This week the folks at RED seem to be pushing their last bits of info on their first phone out the front door. The smartphone was already pre-ordered in unknown numbers before the phone was revealed - which is very strange. But with a reputation for greatness like RED has in play, oddities appear. Today we're seeing what looks pretty much like the last remaining details on the smartphone before its first major release.
The Facebook Portal device MAY* collect information on your device use to inform ads on Facebook platforms. That's just one part of the equation when it comes to Facebook's latest idea for hardware. The device is a camera you set up in your home with a display to allow you to speak with Facebook friends - but, of course, it's also able to use YOU as you use make use of IT.
At the Huawei Mate 20 Pro event this week, Huawei showed off a new augmented reality feature called 3D Live Object. In addition to objects pre-loaded into the system, this feature will allow users to scan their own favorite object for later use. Once scanned, a 3D Live Object will be made available to exist in videos filmed by the Mate 20 Pro and will interact with their environment.
Google's new Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL devices were revealed earlier this week, and to almost no surprise the phones are ready to hold their title as having some of the best cameras around. One of the key reasons for this is that the Pixel doesn't just rely on optics hardware, but also uses advanced software in the custom Pixel Camera app to capture great images. This continues with the latest generation, but next week's launch also sees the app get a long-awaited feature.
When scientists at Caltech wanted to be able to capture femtosecond pulses of laser light, they couldn’t; grab an off the shelf camera and just snap away. The researchers had to create a new type of camera that can capture incredibly fast pulses of light in slow motion. What they came up with is called T-CUP.
Last year, Insta360, one of the first few companies that made 360-degree video recording accessible to the masses, launched the Insta360 ONE. It offered more ways, many of them novel and fun, to create 360-degree content without having to carry bulky equipment. But while it mostly did deliver on those creative features, the actual quality of the output still left some things to be desired. This year, the company is coming out with the Insta360 ONE X and it’s like a completely different product. We take it for a long ride, actually multiple ones, to demonstrate how much it has improved in just a year’s time.
The Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL are exciting announcements for a number of different reasons, but chief among those might very well be the camera. Google is so excited about the camera on the Pixel 3 that Liza Ma and Brian Rakowski spoke at length about it on stage today. In short: The camera sounds like it's going to be the marquee feature of the Pixel 3, and it's got some interesting features to back that status up.
While the iPhone XS and XS Max seem to have a lot of similarities with their predecessor, the iPhone X, there are certainly still some notable upgrades. DxOMark has taken a deep dive into the iPhone XS Max's camera to figure out just how much of a upgrade we're in for with this new handset, and while the iPhone XS Max earned high scores, its final ranking might just leave the executives at Apple a little disappointed.
Though the Galaxy S10 won't be here for months, we've already heard a number of rumors about the device. A few of these rumors have centered around the improvements Samsung will make to the rear-facing camera. If a new report is to be believed, then those improvements should be significant.
LG won't take the wraps off the V40 ThinQ, its latest Android smartphone, until later this week, but we can already share a sneaky tidbit about the new handset today. One of the flagship features of the smartphone - already notable for having a whopping three cameras on its rear - will be its Cine Shot mode, making it easy to create "living photos" or Cinemagraphs.
Zeiss has introduced a new fixed-lens full-frame camera featuring Adobe Lightroom CC built-in. It's a surprising choice for the company, which boasts a "unique" UI that gives users access to the most commonly used functions directly on the camera display. The camera itself sports a very minimalist design and is targeted at photographers who don't want to spend too much time tinkering with settings.
Facebook may be in trouble for dipping its hands into too many things but it isn’t backing out from its mission of being at the center of modern life. And quite literally too. Envisioning a future where VR and 360-degree content is the norm (which is why it acquired Oculus), Facebook has partnered with pro camera maker RED Digital Cinema to develop the Manifold camera that will sit at the center of where the action happens to record everything in clear detail from all angles to be delivered to your VR-capable headset. Preferably an Oculus Rift, Go, or Quest.