Archive for the ‘Products’ Category

Instagram’s Big Mistake

Wednesday, December 26th, 2012

If you have logged onto the internet in the last few days, are an avid smart phone user, or have watched the news lately, than chances are that you have caught wind of the uproar following Instagram’s release of its new terms of service. The following sentence, found in the new terms of service, caused an enormous backlash:

You agree that a business may pay Instagram to display your photos in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions without any compensation to you.


Almost immediately after Instagram released the brief paragraph outlining the new terms of service that will go into effect on January 16, 2013, the internet exploded with a plethora of people threatening to delete their accounts and speaking harshly on the negative effects of these changes. Among those threatening to delete their accounts were highly prominent celebrities such as Anderson Cooper, Jonah Hill, Kim Kardashian, and Lauren Conrad who all took their frustration out about the policy on Twitter.  The photo app that everyone loved for its beautiful filters has quickly turned into the target of a huge amount of criticism and distaste.

Since the initial release of the new terms of service, Instagram quickly realized its mistake and has had three official press releases about how “they are listening” and vaguely alluded to changing the terms to better meet people’s requests. The changes were apparently not drastic enough and an Instagram user has filed a potential class-action lawsuit against the company for announcing the new terms of service.The San Diego-based law firm Finklestein & Krinsk filed its complaint in a San Francisco federal court.  Lucy Funes,  who is the person responsible for taking her complaint to federal court in San Francisco, has  stated that Instagram is, “taking its customer’s property rights” with the new terms to be put in place. A Facebook spokesperson (Facebook has recently acquired Instagram) said that the lawsuit is without merit and that the company intends to fight the claim vigorously.

Instagram’s new terms of service will officially go into effect on January 16,2013. Time will tell how many more changes the terms will go through.

Flock

Thursday, November 22nd, 2012

While mobile and smart phone proliferation continues to make it easier to capture the memories we make with our friends and family, capture copies of documents, and even facilitates sharing them on social networks, they don’t help make it easier to upload those shared photos—at least they didn’t until now. The makers of the Bump app recently launched Flock, a passive photo sharing app that aims to change the way we upload and share photo albums with the people in the photos all while changing the way we interact with other apps. Things have come a long way from the days of uploading photos captured with digital scanning and emailing them to your grandmother.



The idea behind flock is that it should be easy for everyone in a photo to be invited to see those photos by accessing cloud-based photo albums—and it should all happen automatically. Most smart phones, like the iPhone, already automatically geo-tag photos and Facebook face recognition software can automatically tag photos. Using these two functionalities, the Flock app automatically identifies photos on your phone that contain Facebook friends, prompts you to share them, and then invites those friends to view a group album shared on the cloud.

There’s a lot to parse with this app, but the most important aspects are what it means for photo sharing and what it means for app use. Since this is photography, digital scanning, and digital photo blog, the fact that Flock isn’t actively trying to capture more of your attention, a dramatic shift from the paradigm of most apps developed today, is not our focus…but it is certainly interesting.

On the other hand, the fact that from now on you don’t have to take multiple pictures with different cameras in order to be sure everyone gets a copy is incredible and relevant for this blog. One of the biggest frustrations about taking group photos has always been figuring out how to make sure everyone who wants a copy of the photo gets it. Either you can stick one person taking multiple photos with different devices, or you can upload the photo onto one of multiple photo-sharing sites and invite everyone to view the album— neither are very convenient.

With Flock, every time you take a photograph using a smart phone that is connected to a Facebook account, it uses the social media site’s face recognition software to identify the subjects of the photo. Immediately after taking the photo, it prompts you to allow it to notify them about the photo and invite them to access the photos in the album. They can choose to view photos, or download them for other uses. The biggest advantage about Flock is that it doesn’t require any extra work for anyone.

Flock is the next step in the natural progression of strategies leveraging the power of mobile devices. It’s also a big deal for people who want to share and use digital photos in the most convenient way possible. Whether you use your phone to supplement digital scanning or take the best shots of you and your friends, Flock makes it easier for you to share them.

Technological Innovations That Changed Photography

Wednesday, November 14th, 2012

Though many take it for granted in the digital age, taking a photograph was originally a long process that involved a lot of skill and understanding of the mechanics behind using a camera; it has not always been as easy as clicking a button and posting photos online. To get where we are today, in regards to digital technology, there were a few innovations that had to take place first. The following is a list of five inventions that helped pave the way for modern photographic technologies:

Flash




Image: photoanswers.co.uk

One of the key factors in photography is having adequate exposure to light, so having a flash made shooting indoors much more feasible. Originally photographers shot indoors using lights of the electric arc and limelight variety, but alternatives such as magnesium soon became the norm. Magnesium immediately proved to be problematic since it caused a large amount of ash and smoke after every use. Finally in 1927, the more modern flash, similar to the one used today, that utilized a bulb was invented.

The Polaroid Instant Camera




Image: usatoday.com

Digital photography is about instant gratification and being able to have access your pictures right away, and we can thank Polaroid for this sentiment. The Polaroid instant camera was made available to the masses starting in 1947 and enabled users to instantly produce photographs without the use of a darkroom or photolab.

Auto Focus





Image: techradar.com

The auto focus was first developed in the late 1970s by Leitz. The early version of the auto focus utilized a series of sensors in the camera lens to analyze a scene and determined which area should be sharp and in focus. More modernized auto focus use a number of complicated algorithms that allows focusing on a number of subjects in a scene. With new auto focus technologies, you may even shoot moving images and they do not come out blurred.

Silver Halides




Image: Theodore W. Gray

All modern photographic films use silver halides in order for photographs to obtain sustainability. Silver halides are a combination of silver and halogens, and together they result in fast exposure times and stability in photographs.

SLRs







Image: hotel4fierarimini.com

The Single Lens Reflex camera, which was first invented in 1884, utilizes a bunch of different mirrors that are put in between the viewfinder and the lens with the intention presenting exactly what your photo will look. Much later, in the 1930s, 35mm SLRs were popularized and opened up a plethora of photographic innovations.

Kodak Exits Digital Photography, Printing, and Digital Imaging Business Completely

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

In August, the photographic giant Kodak announced that it was abandoning the photography business, exiting the consumer film market completely. Combined with the end of its consumer printer business and desire to sell off its document image scanning branch, this means the end of Kodak’s presence in the world of digital photography. The move out of “personalized imaging” and “document imaging” as Kodak’s CEO Antonio Perez describes it, will allow the company to focus on the branches that market to business and commercial interests, where recent financial success and strength has been more promising.

The one-time photo giant, who filed for bankruptcy in January of this year, also announced that its decision to stop production of consumer inkjet printers will lead to the elimination of more than 200 jobs above initial layoff estimates. Of course, this move is only the most recent in a series of drastic changes in its attempt to stop the bleeding and free itself by 2012 of the court protection that resulted from bankruptcy. It has already made many attempts to sell flagging assets or simply cease production, including giving digital cameras, pocket video cameras, and digital picture frames the axe, as well as selling its digital photography and online photo service, Kodak Gallery, to Shutterfly.

In other words, it is making an effort to completely divest itself of any and all assets and branches relating to film and digital photography and imaging for individual consumers. It will continue to sell ink for its printers, which it aims to stop producing within the next 12 months. Its core business will then be focused on supplying industrial grade film for aerial photography and motion pictures, for example, as well as on printing for packaging. Kodak has gone through some drastic changes as evidenced by reducing its workforce from a high of 150,000 workers in 1988 to about 13,000 by 2013, with the most recent cut helping the ailing company save more than $340 million a year.

With Kodak’s recent bankruptcy and years of slow decline, the most recent spate of cuts and sell-offs isn’t much of a surprise. It has been struggling for over a decade, beginning when digital photography started to displace film photography with the masses in the early 2000s. Despite efforts to adapt, the company that put cameras in the hands of millions for the first time in the 20th Century and developed the first true point-and-shoot couldn’t keep up with competition coming out of Japan. Repeated efforts to stem the bleeding have failed, and it has been hemorrhaging cash even as it attempted to sell off branches that nobody seems to want at anything near the asking price.

But that’s a small consolation for those who still rely on Kodak cameras and film, or who use Kodak photo-printing kiosks to print their digital photos, or worse yet, if you have a Kodak digital camera and hope to continue buying accessories and parts for it. But as a large portion of consumer digital photography activity shifts away from cameras, and especially from point and shoot cameras towards the extremes, it makes sense that Kodak struggles more and more to remain relevant. When most people are either using their smart phones or tablets for casual photos, or bigger, better cameras for anything mildly serious, the market for size-efficient cameras that don’t do anything else is shrinking, and another old photographic dinosaur is leaving the market as a result.

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Monday, October 29th, 2012