February 2010

Michael Zhang

Taking Photos with Hand Gestures

SixthSense is a wearable gesture device being developed by PhD student Pranav Mistry at the MIT Media Lab that allows the wearer to interact with their environment, treating the real world as a computer display. The above video is of the demo that was given at TED that generated international attention. What we found interesting is how the device allows you to photograph with hand gestures (at 6m25s), and the ability to work with your images on any wall.

Michael Zhang

Collapsible Tent Pole Tripod by Tamrac

Here's a "carry around" tripod for your carry around lens and camera: The ZipShot is a "compact, ultra-light tripod" by Tamrac that has aluminum-alloy legs that resemble the collapsible poles used in tents. While it's not very useful in windy situations, or with heavy professional gear, it might suffice for most ordinary uses and lighter cameras (supposedly it can hold up to 3lb). The biggest benefits are obviously weight (11oz) and setup time.

Michael Zhang

A Shortener for… Your Photographs?

Liquid Scale is an app for the iPhone and iPod Touch that offers content aware image resizing. What does that mean? Basically it's like a URL shortener for your photographs, reducing the dimensions of the photograph but retaining the meaning.

Michael Zhang

Uncle Jack Shot with a Pentax K-7

Pentax recently asked a couple production companies to shoot short films demonstrating the HD filming capabilities of the Pentax's flagship K-7. After the recent flurry of short films shot with Canon and Nikon DSLRs, it seems Pentax would like to remind us all that they're still in the game. The two films were recently released, and are titled "Uncle Jack" (embedded above) and "The Rider".

Michael Zhang

Google Brings Street View to the Mountains

Just in time for the Winter Olympics, Google announced on Tuesday that Street View now includes imagery of several runs at Whistler Blackcomb ski resort, where many of the events will be held. To capture the photographs, Street View cameras were mounted on a snowmobile that made runs down the slopes.

Michael Zhang

Flickr Co-Founder Returns to Roots

Some of you might know that popular photo sharing service Flickr was originally a set of tools built for a massively multiplayer online game called Game Neverending. In November of 2009 we also reported that Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr, had left Flickr and was returning to his original project, Game Neverending.