, slap it back on that card and put it back in your wallet. Know this though: it’s probably not going to work very well with your 10-inch tablet. The biggest it’ll go is more than likely Galaxy Note sized, and even that would be stretching it – literally. Check out the gallery below for some macro photo examples taken with an iPhone as well as some use cases on an iPhone and in your wallet. Then go buy a handful of these for all your buddies at Photojojo.

Systrom stated that they initially started on the iOS platform because “the screen and the camera on the iPhone 4 really was a turning point. It was really disruptive. Somebody had to come along and take advantage of that disruption.” And the iPhone 4′s huge leap in camera quality last year, along with the inclusion of the stunningly, seemingly pixel-free Retina Display both added more value to the app itself. Instagram’s future release of its Android app (Android owning the largest segment of the smartphone market at the moment) could definitely increase Instagram’s popularity and overall reach.

The Instagram CEO also spoke about plans for an ad system based on the Instagram platform, hinting at future partnerships with brand names such as Audi, Kate Spade, and Burberry. “I think the advertising experience is going to be extremely engaging,” Systrom said. “Obviously, we didn’t start a business to not make money,” he said. “Our focus now is on growing the network. You really need to build up the network, or no advertisers care.” Right on. Good luck to Instagram on their upcoming Android app.

[via CNet]

Without the relatively recent invention of the smartphone, none of this would have been possible – and indeed without the invention of several components that aren’t yet a reality, neither will this concept turn into something we can actually use. As you’ll quickly come to understand, the actual working nature of this device takes a back seat to what’s perhaps possible in the future should things like completely transparent computer chips and wires. What we DO have here though is something I’d certainly love to try out if and when it does come to fruition in the future for the invisible photographer in all of us.

The forefinger module senses whether your finger is straight, bent, or bent with the rest of your fingers. If you bend only the one finger, the other piece of the puzzle takes a photo. If you bend several fingers, you’ll begin to take a video. The thumb module has only a camera lens and an on/off button visible and is responsible for both collecting the media and transporting the resulting files to your smartphone. From there you can do whatever you want with the files as they sit on your smartphone while the Air Clicker remains free and clear.

Try not to think too hard about how impossible this is at the moment, instead imagine a world with no bulk and jump around in anticipation!

[via Yanko Design]

This is more than a panoramic view, it’s a whole new experience. Can you imagine bringing this ball with you everywhere you went? How about if it connected to your smart device and automatically uploaded images to the web? The possibilities are endless! That’s why we’re asking the “people” involved in this project, Pfeil, Hildebrand, Gremzow, Bickel, and Alexa, to make it happen! Make it happen now!

Have a look at this video and see how it strikes you:

This device contains 36 mobile phone camera modules and takes a full sphere of images right at the peak of flight. The actual project name behind this ball was “Throwable Camera Array for Capturing Spherical Panoramas” and was authored by Jonas Pfeil. Of course the entirety of the programming was done in C, C++, QT, and OpenCV. Can we expect to be holding such an awesome device in our hands any time soon? We sure hope so!

[via Pfeil]

With Qualcomm behind the wheel at dual-core 1.5GHz, you’ve got quite a fabulous little handset on your hands – when you’ve got HTC working the chassis, you’ve got one fantastically high-grade piece of hardware on your hands. Judging by how the HTC Sensation feels to use (I’ve been using it for several weeks, full disclosure,) it’s no doubt that this similarly shaped device will blow the competition away – or at least make people think it’s time to trade the Sensation in for a slightly newer device starting with an A and ending with a “maze.”

Another factor to take note of – the photos here are taken with a myTouch 4G Slide, another HTC device with the same camera that you’ll be getting here in the Amaze. Look like a nice combination to you? I think so, yes. You can find the source for these photos below, but note that the photographer appears to be shy on sharing because his profile is private. Now let me direct you back to the original announcement post so you can get all kinds of information on this device before you purchase it on October 12! Or, if you prefer, you could head to the lovely all-in-one package offered with the HTC Rhyme instead. Up to you!

[via Carms Perez]

The Android Flickr app features a built-in camera interface that has adjustable settings for auto-focus and flash. Photos taken can be enhanced by using any of the ten filters and effects available. The images can then be uploaded to a Flickr account, shared via Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or email. The app is free and available through the Android Market.

The Photo Sessions feature for Flickr’s iPhone and iPad app, adds the ability to flip through a gallery of photos with a friend like you’re sitting next to each other even if you’re actually across the globe. For details on the new feature, you can watch the video below.

[via MobileBurn]

While most people won’t hear from Facebook for at least a few days, we’ve got word that there are a select few out there that have already converted. All you’ve got to do is head on over to the webpage Introducing Timeline here: http://www.facebook.com/about/timeline and hit the Sign Me Up button in the lower right-hand side. Once you’ve hit this button, if you were signed in to your Facebook account that is, that’s an important bit of this equation, you’ll get a note popping up that says:

Timeline is coming soon.

We’ll let you know as soon as it’s ready.

So fear not, your Facebook will be changing again soon! Meanwhile just keep plugging away at sharing and clicking and liking and everything like that because just like every other Facebook update, all of your content travels on safely and soundly to the next version, and if this intro video and the explanation of what we’re seeing holds up, it’ll be the most aesthetically pleasing version of Facebook yet, not to mention the most interactive and – oh my goodness – user friendly as well.

UPDATE: The wait is over! There’s a sort of trick that’s working right this moment (and will probably work through the future – Check it out!

Also feel free to follow along with us all day for all the rest of the Facebook news from f8 2011!

The new feature is available starting today on select carriers around the world. Those carriers include AT&T, Verizon, and Cellular South in the US; Vodafone, O2, and Orange in the UK; Vodafone Italy; Rogers Communications in Canada; VIVA Bahrain; and TIM Brazil. Twitter is working on expanding the service to other carriers.

Twitter has enhanced its Tweet by text message service in the past with the addition of a Fast Follow feature that lets anyone instantly receive Tweets on their phone by sending a text message, even without a Twitter account. Twitter also offered SMS Commands, which are a one-word commands that you can text to Twitter to get information, including Suggest, Stats, and Help.

[via Twitter]

The free download is the full version and the offer will end at 12 pm PST on September 23. The app allows the user to capture photos, enhance them with filters and effects, and then share the photos with different sites using gesture control inside the app. The app also has a lot of features other than adding filters.

It will allow you to tweak the photos with Tune image setting and Auto Correct. This will make the photos look better. On the iPhone 3GS, iPad, and iPod touch 3rd and 4th gen the app supports 6.25MP images. On the iPhone 4 and iPad 2, the app supports images up to 16MP.

This new version has a more powerful imaging engine that lets you capture photos ten times larger than before. This means higher-res images with 1536 x 1536 pixel resolution on the iPhone 3GS and 1936 x 1936 pixel resolution on the iPhone 4. And in addition to the live filters feature that lets you preview as you compose, the update also adds faster tilt-shift effects as well as four new filters called Amaro, Hudson, Rise, and Valencia.

These additions won’t slow down the app and in fact, filters that used to take 5 seconds to render will now work in 5 milliseconds. The update is available now at the App Store and works only with iPhones, iPads, and iPod touch devices running iOS 4.2.1 or above. An Android version of Instagram is still not available at this time.

[via VentureBeat]

I’m going to redirect your attention back to the original announcement post for all the extra specification details you might need that aren’t listed here in the post, just so you know what you’re getting into. See that ginormous pile of lenses? That’s certainly one of the camera’s biggest strengths: versatility. Then there’s the big 3-inch AMOLED display on the back, a hypersonic dust reduction mode for cleaning the sensor, and several completely NEW lenses just for this release including 18-100mm, 16mm, 60mm, and 85mm focal length.

One of the most indicative of power photo comparisons Pozadzides does for his hands-on post is a comparison of chocolate photographed by two different combos. First there’s the Canon 1D Mark IV and a 50mm 1.4 Sigma lens, then the Samsung NX200 with a 60mm 1.4 lens. The first camera is right around $5,000 to purchase, while the NX200 is much closer to $1,000. Then there’s a gallery of photos taken by Pozadzides that shows a whole slew of different lighting conditions, combos, and environments of all sorts.

At this point I should remind you to head back to Pozadzides’ original post to see the rest of his hands-on look at the device since he’s so generously allowed this album to be public, then you should also take a look at our OWN hands-on with the device here, complete with awesomely loud surroundings at IFA 2011:

[via GeekBeat]

The longevity of the new memory Vault is in part thanks to the storage inside that has no moving parts. I can tell you from experience that HDDs fail and that CDs can be scratched making the photos on them unreadable. SanDisk tested the Memory Vault with heat cycling and other tests to prove that it will last for up to 100 years. Inside the shiny metal enclosure is solid state storage.

The Memory Vault is offered in 8GB and 16GB capacities. That is enough space for thousands of photos and hours of HD video according to SanDisk. The Memory Vault is low priced as well at $49.99 for the 8GB version and $89.99 for the 16GB version. I think for many people looking to archive family photos that won’t be enough storage. I would like to see a much larger version in play. As it is now, you will simply have to use multiple storage devices.

What Panasonic has come up with here, along with about a billion other pieces of news today, if you did not know, is a performance upgrade including autofocus algorithms derived directly from Panasonic’s Light Speed autofocus system for improved AF speed. In addition to this, the upgrade will furthermore augment image stabilization with Active Mode from the sweetness of Power OIS, all this for excellence in video shooting without jumping all about.

Adjustments will be made to this camera’s auto white balance in low light, this making it easier for you to snap around in the club, if that’s you’re thing. You’ll have the ability once this update has gone through to invoke noise reduction for ISO 1600 and ISO 3200 shots. You’ll have a brand new “Miniature” effect added to your arsenal that we’re not aware of the details on at the moment. Your maximum shutter will be increased to 250 seconds. You’ll be able to adjust saturation, brightness, and warmth of your LCD as well as add EVF for a more accurate preview of color.

Panasonic lets us know that you will be able to download this firmware update starting at right around 1 AM ET on September 13th, 2011, right on over at the most hardcore update site on the internet: Panasonic.JP. Hit em up!

But it doesn’t look ultra strange as you’d expect such an innovative product to look, does it, it just looks sorta normal. Newness fills its innards, however, and the aesthetic appeal certainly is at a peak – would you mind carrying around such a device? This device will allow you to upload (should you have a connected Wi-Fi signal) photos and video to YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, and Picassa. No word at the moment on if we’ll be able to work with other online repositories for media like Google+, for example, down the line. Panasonic has also mentioned a new web photo-sharing service they’re innitiating called Lumix Club that you’ll be able to take advantage of as well.

In addition to being able to upload straight to the internet, you’ll be able to transfer photos and video using a Wi-Fi signal to your smartphones and other computers. While you’ll be able to upload content to the sites listed above right out of the box, you’ll have to download a special Panasonic app on Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android platforms if you want to transfer to your smartphone – note though that this app is completely free on each of the said platforms’ app markets.

This camera features a 5x optical zoom lens (24mm to 120mm) with a max aperture of F2.5 and the ability to capture 1080i video at 60fps. This device also features, as noted, a 3-inch touchscreen on the back that includes menu navigation, touchscreen controls, and post-shot editing tools.

This device has not had a formal date or price issued for it, but the mentioned Lumix Club portal will be launching on September 5th, 2011, so this device probably wont be far behind. A couple other Panasonic Lumix devices have also been released today including the DMC-FZ150 with a flip-out display and massive potential for zoom and speed, the Panasonic GF3X upgrade to the GF3, and the lens that makes the X. Check em all out.

What one of the most popular photo filtering apps on the market today is called is Instagram. Back on the 3rd of August, 2011, we wrote about how Instagram had hit 150 million photos. As Facebook sees an opportunity to replicate the ability to take photos and place a lovely effect over the top of them like Instagram (amongst many an alternate service) does, so too do they seek out the ability to make it happen inside the family.

According to engineers and developers working on the project speaking with the New York Times have said, an unnamed project is essentially ready to be released right this second, but Zuckerberg is said to not be satisfied with the amount of filters available at this time. These same sources say that the project has been “ready” for a while now but a precisely timed launch is likely the methodology behind holding it back until now (or sometime in the near future, as it were.)

There will be a launch with right around 12 filters in total once the time is right, many of them being similar to the old-fashioned physically-processed looking effects popular with the hipster crowd these days, false reproductions of old lenses galore. The same sources speaking with NYT have mentioned that Facebook attempted to purchase Instagram this summer at some point but were unable to reach a deal – at the same time you should note that Instagram currently boasts a over 8 million users and a recent $7 million USD boost for further expansion. We’re thinking the two won’t be shaking hands any time soon.

[via New York Times]

A design firm from Norway called Skrekkøgle has developed a weird printer that has been modded and can print a photo of your pet using those cremated pet remains. The exact process the company used to turn the ashes into the photo is unknown. I wonder if they didn’t just mix the ashes with some black ink and be done with it.

The designers don’t say how much the printing costs, but you can drop them an email if you want to remember Fido with a print like this. I wonder how long it takes to print a photo of your dog like this. What do you think is this a normal thing for owners that lose a pet or just plain weird?

[via Popphoto]

The themes or vines range from “Cutest Dog” to “How Weekends Are Spent” to “Things I Love About Summer” and the list goes on and grows continually. The vines work like public photo albums to which users can contribute their relevant images. You can also start your own vines and see them grow as other users contribute photos to them. To browse the vines, you have the option of viewing the most recent or “Fresh” as well as the most popular, meaning the ones with the most photos.

You can view photos one by one or in a grid layout. With each photo, there are options to “Like” or add a comment. You can also flag any photos you deem inappropriate. Additionally, small thumbnails of contributor profile images appear alongside their photos and you can click on their username to see their profile page. This page shows all the images that a user has uploaded, how many followers, how many users following, and how many likes. From this profile page, you can also choose to follow the user.

To invite friends to use Photovine, you have the option of finding friends via your Facebook and Twitter accounts or from your iPhone’s address book. You can also send out invites via email and SMS. Surprisingly, there isn’t any integration with Google+ or Gmail contacts and there isn’t an Android version yet. The design of the app also doesn’t reflect Google’s usual style. This is perhaps because the app was developed by the Slide team, which was a social apps development start-up acquired by Google but operates somewhat independently.

There have already been comparisons of Photovine to another photo-sharing app called Piictu, which also revolves around sharing photos to various themed albums. Some accused Google of blatantly copying, but the Piictu team responded that they were flattered while a Google spokesperson insisted that the app has been in the works since late last year, long before Piictu existed.

Unlike other popular photo-sharing apps such as Instagram, Photovine does not offer any fun filters. But whereas photos from those apps may be shared more randomly, Photovine provides a better structure through themes that may encourage users to share even more as they come across new vines or groups to which they can contribute.

Rice University has a paper that details just such an image search solution called Theia. Theia would be an opt in system that would allow the user to mark a folder on their smartphones that could be searched by Theia to check their images. Then when a search is being made, the Theia search program would look at the meta data in the images including time and date to find clues about what happened.

The Theia system uses cloud computing to offload the images and perform the search rather than tying up the smartphone CPU performing the search on the user device. The team at Rice has shown that using the Theia system reduces the cost to run an image search of this type by an average of 59%. This is an interesting way to search for missing people and to try to catch crimes by looking at photos shot in a specific location at a specific time. There is a chance that some stranger caught a crime in action and didn’t even know it.

[via Gigaom]

What this will get you is a teeny tiny mirrorless camera with a brand new mirror, SLR-speed focussing, and an overall sweet result. Contrast detection in AF used in cameras that normally have no mirror is quite slow at the moment, especially when you’re considering you’re using lenses made to rock and roll. Now you’ve got a small gun messing with the big guns, if you know what I mean. Does this mean the device you’re rolling with is still a mirrorless camera? You be the judge of that – we’re calling it an advanced frankenstein.

This type of new mirror is called a “pellicle mirror”, and isn’t actually all that new when you consider it’s been being used for more than 40 years by the Pellix 45 made by Canon in 1965. This camera was the first to use such a mirror and it’s been used sparsely since – of course you can see the mirror type in action again in the Sony A55 and A33 DSLRs of 2010, too. Why on earth this solution hadn’t been used in lens adapters up until now – we cannot say. It’s sort of like pop art – it seems so obvious, but the first person to do it gets credit!

[via PhotoRumors]

Instagram offers a quick and easy way for iOS users to snap a picture on their iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, apply a unique filter to enhance the image, and then share it with their friends via many social integrations. The app currently has well over 7 million users and is adding 1.3 million photos each day.

To give some perspective, Flickr took almost two years to reach 100 million photos. But those were different times, and now mobile photography has exploded. In fact, Instagram does not offer a desktop option for uploading photos. However, others have swooped in to try and fill that need, such as with apps like Instaview and Carousel that both work with Instagram to allow for desktop use.

What Pool Party is, just so we can understand the difference from the outset, is a invite-only beta app that works for both Android and iOS. It’s an app that places emphasis on creating and sharing group photo albums in real time – best used at say, oh I dunno, a pool party. Better grab some waterproof phones though, your myTouch 4G Slide wont survive such punishment.

What Photovine is, on the other hand, is, as they’re saying, “a fun way to learn more about your friends, meet new people, and share your world like never before.” As The Next Web has apparently found out though, Vines connects people through photos via different themes. Perhaps something like someone having a yellow shirt, or maybe GPS geo-tagged photos connecting to one another, each of these “vines” able to grow as it expands with new photos constantly.

Photovine has a privacy policy that says they’re associated with Slide, a company that just so happens to also be responsible for the creation of Pool Party. Imagine that! Slide was acquired by Google back in August of 2010 for $182 million, and they’ve never looked back.

We’ve got to ask: are these services about to become part of Google+ in a grand way? They sort of seem to be made for one another, wouldn’t you say?

[via Venture Beat]

“We now are providing a native photo-sharing experience. We’ll be rolling it out over the next few weeks,” said Twitter CEO Dick Costolo during the D9 Conference today. The new photo experience is limited to the web for now but will eventually be extended to Twitter’s mobile client. The photos are hosted by Photobucket, which will allo users to easily upload and share photos directly in their tweets.

Twitter’s search function will also be improved to deliver more relevant tweets as well as related photos and videos. According to a post on Twitter’s official blog, the search enhancement will include a partnership with Firefox that will let you type in a #hashtag or @username directly into the address bar to go to Twitter’s search results page.

[youtube fmB15ER3LUQ}

Press Release:

Photobucket Works with Twitter to Make 140 Characters Worth A Thousand Words

Photobucket Powers Twitter’s Photo Sharing Feature

DENVER – June 1, 2011 – Photobucket Corporation, the world’s leading dedicated photo and video sharing service, today announced that Photobucket will power Twitter’s native photo sharing capabilities – allowing users to easily upload and share photos directly in Tweets. This partnership reflects the synergy between the companies’ growth strategies and audience needs, delivering a simple, intuitive user experience for photo sharing.

Photobucket, with 100 million users and more than eight billion uploads, is already the world’s largest and most robust dedicated personal media site and the premiere destination for creating, sharing, customizing and permanently storing all of its users’ memories. The company’s sheer size, combined with its recently-announced unlimited storage offering and patented mobile auto-upload capabilities, give

Photobucket the ability to easily scale and serve the rapidly-growing Twitter audience.

Often times, a picture can convey a depth of meaning more significant than just words alone, and the most iconic stories and lasting memories of our lifetime have been conveyed visually. Millions of people have used Twitter to share, discover, and communicate around meaningful experiences through 140 character Tweets. Now incorporating images helps users tell a richer and more complete narrative. Photos on Twitter, tagged “powered by Photobucket,” will now link to a page that allows users to sign up for or sign in to their Photobucket accounts via Twitter to further edit, share or save their photos.

“Photobucket is the category leader with regard to reliability, size, offerings and scalability, and we are ready and able to best serve the growing number of Twitter users. Photobucket extends and enriches the Twitter experience, and we look forward to building on this collaboration with Twitter to better serve the needs of our joint audiences,” said Tom Munro, CEO of Photobucket. “This partnership is just one example of how companies can easily build upon the Photobucket platform to extend their brand vision and product offerings.”

To create a free Photobucket account, users can visit http://photobucket.com or find the Photobucket Mobile Application or Snapbucket App available in the app store on all major smartphone platforms. Photobucket supports Mobile Web, iPhone, Android-based devices, Blackberry, and Windows Phone 7.

The Artist is Ryan Taylor from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He used some camera gear and lighting to catch the beautiful images you see here. Taylor says that he used strobe lights, colored water, milk, paint, and balloons for the shots. The one with the white liquid that is apparently milk looks like a mushroom cloud from some sort of bomb being set off. That isn’t my favorite shot though.

I really like the one with the single drop that has rainbow colors around the edges. The drop is apparently skim milk with food coloring. I’m not good enough with photography to know how the strobes help capture those stop frame images, but I don’t need to know how the guy did it to enjoy them. I also like the pic that looks like an exploding planet. I assume it an image of the liquid in a balloon right after the balloon pops.

[via Thisiscolossal]

These systems are slated to be used for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Police will begin testing them at concerts and football matches soon. Standardly, the system is set to scan faces in crowds up to 50 meters away, but has the capability to recognize faces as far as twelve miles away. Wow. Systems like this will leave it up to the computer to identify perpetrators instead of the officers needing to ask for or call in documentation. This makes it more discreet for law-abiding folks to just enjoy whatever event needs such protection.

What consistently freaks me out about stuff like this is that this is the completely unclassified technology that is being talked about openly in the news. How much more is possible, or already happening? Creepy.

[via The Telegraph]

The app takes a photo that a person takes today and then puts a piece from a historical photo over the top of the current photo. This lets you have a modern photo with a sort of window to the past.

The software helps the person taking the picture to get the shot framed exactly as the historical photo so the overlay of the old pic matches the new one. The developers say that they envision the software eventually running directly on the camera.

The small printer is designed to be mobile and has an optional rechargeable battery for prints away from an AC outlet. The printer produces 4×6 photos in about 36 seconds using inks that are durable. Epson claims that the inks it uses will last for 96 years under glass and over 200 years in dark album storage.

The Charm has a 2.5-inch LCD that allows users to crop, view, and print photos without a computer. The screen also allows users to perform basic editing like red eye removal and choosing color, B&W, or Sepia finishes. The device also has a built-in memory card reader and an optional Bluetooth adapter for printing from camera phones and other devices wirelessly. The PictureMate Charm sells for $149.99 and will ship on October 20.

The printer has a 2.5-inch LCD screen, making it easy to perform minor edits on the printer itself. Also included is PictBridge support, a memory card slot, copying and a scanning function at 1,200DPI resolution.

The printer uses Claria Photographic Ink, which Epson boasts will make for prints that last 200 years. It comes with a pack of photo paper to get you started right away. You can get the Epson Stylus Photo PX650 on September 1st for about $215 in the UK, with a US release occurring soon after.

It also has a USB port, for printing directly from external storage. It’s capable of printing 4″ x 6″ prints in grayscale at a rate of 9.2 images a minute and 6 images per minute in color. Expected price is to be $150. Another model is the MP490, which lacks some features like USB printing, duplexing and Wi-Fi. It has a slower printing rate and a 1.8-inch LCD screen. The cost is expected to be $100.

The last new model announced today is a part of a portable line called SELPHY. The printer is the CP790 and it has features like face detection and a bunch of customization tools like layouts and stamps. A memory card slot adds more space and it also comes with a storage basket. It has a 3-inch LCD screen and is available later this month for $180.

Video demos after the cut

MotionPortrait expect the system to be used in cellphones, among other things, with the processing done on a remote server.  Once the 3D render has been created, it can be edited – adding facial hair or changing hairstyles, altering skin tone, etc – or blended with another avatar.  It can even be panned by 40-degrees in each direction, without looking too artificial, which makes overlaying it onto video clips (as you can see below) possible.

While higher quality and more realistic 3D renders are technically possible, the MotionPortrait team have purposefully decided to keep things straightforward for their consumer target audience.  As well as cellphones, they envisage the system to show up in digital photo frames, digital cameras, TVs and other embedded devices; it’s set to begin shipping sometime this year.

CGI face automatically overlaid onto real actor:

CGI face automatically overlaid onto pre-existing movie:

[via Engadget]

Who are Pro Cyc and what do they do? We first met the Oregon-based company at the PMA Sneak Peek press event. They manufacture modular backdrops, large-scale green or blue screen virtual sets for many of the major networks such as CNN, NBC and ESPN. MyStudio 20 is a miniature tabletop cyclorama, corners are rounded to eliminate unwanted corner lines — typical background problems encountered in product photography — thus an infinite background can be achieved even with wide-angle perspectives or small aperture settings.

Unlike most studio tents with multiple high-power light sources and translucent fabric to diffuse light, MyStudio 20 employs a single fluorescent light. The seamless base is made of a lightweight but durable matte-white ABS material with a washable surface; it makes for a versatile and cost effective photo studio to catalog photos of small items, from toys, camera equipment, jewelry and timepieces to food. Forget making money off online auctions; with interesting subjects, MyStudio 20 can help you start a career in “iStock”.

The design is simple and energy-efficient; the 15-watt fluorescent light is capable of 590-lumen output, and lights the whole setup though a plastic diffuser to reduce hotspots and harsh shadows. Light is bounced though an overhead reflector and hard-paper bounce cards to provide soft and even lighting on subjects.

Setup

Setup is straightforward. Parts and pieces are supplied but you’ll need a Philips and a flathead screwdriver to mount the light fixture on the aluminum cross-bar, then attach the bar to the legs. Pro Cyc include an illustrated assembly guide and we ran into no issues at all in setting it up. The holes for the screws are tight-fittig, though, so we would recommend loosening them first by screwing just the screw in alone before mounting. (see setup video below)

Test and detail

Ten screws and 7 minutes later, the MyStudio 20 was ready to go with a flip of the integrated switch on the light-fixture. Careful observation turned up a small hotspot patch right in the center of the cove, but Pro Cyc told us that it could be easily reduced using Soft Scrub. The abrasive cleaning product can be purchased at any grocery store for $2-$3 and is highly recommended, not only to remove surface sheen but also for generally cleaning the cyc background, maintaining the white color for the perfect “Kodak moment”.

Unlike in a softbox, the set is linearly diffused with a single 15-watt fluorescent lamp on top, so any subject with reflective surfaces has to be careful angled to avoid hotspots showing from the top. The light stand is not designed to be easily adjustable; it’s possible, but to do so you’ll need to remove the thumbscrews and Phillips-head screws to fiddle with the height. The low power lamp demands that shots are taken with longer shutter speeds and a tripod, preferably with mirror lock-up and shutter delay if your equipment supports it. To be fair, this kind of semi-precise camera support is a must for a dedicated product shot, regardless of kind of studio tent you’re using.

We first followed the suggested “daylight” setting (5,000k) from the guidelines, but images appeared slightly warmer than we’d have liked. Evidently, the slightly off-white top reflector cast a few degrees warmer overall tone to the lighting – an purposeful choice, according to Pro Cyc’s research, since people apparently responded better to photographs of products with warmer tones.

Next, we tried shots with the camera’s auto white balance (AWB) and then a custom white balance using ExpoDisk; the outcome from both settings were fairly close, color temperature fell to around 4600-4700 but with far more accurate neutral tones than in the daylight settings. We discussed our findings with Pro Cyc, and they concurred that better results were reported with the camera’s AWB running the show, and that they’ll be updating their “Helpful Camera Hints” accordingly.

The MyStudio 20 is designed for basic operation – turn the switch, pop in your product and you’re ready to take a picture for eBay listing with little or no Photoshop work. Experienced users can do more if they wish. The samples we’re showing here are not straight out from the camera, but close, with white balance corrected and only minor adjustments with basic level and contrast to fully whiten out the background. To reproduce such shots yourself on non-reflective and darker-tone objects, simply over-exposuring then bringing the mid-levels back in post-processing, you’ll find you don’t need the extra selective work to separate out the background.

Conclusion

Back in my college days, I used to scoop up Abu Garcia and Shimano fishing reels from eBay; most of them were terribly advertised with wacky images, badly set-up flash or, equally off-putting, with no images at all. After a thorough service and greasing, they were back in auction with a better description and images, and usually sold more than twice what I paid for them. A picture speaks a thousand words, but a better one improves your profit by significant margin; that’s the truth about online shopping.

The MyStudio 20 Tabletop Photo Studio by Pro Cyc is not sized sufficiently for large products such as desktop PCs, TV sets or fishing poles, but would be a great companion to cataloging smaller items without demanding a professional photographer, oversized softbox and extensive setup. Retailing at $250, it’s not the cheapest product photo studio out there, but I’m sold on the unique cyclorama background and energy-efficient lighting system. It works and it doesn’t dent your power bill in the long term.

Even better, if you shop around, Amazon is selling it at under two Benji’s and, for $160 more, you can get the larger MyStudio model, the MyStudio 32, which features a larger cyc and two of the lights set side by side. Based on our experience with the MyStudio 20, we’d have no issues recommending that model for larger items.