Eric Calouro

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.

Here's an interesting concept! Jiho Jang, a student, has come up with Polaroid-like instant camera, dubbed GIFTY, that captures short clips and prints them out. According to Jang, it was put together as part of his college thesis.

Wait -- printing out a video? What's next? A GIF with sound? The concept involves first capturing a small clip (the camera prototype includes a timer). Thereafter, the camera will print each frame, at which point in time you can tear each frame apart to create the flip-book. By the looks of it, the concept includes a page holder of some sort, so you don't easily lose frames. So there you have it, a GIF on-the-go. Sound not included.

For many user who use Adobe's Photoshop software, the "Content Aware Fill" tool has been a welcome addition in their arsenals of retouching tools. And while the vast majority of Photoshop users are editing 2D imagery, a partnership between Adobe and Brigham Young University has produced algorithms that'll do with 3D images what Content Aware Fill does with 2D images.

BYU grad student Joel Howard and professor Bryan Morse worked with Adobe's Scott Cohen and Brian Price to make the algorithm a reality. Adobe also provided funding for the project.

3D pictures are a pair of images of the same subject taken from slightly different angles. It is extremely difficult to edit them in a manner that won't be distracting in the final version. "If you try to show it stereoscopically and it’s not quite right, it’s very bothersome to the eyes," says Bryan Morse. "You have to fill the space in a way that preserves the left-right consistency."

NASA has today released a series of images along with a video following Monday's devastating thunderstorms that produced an F-4 tornado (winds between 166 and 200 miles per hour) that touched down in Moore, Oklahoma. Several satellites were used to provide forecasters with the latest imagery.

NASA's Aqua satellite was responsible for a visible-light image which provided a high-resolution look at the storm. The NOAA GOES-13 satellite provided images of the storm every 15 minutes, and the NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite observed lightning from the system.

Planning lighting is a critical step in the planning of a photo shoot. But what happens if you don't exactly have control of your lighting. What if your planned source of light is the sun or the moon?

Rafael Pons believes he has the solution to planning photo shoots that involve the sun and the move with a new application for iOS called PhotoPills. "You just have to decide where you want the sun or moon to be and tap the search button to get all possible dates it happens," he says.

Following the Google+ updates last week at Google I/O that overall improved the photo experience for its users, Mountain View-based Google is now making that very updated experience for users of its Google+ Android application.

The update, which boasts 41 new features total, includes Auto Backup (stores photos as you take them), Auto Highlight (allows for the ability to browse top shots from added sets), Auto Enhance (automatically enhances images), and even something called Auto Awesome (which creates fun new versions of pictures, such as panoramas and animations, based on images already in your library).

A bit of clever thinking from San Francisco Instructables member Amanda Ghassei has produced some really creative 3D-printed images from nothing but old photographs.

Printed using an Objet Connex 500, Ghassei's creations are still meant to be viewed in 2D, but are textured to create an interesting silhouette effect.

In order to properly view them, they must be backlit with a diffuse light. Images used for printing were first converted to black and white, and according to Ghassei, "each individual greyscale pixel value of an image to thickness," which effectively allows for the printing of any greyscale image.

Sometimes it's the simplest ideas that end up leaving an impression on people and inspiring them. Case in point: Astana, Kazakhstan-based photographer Timur Zhansultanov has created a project he's called "In My Own Eyes", which features pictures of himself from — well — his own eyes in the past two-or-so years.

Colorful and unusual patterns pictures are what photographer Erno-Erik Raitanen calls self-portraits. The pictures, which Raitanen says are more like photograms, involve no camera, some photographic film, and bacteria.

The series, called Bacteriograms, is a display of Raitanen's own body bacteria cultivated on the gelatin surface of film negatives, much like bacteria is grown in Petri dishes in a laboratory setting.

This video recently uploaded to the web is making its rounds showing a mall security officer fiercely shouting at a group of curious citizens for taking pictures and videos. (Warning: It contains some violence and strong language)

The fiasco erupted after a semi truck plummeted into a ravine nearby the Ohio Valley Mall when a mall cop identifying herself as "Officer Adams" began demanding the onlookers discontinue taking pictures and erase the images.

Moscow-based photographer Nikolay Tikhomirov describes the photographs he's taken as "art inside me" -- and that's just what they are, art.

One of his collections, dubbed 'Zero Gravity' is series of images featuring women in Earthly environments floating as if they've escaped the confines of our planet's gravity. Some appear to be well aware of their surroundings, whilst others are seemingly in the midst of a slumber, oblivious to their dream-like condition.

Here's a tool you may not have heard about but may useful at some time in the future. It's called Clipping Magic, and it's designed to remove backgrounds from user-uploaded pictures.

The concept is rather simple, you upload an image, mark the areas in the background you don't want in red, and mark the areas in the foreground you do want in green. The website's algorithm takes over and (hopefully) produces a background-free picture. Sounds simple, doesn't it? But how does it fare when used for an image with a background you actually want to remove?

There's a slew of super-large panorama pictures available on the web, but when was the last time you heard about a picture that spans well over half the diameter of Earth?

It goes without saying; a time-lapse can be difficult to shoot. A transitional time-lapse from day to night can be even more of a challenge and hassle. That is, unless you're prepared with the right tools for the job.

That's why photographer and timelapse connoisseur Joel Schat has come around with an extremely informative video walkthrough of creating a remarkable time-lapse with the assistance of a Promote Control.

The idea of being a sports photographer to many enthusiasts seems glamorous and exciting. Free and seemingly unfettered access to major league games with a view just meters away from live action. Akin to a soldier on a battleground armed with the latest gear, carefully and methodically (yet rapidly) shooting his subjects with the aim to make a publish-worthy photograph in the midst of chaos.

But what is it really like out there in the trenches? Is it all it's cracked up to be? More importantly: in a society where the almighty dollar is king, is it a viable source of income for a professional photographer?

When Brad Josephs took his GoPro camera out in beautiful Alaska, he was probably trying to get majestic footage of Grizzly bears for the BBC's Great Bear Stakeout. Instead, what he got was a hungry mother Grizzly and her cub trying to eat his camera. We get some, shall we say, interesting views of what a Grizzly bear's mouth looks like (not that that's something we're all interested in seeing, is it?).

Shoppers will soon have a tough time trying to pick up a cheap Olympus point-and-shoot compact camera. The company has said it is planning to do away with its V lineup of low-cost compact cameras, priced just under $200 at various retailers.

The move comes as the company anticipates a steep decline in its camera business, with forecasted digital camera sales this fiscal year expected to be about 2.7 million units, down from 5.1 million units last year. Olympus president Hiroyuki Sasa has put the financial loss from its camera business at about $225 million.

Dr. Andreas Kaufmann, the majority shareholder and chairman of Leica, has apparently purchased a 25.1% stake in photo sharing and contest website I-SHOT-IT, reports Leica Rumors.

Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences postdoctoral fellow Wim L. Noorduin, along with his colleagues, have discovered an interesting way to make pictures of flowers from microscopic crystals, as seen under an electron microscope.

An interesting new imaging technique in use by fertility experts at the CARE fertility clinic in the United Kingdom may be the key to increasing the likelihood of a successful a IVF therapy. The process involves snapping thousands of images of embryos in development in order to help doctors better select which embryos to implant successfully.

Slovenian industrial designer Elvis Halilović, who dubs himself "a passionate lensless photographer" is aiming to bring several sleek-looking wooden pinhole cameras to the  masses through a Kickstarter project that has already exceeded its financial goal by over $20,000.

Most people in today's society have a mobile phone. Most mobile phones have cameras. Anyone and everyone has become an on-the-scene photojournalist, reporting on everything from major news events to the odd and crazy.

Some of these picture-worthy events take place on everyday flights. Shutter-happy passengers, snapping or even video recording the woman on the next aisle over acting unusual or a fellow passenger being disruptive. It's undeniable that we are curious beings, and want to document and share events we witness. But not everyone is pleased citizen photojournalists.

A rather interesting submission by Apple to the United States Patent and Trademark office shows potential plans for a synchronized flash system by connecting iOS devices, which will allow a primary camera to snap an image of a subject whilst being lit by another iPhone, as an example.