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Facebook Launches Snapchat-like ‘Poke’ App For Sending Self-Destructing Pics

Last week we ran a story about temporary photo and video sharing app Snapchat's recent explosion onto the market and how, sexting jokes aside, venture capitalists the world over are clawing to get a piece of the action. A few days later we found out that Facebook was about to rain all over Snapchat's parade by using Snapchat's idea to create its own app.

Today, that second story came true, as Facebook has just introduced the all-new 'Poke' app -- a photo, text, and video sharing application, complete with the same 10 second maximum time limit made famous by Snapchat.

Michael Zhang

Canon Launches Its Own Forum to Give Canonites a Safe Place to Chill Online

Are you a Canonite who's sick of hanging out in the same forums as photographers who pledge allegiance to other brands? If so, that's kinda sad -- why can't we all just get along? -- but Canon has something new that's perfect for you. The company has just launched its own official online forum, giving photography enthusiasts a new place to "ask questions, get answers and share experiences with peers."

Michael Zhang

MyShoebox Launches Free and Unlimited Cloud Storage for Photos

MyShoebox is a new photo storage and sharing service that has been making a splash after launching a little over a week ago. Its offering is easy to describe: free and unlimited cloud storage for photos that can then be viewed from anywhere. Think of it as a Dropbox dedicated to preserving and enjoying photos.

Michael Zhang

Give Your iPhone 5 a Leica Costume

Ever since we launched our Leica Look-alike iPhone 4/4S skin back in 2010, it has been the top seller in our store (yup, we run a small online shop to support this blog). If you're the proud owner of a new iPhone 5, we've also got you covered. Today we're launching an iPhone 5 version of the popular skin, which makes your phone look just like a Leica rangefinder camera. You can pick one up for $6 (shipping is free in the US).

Michael Zhang

CineSquid: A Suction Cup Tripod System Fit for Spiderman

Last year MIT grad Justin Jensen raised nearly half a million bucks through Kickstarter to launch CineSkates, a camera slider system that adds wheels to GorillaPod Focus tripods. Now Jensen and his startup Cinetics are back again with a new product called CineSquid, which provides a strong suction cup mount system rather than wheels. This allows cameras to be mounted onto things like cars, boats, and even airplanes.

Michael Zhang

Everpix Gathers All of Your Photos into One Place in the Cloud

Everpix is a new company that wants to make your entire photo collection -- both online and offline -- accessible from anywhere through the cloud. Introduced yesterday at the TechCrunch Disrupt 2011 conference, the service will come as a desktop client that monitors folders on your computer and photo sharing accounts on the Internet. Whenever you add new photographs, they're automatically beamed to the cloud (i.e. Everpix servers), allowing images created using many different devices and stored in many different places to be available in one central location. Even photos emailed to your through Gmail can be picked up and back up by the service.

Michael Zhang

Nikon Unleashes Eight New Coolpix Cameras, “Pro” Model Still in Hiding

Nikon did launch a new Coolpix camera today -- eight of them, in fact -- but the rumored "Coolpix Pro" mirrorless camera was nowhere to be found. The bevy of compact cameras hits store shelves next month, and includes the P7100 -- a more polished successor to the P7000 announced around this time last year, and Nikon's answer to Canon's G-series line of prosumer compact cameras. The 10.1MP camera features a tilting 3-inch LCD screen on the back, manual controls, 720p video, and RAW capabilities. It'll be priced at $500.

Michael Zhang

Father and Son Recreate Space Shuttle Launch Photo 30 Years Later

Musician Chris Bray was 13-years-old when he and his father attended the first ever launch of NASA's Space Shuttle program on April 12th, 1981. His mother snapped a photograph of the two standing ready with binoculars and a Super 8 camera. Last Friday, Bray (now 44) and his father (now nearly 70) were also in attendance at the final launch of the Shuttle program, and decided to recreate the photo they had taken together 30 years earlier.

Michael Zhang

HDR Photo of Endeavour Liftoff by NASA

Here's a good example of when HDR photography is useful: NASA created this image of the Space Shuttle Endeavour lifting off for the final time by combining six separate photographs.

Each image was taken at a different exposure setting, then composited to balance the brightness of the rocket engine output with the regular daylight levels at which the orbiter can be seen. The processing software digitally removes pure black or pure white pixels from one image and replaces them with the most detailed pixel option from the five other images. This technique can help visualize debris falling during a launch or support research involving intense light sources like rocket engines, plasma experiments and hypersonic vehicle engines. [#]

Michael Zhang

Nikon D5100 Officially Announced, Offers Night Vision and Special Effects

Nikon officially announced their new D5100 DSLR today, replacing the D5000 in the entry-level category. The 16.2 megapixel camera with a 1.5x crop factor has a 3-inch swiveling LCD screen, 4fps continuous shooting, an ISO range from 100 to 6400 (which you can boost to 25600), 1080p video recording at 30fps, and built in sensor cleaning.

Michael Zhang

New Photo Sharing App Color Raises a Whopping $41 Million in Funding

The mobile photo sharing space is hot right now, with services like Instagram, Picplz, and Path growing like weeds. A new contender called Color is causing some buzz after successfully raising a whopping $41 million... before even launching. The company has seven notable founders who have either started successful companies in the past (e.g. Lala and BillShrink) or have held executive positions at them (LinkedIn). Among the investors is Sequoia Capital, one of the most influential and successful firms in Silicon Valley and the firm that funded Google. They gave Color more than they gave Google.

Michael Zhang

Polaroid and Lady Gaga Launch New Instant Camera, Glasses, and Printer

Looks like the blogosphere was right in December of last year when it guessed that a teaser put out by Polaroid was for a new instant camera launch at CES 2011. The company -- along with Creative Director Lady Gaga -- officially unveiled the camera today in Las Vegas, and also showed off a new printer and a bizarre pair of glasses as well.

Michael Zhang

Nikon D7000 Kits Being Sold by Best Buy Ahead of Launch

Itching to get your hands on the Nikon D7000? You might want to try Best Buy. Apparently some Best Buy stores are breaking the rules and selling Nikon D7000 kits before the camera is officially available on Sunday. Here are some unboxing videos created by the lucky few who were able to purchase the D7000 early.