Another concept camera to throw around

I don't really understand the fascination of combining a camera with something to toss around. Previously, we've seen the Tospom and satuGo, both ball-shaped cameras that snap shots while in the air.

Turkish designer Hakan Bogazpinar has conceptualized Flee, which is something similar to a ball camera. But the shooter is now attached to a petal-like contraception which reminds me of feathers on a shuttlecock that help keep the flight in the air stable.

But unlike its counterparts, Flee doesn't record the images onto a memory card. Instead, onboard Bluetooth is used to transmit the snaps to a paired mobile device. As far as we know, the range for Bluetooth is quite limited so we're not sure how Bogazpinar will work around this problem.

We can't really think of a proper use for the Flee except for reconnaissance when playing paintball or seeing your friends' reactions just before the shooter hits them.

Via: Ubergizmo

Kodak finds its inner YouTube

Until under-30somethings outgrow them, direct-to-YouTube camcorders will continue to flourish. And everyone wants a piece of the pie that was pretty much baked by Flip Video, with products like its latest Mino. Some efforts seem rather cynical and halfhearted like Samsung's recent attempt to remarket an old design into a market ruled by a different aesthetic. Others, like Kodak's just-announced Zi6, seem promising. But Kodak also misses the point in a few ways.

On one hand, there are a couple of ways in which veteran Kodak outclasses its younger competitors: 720p HD video compared with the typical 640 x 480-pixel VGA resolution and a 2.4-inch LCD. A nice touch, which shows its heritage, is a switch that toggles between standard and macro focus distances. As seems to define this product category, it has a built-in, flip-out USB connector. Cleverly, the button for the connector also serves as a tiny mirror for shooting yourself in the face. It also accepts SD cards, but that's to supplement its paltry 128MB of storage--only 30MB of which is available for video. I tried it, and that was 36 seconds. It might as well have no internal memory at all. Extrapolating--Kodak has not published any capacity information--that's about 50MB per minute, or 41 minutes of video on a typical 2GB card. Which is optional.
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Concept camera features onboard Photoshop

It seems I am not the only person daydreaming of the day point-and-shoots will be shipped with Photoshop. This conceptual shooter seen on petitinvention.com is a vision of what shooters in the future should look like--great design with a full-fledged image-editing application installed.

According to the design, this camera can automatically detect and erase people from the shot, leaving only the scene. Other than landscape photographers, I really cannot think of any reason to use this feature. Imagine activating this while on vacation and you return home only to find that everyone has been erased. Well, there's always the next holiday.

I am still game for the idea of having even a scaled-down version of Photoshop in my camera. Of course, a touchscreen display would be nice, with full-frame sensor and more.

Via: Petitinvention

Flickr and Getty Images team up

Now's a good time to sign up for a Flickr account if you haven’t done so already. One of the world's largest image banks, Getty Images, has entered into a partnership with Yahoo's Flickr to access all the public images hosted on its site.

So if your shots catch the eyes of Getty's editors, you may soon get an email from them for permission to license and sell your snaps. This could possibly translate to a long-term working relationship with the company and your cash machine would be ringing non-stop.

According to Jonathan Klein, co-founder and chief executive of Getty Images, the firm charges about US$500 to US$600 for the sale of an image used for commercial purpose, and the photographer gets about 30 to 40 percent from the sale.

Don't mind me, but I need to fill up my Flickr album right now.

Via: CrunchGear

Is Microsoft trying to outwit Adobe's Photoshop?

According to blogger Robert Scoble, Microsoft is hosting a photography summit this weekend at its campus in Redmond, Washington. It may seem a bit puzzling: Why would the biggest software company in the world want to meet up with photographers?

Scoble speculates that Microsoft may be introducing its new imaging software named Photosynth to shutterbugs then, and hopefully gain some insight on what makes the new software click. He also commented that Photosynth may be going head on with the industry standard Adobe Photoshop.

With Bill Gates out of the picture, is Steve Balmer looking to target a segment of the market that was previously untapped? Analysts in the company should know that for years, designers and creatives have been working on Apple machines, and to convince them to switch system will require more than just a fanciful program. It has to be an entire set of applications like Adobe Creative Suite which work as well, if not better.

It isn't that I am a loyal Adobe user who can't be persuaded to switch to a new image-editing program, but that I just can't be bothered. Why fix something when it ain't broke?

Via: Scobleizer.com

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