Last night, Google announced KitKat, the next version of its Android operating system. To mark the occasion, it released a video showing the unveiling of the new statue, but what's this? Eagle-eyed phone fans over at Android Policespotted a new Nexus blower in the vid. Could it be the Nexus 5...
Read the full story here... Source: CNET
Two new videos published today give a detailed look at the casings of the "champagne" colored iPhone 5S and the "graphite" 5S, which first showed up in photos earlier this week.
While there has been a non-stop stream of images and videos depicting the gold iPhone 5S, a video from TLD offers a good overview of both the casing and the structural differences between the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 5...
Read the full story here... Source: Mac Rumours
About A Photograph : Saul Loeb from thinkTank Photo on Vimeo.
Santa Rosa, Calif. – Think Tank Photo today launched “About A Photograph™,” a free video series that features some of the world’s leading photographers recounting the stories behind their images that captured global attention. Narrated by the actual photographers who took the photos, each short video focuses on the forces that led up to that perfect moment in time when subject, story, setting, equipment, and photographer converged.
The series can be found at http://blog.thinktankphoto.com/about-a-photograph/
The first video in the series features Agence France-Presse photographer Saul Loeb. In it he narrates the events that led him to capturing the iconic “Presidential Hug” image from the 2012 United States presidential campaign. His photo captures a Florida pizza shop owner lifting and bear-hugging a surprised President Obama. At that moment Loeb felt, “This could end up being the defining photo of the campaign season.”
“About A Photograph” is being produced by Kurt Rogers and Deanne Fitzmaurice, Think Tank Photo’s co-founders and award-winning photojournalists. The video series will feature current as well as classic and historic photographs that span a range of styles, including documentary/photojournalistic, fine art, nature/environment, sports, and politics.
“When we photojournalists go out on assignment we never know what awaits us,” said Rogers. “It is through our training as experts in sensing when and where events will unfold that we are able to capture images that best convey the story. ‘About A Photograph’ allows photographers, students, teachers, historians, and others to get inside the heads of these expert photographers at that fleeting moment of creation.
“The images being featured range from the beautiful to the tragic, from the humorous to the informative,” said Rogers. “The one trait they share is that all are memorable and capture the essence of visual storytelling.”
Think Tank Photo will release new “About A Photograph” videos every three weeks.
About Think Tank Photo
Think Tank Photo is a group of designers and professional photographers focused on studying how photographers work, and developing inventive new carrying solutions to meet their needs. By focusing on “speed” and “accessibility,” we prepare photographers to Be Ready “Before The Moment,” allowing them to document those historic moments that reflect their personal visions and artistic talents. We design products that help photographers travel easier, take pictures faster, and organize their gear more efficiently.
This NASA artist concept shows what the impact may have looked like.
It's a good thing you weren't standing on the moon's Mare Imbrium crater on March 17. You might have been ground into space dust. A meteoroid "the size of a small boulder" crashed into the lunar surface and exploded with a flash so bright, it was visible to the naked eye from Earth.
NASA has been keeping an eye on the moon for eight years, looking for explosions caused by meteoroids. The space agency has seen hundreds of detectable impacts, but none quite so spectacular as this one. "For about one second, the impact site was glowing like a fourth magnitude star," NASA says...
Read the full story here. Souce: CNET
Google on Monday updated its Youtube app for iOS to version 1.3, which allows users to watch live streams right from their mobile device. Many users might be asking themselves where this was over the weekend, when YouTube was streaming Coachella, but better late than never. Right? There’s always next year, and plenty of other events this year when the new functionality will come in handy.
In addition to the headlining feature, the updated YouTube app also introduces minor fixes, including a My Subscriptions feed and support for queuing up videos for TV playback. Of course, the typical performance enhancements are also included in the update, too.
Ever since YouTube was booted from iOS, the app hasn’t exactly been a favorite standalone offering. And while there are alternatives out there, Google is at least slowly unraveling an experience on a par to what it offers on Android.
[Source: TechnoBuffalo]
Sure, watching YouTube videos in HD is great when you want clarity, but maybe you've been yearning for that grainy, tape-recorded look. Marking what's apparently the 57th anniversary of cassette-based video recording, the YouTube team has snuck a VHS tape-shaped button on select videos. Clicking it will the throw a filter over the content, providing a highly distorted and nostalgic feast for the eyes. There's no official list of compatible content, but the option seems to be available on most of the videos on YouTube's native channel. We have a feeling at least one VCR enthusiast will be quite pleased.
[Source: Engadget]
No matter how hard companies try and keep secrets, when it comes to trade show floors there's always the risk that someone will snap a picture and steal their thunder. The latest casualty is Blackmagic, which will be announcing both a Pocket Cinema Camera and this, its Production Camera 4K. We're fairly sure that this will sit above its Cinema Camera, offering a bigger Super 35 sensor, global shutter and Thunderbolt connector alongside the SSD recorder, touchscreen LCD and EF lens mount we found on last year's model. When the company gets around to announcing the hardware properly, it'll be available for $3,995 -- low enough to make even the most ardent of DSLR fans think twice.
[Image Credit: Danielo Garcia]
[Source: Engadget]
Viners rejoice -- you can now embed your 6-second mini-movie masterpieces on Websites. The Twitter-owned service has just added the functionality, itannounced in a blog post.
If you want to give your movies a home on a site, you'll just have to enter some simple code. You can choose from three sizes: 320px, 480px, or 600px. Choosing the "simple" option will embed just the video, while the "postcard" one will retain the clip's original format, complete with text description and location.
Or you can embed your clip using the iOS app, which has just been updated to include the feature. Tap the ellipses in the bottom-right corner, then "Share this post", then "Embed". It might not work on all sites though, so best check before you start shouting about it too much.
Head to our US cousins' site and you'll see our very own Ken German's brief retrospective of old mobile phones. It's like a sped-up shuffle down memory lane.
Vine launched a couple of months ago, but is still only for iOS. Hopefully us Android users will get a version soon. It's been a massive hit though, with 6-second clips springing up everywhere. The new Wolverine film even had its very own trailer on the service. At least it didn't give away the whole story, like a lot of trailers.
If you fancy seeing what people are making vids of, a site called Vinepeek will give you a glimpse. It's pretty addictive viewing, though I don't want to be held responsible if anyone posts anything not safe for work. Viewer discretion is advised, as they used to say at the start ofWorld's Scariest Police Chases.
Squee-bloop wheee-eee! Parp the Samsung Galaxy 4 teaser bagpipes, because there's a new official video heralding the coming of the year's most eagerly awaited new smart phone.
Continuing on from the first teaser, there's no sign of the phone itself, as a moppet bafflingly chosen to see the phone first attempts to hide it from prying eyes.
In the first episode, mop-topped Richie Rich-type rich kid Jeremy Maxwell was inexplicably handed the S4, peeking into a box that glowed with an eerie light.
Heading home, Jezzer encounters a curious ladychild and hides in his room for a closer look at the new device. "It's my favourite colour... it's unreal. Totally amazing!" coos the precocious phone-fondler. Are the Oreos a clue that the phone will come in black and white, as rumoured?
[Source: CNET - Click here to read more]
Users of Android's recent editions have been exposed to Google Now, the "before you know you need it" search tool.
Google Now tries to look ahead at your schedule and physical location to let you quickly access the most relevant results -- traffic for your commute, flight schedules for your trips, local restaurant recommendations and the like. G-Now uses a card metaphor to pop the necessary info right onto your device screen with minimal intervention.
While Siri can handle quite a few of those search chores on iOS, she's not exactly the anticipatory type. SRI's recent Tempo calendar app gives you some of the same halo of savvy around your schedule, but you have to get cleared first (Tempo still has a waiting list several thousand users long).Google's own Field Trip app delivers location-based tidbits (local art, attractions, restaurants and more) as you move around, but it's not integrated into the main search tool.
There may be changes afoot. Engadget unearthed a promotional animated clip that seems to preview a version of Google Now for iOS; the original video appeared on YouTube and has since been removed. In style, content and narration the clip is entirely in line with Google's original promo for the Android launch of Google Now, which lends quite a bit of weight on the authentic side of the scale.
[Source: TUAW - Click here to read the full story]
Doesn't look like this Harlem Shake craze is going away any time soon. Always one to piggyback off the zeitgeist, Google has dropped its own Harlem Shake easter egg into YouTube -- head there, search for "Do The Harlem Shake" and listen to that infamous song start up.
Nothing much will happen right away, apart from the YouTube logo in the top left corner will start to shimmy. But as soon as the song gets going, the action begins…
All the screengrabs and corresponding text get shaken up as the key part of the song kicks in. And in true Harlem Shake style, they all do their own thing, with some throbbing, some shaking side to side, and the sidebar leaping up and down like an excited Jack Russell.
It worked perfectly in Chrome -- which is Google's own browser, so is hardly surprising -- but when I tried it in Safari I got only a taste of the full experience. The videos shook once, then stayed still until the end of the song. Which isn't much of a Harlem Shake. It could be something to do with Apple blocking older versions of Flash from Safari.
Google is fond of the odd easter egg. As well as its Google doodles, which regularly adorn its search engine home page, it occasionally drops in nuggets like this to its services like YouTube. "Do a barrel roll" is one that springs to mind -- type it into Google, and see what happens. (Fans of Star Fox 64 will know what I'm on about.) And then there was "Let it snow" a couple of Christmases ago, which did just that, sprinkling flakes down the screen like on a crisp winter's morn.
[Source: CNET]
Google's futuristic 'Glass' eyewear is slowly but surely coming into focus, with the Big G releasing a new video that gives a clue as to how the space-age pince-nez will function.
In several scenes, real-time GPS is shown to be feeding maps data into the eyepieces of Glass wearers, so you can see where you are on a map while driving or cycling.
The video also suggests that commands are summoned by saying "OK Glass", which calls up more voice-activated commands, including "Google", "Take a picture" and "Record a video".
It seems you won't need your hands for photographical functions then, but the futuristic specs are also going to include touchpad controls, which may come in handy for more sophisticated tasks.
Translation is another touted feature, so you could use Google's voice search to demand instructions on how to say a word in French, for instance.
Google's original 'One Day' trailer for Google Glass was a lot more ambitious, featuring icons that bob in front of your eye and other high-tech treats that likely won't be available when Google Glass eventually goes on sale.
I think it's good to see the search giant talking in more practical terms about what its glasses will be capable of. A new site explains some of its features, and opens the doors to fans who want to be among the first to use the new technology, if you can impress Google with your combination of words, pictures and relevant hashtags.
Better still, it reveals that Google Glass will come in black, grey, white, blue and orange! Hooray for colours!
[Source: CNET]