When Flickr launched its site-wide redesign this past week, one of the things that saw a quiet revamp was the default user avatar. The company hired Greek designer Charis Tsevis to upgrade the original default icon — an expressionless gray and black square face — to something more colorful.
Read more…

After Moore, Oklahoma was struck by a deadly tornado earlier this week, photographs quickly emerged showing what the storm looked like from space and what the destruction was like on the ground.

Now, Google’s Crisis Center website has published satellite photographs showing what the city look like before and after the tornado. As you can see from the “after” photo above, the tornado — which measured 1.3-miles wide at one point — left a trail of devastation that looks like a scar on the face of the Earth.
Read more…

Asking a stranger to snap a photograph of you is a risky proposition. If the person has no concept of basic photography concepts and techniques, the resulting photographs may be completely different than what you had hoped for — and you’re too embarrassed to ask for another photo (so you wait for that person to leave and for a new one to walk by).

Samsung wants to help solve this problem: they’re working on a camera feature that helps guide photo-inept strangers in snapping the shot you want.
Read more…

Google I/O brought with it a lot of exciting updates for Google+, not the least of which were a slew of automatic improvements to Google+ Photos including Auto Highlight, Auto Enhance and Auto Awesome. But the updates didn’t stop when I/O ended last Friday.

Today, Google’s Search blog announced that the company has started implementing some impressive technology that will allow you to search for your photos based on what they contain visually, even if there’s not a tag in sight. Read more…

Remember that 50-gigapixel camera being developed by Duke University scientists? Since we reported on the project last year, researchers have created a spin-off company called Aqueti for bringing the technology “into the world for everyone to experience.” The camera they’ve developed will soon be making public tours, and we’re starting to get a peek at what it’s capable of.
Read more…

The iPad mini and the Mac mini. Those are two “minified” products Apple has released to give its customers a choice for products that are cheaper and more portable. It appears Leica is planning to take a page from Apple’s playbook.

The camera company’s website has begun teasing a new Leica Mini M, a camera that will presumably be a smaller (and possibly cheaper) version of the Leica M flagship digital rangefinder.
Read more…

Need a chuckle? Look no further than the latest bizarre photo fad to sweep across the Internet. Called “Cat Beard,” the meme involves shooting a self-portrait with your face above a cat’s head. If you can nail the right perspective, you get a humorous photograph that looks like you have a strange beard covering your face (and a frown as well).
Read more…

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer found herself in the spotlight earlier this week following a controversial statement made at Flickr’s NYC press event regarding pro photographers:

There’s no such thing as Flickr Pro today because [with so many people taking photographs] there’s really no such thing as professional photographers anymore.

Photographer Zack Arias took offense to the comment, and before long, a number of publications picked up the story, sparking discussion and debate on the matter. Some users even took to Mayer’s Flickr page to voice their opinions. Read more…

We are at about that point in the year when Apple holds its ever-popular WWDC (Worldwide Developer’s Conference) in California. The company’s keynote is expected to include the unveiling of iOS 7, and the word on the grapevine indicates the next iteration of the mobile operating system could include deep integration with social networks outside of Twitter and Facebook.

Citing unnamed sources, 9to5Mac reports both Flickr and Vimeo will be “integrated deeply” into the operating system.
Read more…

Flickr’s recent transition to a “spectacular” new design and account structure has been anything but “spectacular” thus far. While some photographers have come out in support of the new design, reaction from the photographic community seems to be more negative than positive.

The new design was accused of being tailored towards the Facebook/Instagram/Twitter crowd and not photographers, Marissa Mayer made the statement that because of the prevalence of cameras there’s not such thing as a professional photographer anymore, and it looked like certain Flickr Pro users would be “screwed” out of their Pro accounts … We’re guessing it’s been a rough few days at the Yahoo! offices. Read more…