Google doesn’t think taking a screenshot is easy enough, so it updated its social network Google+ today to include “Capture,” an app that is supposed to make it easier to take pictures of your Hangouts.

Hangouts are Google+’s video chat rooms. Up to nine people can join a Hangout and use it either to chat on a particular subject (or just visit with friends). The video technology isn’t all that bad if you’ve got a good Internet connection, and politicians, religious icons, and celebrities have used the service to connect with their fans.

Since Hangouts arrived on the scene, screenshots have been the only option for capturing funny and memorable moments. The Capture app takes a picture in one click. The photos are saved into a photo album on your Google+ profile that only people in the Hangout can see. Because Google has introduced a number of apps for Hangouts, including Screen-sharing, YouTube, and Effects, which let you put on funny virtual hats, glasses, and facial hair that follow your face around the screen, people are bound to want to use the app.

In order to make sure that everyone plays fairly and that no one feels like their photo is being taken without them knowing, Google has included notifications that the app is in use. If the app is installed in the Hangout session you just joined, you’ll receive an alert. When someone opens the app, you’re receive and alert. And, of course, when someone actually takes a picture, you’ll receive an alert.

Google+ image via Jeremy Ng, Google

We are working with UK Trade & Investment to showcase the United Kingdom's thriving start-up and investment scene through a series of posts and video interviews at SXSW. Check out all of the coverage here. As always, VentureBeat is adamant about maintaining editorial objectivity.

It was only a matter of time before the quantified self movement and the photo-sharing obsession combined.

Memoto is a “life logging” camera that captures photos every 30 seconds. The company demoed the device at South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas, hoping to generate interest and attract buyers for the small $279 device.

Candid photos often turn out better than posed ones, and disrupting a wonderful moment to capture it is not ideal. This tiny camera clips on a collar or a jacket, andyou can even wear it as a necklace. Photographers can then go about their day without the persistent need to photography and document everything.

The device includes a clock and GPS, and it works with an application that you can use to review the photos or watch a time-lapse video of a series of the image. Images are organized for you, and the archives are searchable by time and location.

“The camera and the app work together to give you pictures of every single moment of your life, complete with information on when you took it and where you were. This means that you can revisit any moment of your past,” said a product description on the company’s website.

Memoto holds up to 6,000 photos (8GB) and comes with a year of free online photo storage, and the battery allegedly works for two days before needing a recharge. Right now, it doesn’t have social media integrations, although that is likely in the pipeline. The device does not have an off-switch or a way to delete photos, which of course raises security and privacy concerns.

People are constantly capturing data in this ever-connected mobile world, whether it is logging places they have been or tracking cardiovascular activity during exercise. It seems our generation is rabid for evidence of our own existence. Memoto’s Kickstarter campaign surpassed its goal by more than a factor of ten. The Swedish startup set up a $50,000 campaign and raised $550,189 from 2,871 backers. A group of European investors also contributed, bringing Memoto’s financing to almost $1 million.

Preorders are now available and delivery is estimated for April.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

If you’re like me, your iPhone movies look like crap.

Shaky, wobbly, bouncy … it’s annoying to users and frustrating for all us buddying Scorceses, Coppolas, and Spielbergs. Even if our only audience is friends and family on Facebook.

Enter Luma.

With its recent 2.8 upgrade, the movie app replacement for Apple’s camera app uses “cinematic video stabilization” to create movies that are so smooth and clean, it’s a thing of beauty. In fact, the image above is a still from a movie shot on an iPhone with Luma … on a bike.

If I seem to be gushing, that’s because I am. I take some video occasionally when doing interviews for VentureBeat, and have received some criticism for the sadly palsied nature of the results.

I’ve tried the app myself, and the results are simply stunning. I had no idea handheld video from a phone could look so good. Here’s footage from the company showing the difference between the native iPhone camera app and Luma:

“By using advanced motion retargeting algorithms Luma not only removes handshake, but also ensures that you get the smoothest possible shot,” the company posted on its blog. “The motion retargeting algorithm automatically figures out the ideal camera motion (whether it’s a stationary, panning, dolly, or steadicam shot that you’re after) and retargets the video to match that motion.”

Luma also allows you to apply filters for various effects to your videos in a very Instagramish way, if you’re into that sort of thing. Pastel, vignette, analog, noir, toon, and the ever-favorite sepia are among the options, and the effect is applied immediately, not in post-processing. As per usual, you can inflict the results of your creativity on Facebook and Twitter, or to connections on Luma’s own budding video network.

One caveat: I did not see a share to YouTube option, which is a must-have for me. Fortunately, there is an option to save captured videos to your standard iOS camera app, from which you can simply upload to YouTube.

Overall, however, this is one of the few apps I’ll be keeping on my phone after testing. The company calls it magic. I simply have to agree.

Image credit: Luma

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Alan Bailward is a programmer, sysadmin, and photographer living near Vancouver, BC.

If you’re a photographer, or interested in photography in some way, the iPhone and the iOS app store have been an incredible boon. Not only has there been an explosion in creative new ways to take, edit and share photography, but there seems to be a myriad of different choices for each of the steps. In creating a high quality device that has the power of a computer, a great (well, decent enough anyway) camera on it, and a platform that application developers can easily use to design and create apps, Apple has created a truly disruptive force in the photography landscape.

There are, however, some downsides.

As you can see from the screenshot, I have a fairly serious iPhone camera app problem. I haven’t been checked out by a doctor, but the prognosis isn’t good. This is just the one screen of them, mostly ones I don’t use. The rest are organized in folders for taking pictures, taking video, editing images, sharing them, the business side of photography, and even a separate “Photo GPS” folder.

This isn’t the biggest issue though, the issue is that the 86 (yes, you read that right, 86) iOS apps that I have currently on my phone are some of the better ones in their respective categories. Yes, there are a few that were impulse downloads during a sale, but for the most part they were curated through trusted sources or my own research.

There’s a lot of stupid, photography apps out there. A LOT. Sometimes you really have to wonder how you can make it through them all.

FIrst there are the scam apps.

A quick search of the great iPhoneography.com for “scam” reveals a lot of stories. What is a scam app? Well, in general it’s someone taking someone else’s app, slapping a new logo and maybe a coat of paint on it and selling it for some low price point ($0.99) with either ads or prominent links to other apps that have had the same treatment. These are generally inferior, deceptive, and sometimes epically rage inducing.

Generally these apps also have a ton of (purchased I’m sure) five-star reviews to put them on the radar, and many times are duplicated many times over with different names and in different categories, but are all the same. Apple has done some work in this department, but there is still a lot of crap out there.

Next up are the truly silly “single use” apps.

Take for example 1×1 Camera, an app that appears to do nothing more than take images cropped to a square format. There are some more serious takes on this, with Michael Hardaker producing several (actually quite high quality) camera apps named 645 Pro, 6×7 and 6×6, with the main difference between the three of them the aspect ratio.

Now this is a case where the app itself is fairly decent, or at least, the author has put a fair amount of time and effort into producing something that’s good quality (the 645 Pro app and his new PureShot app (obit of which I own — I told you I have a problem) allow the fairly unique ability to save in a high resolution TIFF image, instead of the standard lossy JPG).

There are a lot of cases where the apps aren’t high quality, or for that matter any quality at all.

The number of apps on the app store that are either deceptively named (any query combination of camera pro, camera plus, or the like will end up with a lot of similar looking icons and feature sheets), or look like someone went through a iOS programming tutorial and then packaged up the result and is trying to make a couple of bucks off it by selling it for $0.99, is massive.

Nothing wrong with that, but as a consumer, you need to be aware of these things.

Let’s look at the “silly” apps in the store. Not just silly, like the Fatify app, which lets you take a picture and then make the person look fat, but bordering on the truly bizarre.

Bazinga Camera (App Store Link - $0.99) As far as I can tell, this is a “joke” that puts your victim in a loop of taking pictures and answering the phone. I think. The app description ends with: “This app is intended for entertainment purpose only and does not provide true “camera” and “phone call” functionality.”
Ultimate Funny Camera Sound Effect App Free-Great, Addicting, Gun, Fart Shutter & Ringtones Sounds Box Gratis Apps Lite (App Store Link - free) I think you can tell from the name of the app that it’s terrible. In fact it’s nothing to do with cameras, but more a soundboard of fart sounds.  Not sure how this comes up in a search for photography apps.
Old Fart Booth (App Store Link - free) Lets you age a picture you take, but to get all the cool effects you’ll need to shell out $4.99 in in-app purchases.
Abs Fun Booth (App Store Link - free) Basically lets you put great abs on a picture. Honestly it seems that about 90% of the camera related apps are about putting things on a picture.
Amazing X-Ray Funny Booth (App Store Link - $2.99) View an X-Ray of your friends and totally fool them.  Well, if using the accelerometer to let you tilt the iPhone to move over a pre-defined body part to show an X-Ray image is totally fooling them.
Cool Finger Faces (App Store Link - free) Lets you put faces on your fingers (seeing a trend here yet?) either from the $1.99 in-app purchase, or “draw it yourself.”
Fat Booth (App Store Link - free) Take a picture of your face and make it fat.  I can see this being fun for a few minutes, or until you use it on the wrong person and get your butt kicked.  Note this is completely different than the other ‘make a picture fat’ app I mentioned.

So how do you avoid the scams, the fakes, and the crap photography apps?

• Use trusted sources to find apps such as friends, peers and trusted sites
  If you hear someone like Mostly Lisa on a podcast of good repute such as This Week In Photo you’ll know to go directly to the website for the app, such as Tap Tap Tap to find the “real” Camera+. Letting someone else curate the good apps is great. I keep an eye on various photo blogs and keep myself informed of what’s new and cool.
• Next is to look at the reviews in the app store itself
  Take any reviews on an app with a grain of salt, but they will generally tell a story. Lots of reviews, distributed over the different star ratings is fairly normal. One or two or three glowing 5 star reviews and nothing else? Unless the app was just released today you might want to ask around. A few 1 star reviews are normal enough, if an app is good enough a few people will find an axe to grind with it, but a lot of one star reviews and those two glowing 5 star ones? Might be time to head for the hills.
• Use common sense
  Ask yourself that even if the app you’re about to hit the buy button is awesome, will it do anything that your current set of apps don’t do? Is having an app that only shoots in 4:5 ratio for $0.99 worth it when you can open up one of the 18 other apps you have that will crop an image in 3 touches? Sip your $4.99 latte and let that sink in.
• Click the developer’s name and see what their other apps are
  If they have a bunch of other similarly named apps, you might be looking at a shovelware producer, where you’re going to (in general) get lower quality apps. For example, this developer has five different apps for putting funny things on your face and three different ones for stretching your face, eyes, and mouth (each a separate app at $1.99, $0.99 and $0.99 respectively). This company has 8 different apps to “oldify”, “browify”, “baldify”, “beardify”…. you get the picture. While I haven’t tried any of these apps, my gut feeling is that they’re pretty much carbon copies with a few different images cranked out with the aim of quantity over quality.

It’s not all doom and gloom though, here are my recommendations for the five essential camera apps photographers  should have on their iPhones:

• Camera+ (App Store Link)
  A great app for taking pictures and editing. It’s “clarity” adjustment has to be seen to be believed and the speed of the app is amazing.
• Snapseed (App Store Link)
  Image editing from the folks at Nik software. Again, best of breed for editing on the go.
• GeoTagr (App Store Link)
  Shooting with a DSLR and want to record your GPS locations? This does that, and allows you to sync the data back to your computer or flickr, dropbox and Google+ images.
• Autostitch (App Store Link)
  When the built in iOS 6 panorama app just doesn’t cut it, Autostitch is built off the respected autopano library on the desktop and will do amazing things with your panoramas, vertical, horizontal, or both.
• Top Model Release (App Store Link) or Model Release (App Store Link)
  If you’re a photographer dealing with models you need model releases.  Paper ones are best, but if you only have an iPhone or iPad with you, this app will get you there.  Cloud sync and an iPad version are just the icing on the cake.

Alan Bailward is a programmer, sysadmin, and photographer living near Vancouver, BC.  He can be found posting links to interesting things through the day at UFies.org or on his photography site at Bailward Photography.

photo credit: MomentsForZen via photopin cc

Happy about the new iPhone 5? You should be … or maybe you shouldn’t, because the announcements made today weren’t everything that we’d hoped for. In fact, some are startlingly painful. Here are eight that almost make today feel like a bad day:

1. No HD radio on the iPod Nano or any iOS devices

Most people may not care, but that’s just because you just don’t know about HD radio. It’s basically the same as today’s FM radio except that it’s a better digital signal rather than a standard analog signal. It’s clearer, crisper, and provides a better listening experience. Oh, and it offers up to three channels per station.

Because it’s digital, HD radio can actually have multiple channels for individual stations, so your favorite FM station can have different stations to listen to. Here in L.A., some FM stations have their parent AM radio stations shared on the same frequency, or even their webstream as another channel. That way, you get more radio stations over the same spectrum of radio waves.

But Apple completely skipped over HD radio again, as the company has done year after year since the Zune HD came out with the feature. And not only is there no HD radio, radio itself is limited solely to the iPod Nano. If you have any other Apple product (iPhone 5, iPod Touch, etc.), you’re out of luck. Because apparently if you can get Internet over Wi-Fi, which is obviously everywhere, who needs the radio?

2. No NFC

While it’s use is minuscule today, but NFC (near-field communication) is a simple technology that allows users to share pictures, websites, and other tidbits of data by putting your phone in close proximity to another NFC-enabled device. The feature, which has been on Android phones for about a year now, isn’t on all devices, but it has made significant headway, especially in light of Google Wallet and other services which are attempting to transform our phones into our wallets.

With mobile payments in mind, and with Apple traditionally at the forefront of creating new ways for people to purchase goods, no NFC on the iPhone 5 can only mean one of two things: The company doesn’t have it’s own method of mobile transactions like NFC, or it simply isn’t done developing it and refuses to use the current standard. In either case, if you’re heading down to Jamba Juice and don’t want to pull out your wallet, don’t get an iPhone.

3. The camera lens isn’t faster

Camera technology on smartphones is all the rage these days. Nokia has their Pureview, and Apple is saying that their new camera is the best yet. I’ve done significant testing on smartphone cameras, and the iPhone 4S is still has one of the best cameras on the market. But the lens? It’s not faster.

As a photographer, I can tell you that the difference between an f-stop rating of f/1.4 and f/1.8 is the difference between a good shot and a great shot. Moreover, smartphone cameras have gone down to f/2.2, including a vast number of competing phones like the HTC One series and Nokia Lumia 900. You may think that the difference between f/2.2 and f/2.4 is moot, but remember, this is Apple talking about how they’re improving the iPhone. Yet the most critical aspect of any camera — how fast it shoots — is completely forgotten.

4. No USB 3.0/Thunderbolt support

After five years of the iPhone stuck on USB 2.0, and Apple finally transitioning with their latest line of MacBooks to USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt, is it really so hard to make the most popular phone in the world transfer data through a cable a little faster? Is it?

Based on what Apple showed today, apparently it is. The new Lightning cable is a USB 2.0 connector, meaning it transfers data, if at full speed, at 35MB/s. Sure, that’s fast … but if you’re backing up gigabytes to your computer, that’s going to take a long, long time. It does today. I just backed up a bunch of new games I got for my 16GB iPhone 4S, and it took around 20 minutes to fully sync.

Is Apple addressing that problem in any way, knowing full well that they have both the technology and means to do so at little cost? Nope.

5. No iPad Mini

While some of the other disappointments are actually hurtful, Apple not revealing anything about the rumored iPad Mini at today’s event was a sad letdown, like waking up in the morning really thirsty for orange juice and finding an empty carton in the fridge. Then again, as Devindra pointed out late last month, the iPad Mini reveal is expected to come in October. Shucks, I guess we’ll just have to wait a little while longer.

6. The Lightning adapter is ridiculously expensive

As first discovered by Gizmodo’s Casey Chan (caution, NSFW), the new Lightning adapter that makes any older iPhone peripheral work with the iPhone 5 costs an absurdly expensive $30, or $40 for a 20cm cable. This is compared to the $10 adapter for the updated MagSafe power connectors that the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines use. Charging $30 or $40 for a simple adapter is so obnoxious that it’s actually a mockery of Apple product buyers who want to use their older iPhone/iPod Touch accessories.

Because, you know, you have to pay extra if you want to use Apple’s newest toy with old equipment. We wouldn’t want to make the new, shiny iPhone look bad for no penalty.

7. No increase in available storage

As an owner of the iPhone 4S and iPad, both 16GB versions, it only took a few short months (or, in the iPad’s case, weeks) to fill up that space with games, media, and apps. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos explained last week at the Kindle Fire HD reveal that products with high definition displays need more space, simple as that. Apple knows this full well; the iPad’s display has a huge resolution of 2048×1536, which makes apps take a lot of space.

The iPhone 5? It has a bigger display, too, but no boost in capacity. If you want a device, you can pay $200, the standard for high-end smartphones (plus a 2-year contract), or you can pay $300 for the 32GB model. Or better yet, $400 for the 64GB version. Oh, and remember, the iPhone has no expandable storage, so what you buy is what you’re stuck with. Sixteen GB isn’t enough space these days, especially with so many great apps available … but I guess that isn’t Apple’s problem.

8. No price decrease for extra storage

The only thing worse than not increasing the amount of storage is still charging the absurd $100 fine for more space. For 16GB, $200 is reasonable, but $300 for $32GB? No. Just no. And $400 for 64GB? Give me a break. Flash storage today at those capacities costs nothing; it’s essentially pure profit for Apple no matter how much they charge, and while nearly every other major hardware device charges $50 for every major increase in storage space, Apple hasn’t lifted a finger to do so.

The worst part is, as much as we hate it, if you’re low on space now like I am, the only viable option is to pay the $100 ransom for more on the next phone.

Facebook has launched a stand-alone camera application for the iPhone to help people share photos faster and easier on the massive social network, the company announced today.

Although Facebook paid $1 billion to acquire photo-sharing service Instagram, the Facebook Camera app seems focused on bulk uploading your photos from your iPhone to Facebook rather than helping you re-touch and add effects to photos. The new app does let you edit, crop, rotate, and add filters if you so choose. (We think i is a little weird to include filters when that’s Instagram’s big focus.) Besides uploading photos, you can also use the app to browse your friends’ Facebook images.

The app appears to be a response to Google+, which recently released beautiful new photo-centric apps for iPhone and Android. Google+ hasn’t caught on with users for status updates, so it hopes it get people to come for photo-sharing. Facebook isn’t going to just sit back, apparently.

However, the app also has clear ties to Instagram. Facebook Camera was likely in development before Facebook decided to buy Instagram, and it even looks a fair amount like Instagram. Since the Instagram deal has not closed yet, that team did not work on this app, but Facebook was clearly influenced by it. Once the Instagram deal does close, we expect the lines to blur even more.

You can download the new app here.

And you can watch a video outlining the Facebook Camera app below:

Photo credit: Facebook

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple released the latest update to its mobile operating system, iOS 5.1.1, today. The update fixes a few minor issues pertaining to the camera as well as a bug in the iPad.

Specifically, the update makes the high dynamic range photography capability more reliable when using a shortcut that allows you to take pictures without unlocking your phone. For those who don’t know, HDR in Apple devices takes three photos at different exposures which are then melded together to create a photo that’s evenly exposed and full of detail throughout the range of dark to light. Apple says the update will also make syncing bookmarks and your Reading List in Safari more reliable.

The iPad had a bug in it that switched its data connection from 2G to 3G, which has been patched in the new OS.

A couple other minor fixes include an update to AirPlay, software that streams content between Apple devices, which was having trouble with video playback in “certain circumstances.” Apple also killed a bug that showed an “unable to purchase” message when a purchase had been successfully executed.

iOS 5 was originally introduced in October when the iPhone 4S was released. Its latest update was announced at the newest iPad’s release in March. You can download the update by heading over to iTunes, or in your iOS settings under “Software Update.”

hat tip Ars Technica

Lytro cameras, the much-hyped photo gadget from a Silicon Valley startup, finally began shipping to customers on Wednesday, four months after the company started taking pre-orders. The cameras use something called light field technology to capture “interactive” images, on which you can change the focus after you take the picture.

After a stretch of build-up, starting with an announcement of the new company in June of last year, Lytros are finally out in the wild and we can see how the public takes to the images. Will the re-focusable photos go viral and change photography, or will they be a fad? While the camera is undeniably cool and based on impressive technology, it may have difficulty finding commercial appeal outside of a few hardcore gadget lovers, and perhaps real estate agents, due to combination of technical limitations and a high price-tag.

A lot of the excitement surrounding Lytro stems as much from the revolutionary technology inside as from a tech community hungry for a truly unique physical product — a welcome change from the glut of mobile apps and daily deals sites that usually come out of Silicon Valley. And it is definitely unique.

Small and rectangular, with a lens on one end and an iPod nano-esque touchscreen on the other, the Lytro camera produces a proprietary still image file-format (Lytro calls it a “living photo”) that can be posted on Facebook or embedded as an iframe in a website. You can click anywhere on the image to refocus it, or create 3D images using the companion Lytro software. The camera comes in two memory sizes and starts at $399. (The interactive images won’t embed in our site, but you can see samples here.)

Two focus options from one Lytro image.

While being able to change the focus on an image after shooting is a useful feature, and clicking to focus and refocus photos a fun diversion, photography is about much more than an image being in focus.

There are other limitations that could hinder the Lytro: The final image size is small (though Lytro claims it can’t be measured in megapixels since there’s an extra dimension of data); all images have a shallow depth-of-field; options for sharing the interactive images are limited; and there’s no way to edit the file in popular editing application without first flattening it into a JPG — which could be especially disappointing to the Instagram generation. The camera itself is minimalist, with only a handful of controls and no flash, exposure, video, or sharing options.

What the camera does best is act as an advertisement for the revolutionary technology inside.

“We are in a crazy megapixel war, but we share photos at a relatively small size on a screen. How do you take that explosion of digital sensor [technology] and make it actually worthwhile? Instead of blowing up into two dimensions we’ve blowing up into three dimensions.” said Patrick Chung, a partner at venture firm NEA which led Lytro’s series B funding round in 2010.

“It’s a single first product, but eventually it will also be resident in a camera phone, it will also be resident in a DSLR,” Chung said. He spit-balled some other excellent possible uses for the sensor, including in security cameras (“you can focus on the face of the thief”) and X-rays. Chung said Lytro founder Ren Ng met with Steve Jobs last year, which brings to mind the tantalizing idea of a light-field sensor in an iPhone. Indeed, the numerous partnerships and commercial and industrial possibilities for the sensor seem huge, so why start with a one-note commercial product?

Ren Ng

“Having pictures that have this interaction is a very deliberate choice, because they’re what can act as little ambassadors into the world, and very quickly, almost instantly, get new people to recognize that something dramatic has changed,” Ng told us in an interview in October.

Ng developed the light field technology when he was a PhD student at Stanford. He then made the unusual decision to create his own consumer product from scratch instead of licensing or selling the sensor technology to established camera companies. It was a big undertaking, and Ng did it the Silicon Valley way, with a dream team of financial backers — the company has raised around $50 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners, NEA, and K9 Ventures.

A spokesperson told VentureBeat that Lytro is not announcing any sales numbers at this time, though Chung says there is a wait time for new orders, which indicates that there has been a surge of initial demand. However, early reviews are middling, with the most positive feedback focused on the potential of the technology and not the camera or images themselves.

That commercial potential is undeniable, and niche or not, this first consumer product could be more effective as a calling card than a stand-alone money-maker. Even if most of these early Lytros end up collecting dust in a drawer, like Apple’s ill-received QuickTake digital cameras, the Lytro is already a success in many ways.

“It’s almost like a digital signature for a camera system, for a light field camera,” said Ng. “That opens the door to all these things in the future.”

Top two images via Lytro, bottom image via VentureBeat.

The company makes SD memory cards that can transmit photos and other stored data wirelessly between cameras, tablets, and computers. The card uses Wi-Fi to share pictures without needing to take a memory card out of one device and plug it into another. Eye-Fi cards are especially helpful when you want to share pictures you took with your digital camera on-the-go with a smartphone. You can transfer the file to your phone and then upload it to all social networks you belong to.

Eye-Fi was the first on the scene, but other companies have followed suit. Toshiba’s FlashAir card will be available this year and Panasonic is developing a similar WiGig supported SD card, which will transit files at gigabit speed over short distances.

The company also announced a partnership with Japanese mobile operator NTT Docomo, which also served as the lead investor in this fundraising. The partnerships includes plans to integrate Eye-Fi technology with the carrier’s personal cloud system. NTT Docomo customers will be able to send photos they take to their phones and share them with social networks.

Eye-Fi is using the funding to add Michele Don Durbin, a former Skype and eBay exec, to the team as vice president of marketing.

Eye-Fi was founded in 2005 and is based in Mountain View California. The company has been funded by Opus Capital, Shasta Ventures and TransLink Capital and has raised more than $40 million.

One of the great advantages of telecommuting is that you don’t having to worry about dressing for success. You can attend meetings in pajamas, sport some Don Johnson stubble or the latest ironic mustache, and type while reclined on a sofa with a cat warming your feet.

But now video conferencing is having a moment, and like it or not, how you present yourself on video is just as important as how you do it in person. Here are a few tips to make sure you come across like the professional you are in video meetings. And if you crop it right, they’ll never know you’re not wearing pants.

Have good lighting: Most built-in computer cameras and third-party web cams are low-resolution with small sensors. They’re not optimized for low-light or other tricky lighting situations, so you have to be conscious of where your light is coming from. Make sure you have front lighting and never stand directly in front of a source of light. If the light is only behind you, the camera will expose for that and you will appear as a mysterious silhouette like Hitchcock.

If you really want to go for gold, bounce a direct light (like a desk lamp) off of a nearby white surface and make sure it hits your face at a slight angle.

Back lighting is bad (left), front lighting at a slight angle is good (right).

Sound like you look: There are a multiple problems with depending on your computer’s built-in microphone. If you are working while you meet, the mic will pic up the sound of you banging away on your keyboard. You might also find yourself leaning in to be heard, getting entirely too close to the camera and looking a tad silly and distorted. Your best bet is an external microphone — ideally a collar mic that can be discreetly clipped to your shirt.

Don’t wear loud clothes: You don’t necessarily have to wear corporate clothing, but dress just as you would if you were going to meet people in an office: clean, crisp, and conservative. But looking good on video is more than just wearing nice clothes, you also need to stick to simple solids and muted colors. Garish Cosby sweaters or loud patterns (pictured left) will confuse the camera’s color balance and distract the viewer.

The company began preparing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy at the very beginning of 2012; the filing was complete on January 18.

The iconic company will ease production of its cameras, including digital and pocket video cameras, as well as its digital picture frames, before the summer of 2012 is over. Exiting this aspect of its business will cost Kodak an initial $30 million but is expected to result in a $100 million annual savings.

Kodak will continue to honor existing product warranties and will offer support services for the cameras and frames.

After cutting so much of its business away, Kodak will focus on generating revenue from its brand licensing program, online and retail photo-printing services, home printers, enterprise services (including commercial film units), and retail kiosks and photo-printing labs.

A Kodak spokesperson told Reuters the product cuts would result in significant job losses.

During its bankruptcy proceedings, Kodak CEO Antonio Perez said, “Kodak is taking a significant step toward enabling our enterprise to complete its transformation. At the same time as we have created our digital business, we have also already effectively exited certain traditional operations, closing 13 manufacturing plants and 130 processing labs, and reducing our workforce by 47,000 since 2003.”

At that time, the company’s stock was trading at just 47 cents per share; today, in spite of massive restructuring efforts, stock ticker EKDKQ still sits at just 44 cents.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Earlier this month, Tap Tap Tap reported that its Camera+ iPhone app had raked in $5.1 million since launching in June 2010. In this exclusive interview with Tap Tap Tap founder John Casasanta, we talk about the company’s run-ins with Apple, the secrets behind its record download numbers, and developers’ hopes for the iPhone 5.

VentureBeat: Camera+ has been out since June 2010 and has had its ups and downs (volume button shutter release, anyone?). Tell us a little about the app and Tap Tap Tap’s history.

John Casasanta: I’m one of the original founders of Tap Tap Tap. We started back when the App Store first opened and I headed-up the company. I came up with the original concept for Camera+ back in Summer of 2009 but it’s come a long, long way since then. Along the way, we’ve released a lot of updates with many new features and enhancements and grown the development team from just a few people to around 15. I currently serve as producer of the app, but turning the app into what it’s become has been a major effort by many very talented people.

The app was kicked-out of the App Store for around four months in 2010 but then returned in late December of that year as version 2 and spent most of 2011 toward the top of the charts. It was the top selling non-game app of the year. The thing that lead to us getting booted from the App Store was violating Apple’s guidelines by including a feature that enabled users to snap photos using the iPhone’s volume button. Yet in iOS 5, Apple adopted that very feature and tried to pass it off as their own. After more bureaucratic bullshit than I care to mention, we finally got the feature back in Camera+ with our latest update.

VB: Your blog post about the sales numbers is interesting in many regards. What I don’t see is a discussion of how price drops have played into the spikes or sales figures. Do you see temporary sales or price drops as a viable contributor to Camera+’s current success?

Casasanta: One funny thing about the App Store and pricing is that an app will tend to gross roughly the same amount no matter what the price of it is. If we double the price of an app, the sales will typically go down to around half the level they were for a net gain of around zero. There’s usually a short spike associated with putting an app on sale and the charting effect can work in your favor in some cases, but in general, longer sales generally have a negligible (and sometimes a negative) effect on grossing. One thing that lower pricing is useful for, though, is building-up your customer base if you’re shooting for bigger raw sales numbers.

Along those lines, we’ve just had our biggest month to date and have actually hit over 1 million sales for the past 30 days. It’s a pretty incredible milestone for us and it’s truly amazing to see how Camera+ has grown since its inception.

exclusive to venturebeat

VB: There are seven apps on Tap Tap Tap’s website. How have the sales of the other apps helped or hindered Camera+ development and sales? Do you have app-specific teams, or does your whole company work on an app at a time? Do you think diversifying is still an important activity for developers in the face of an overwhelming success like Camera+?

Casasanta: The various apps have little to no effect on one another. The development teams are distinct for each app (with some overlap here and there). Companies often try to build-up their brand but we’re just the opposite. Besides the actual Tap Tap Tap website, you’ll rarely see the Tap Tap Tap logo on the website for an individual app, except at the very bottom of the page. We work hard on building-up the brands of the individual apps versus the company brand. So there’s not much benefit that one of our apps will get from the existence of any of our others.

Over time, it’ll make more sense to focus on building the company brand, but we’re nowhere near that stage yet. It’s a common mistake for startup to swim against the grain and try and do that from day one versus focusing on what’s really important.

Diversifying is something we’re doing mainly because there are so many interesting things to create. We could put everything we’ve got into just Camera+ development, but that’d be boring because there’s so much more out there.

We’ve been very fortunate so far in that all of the apps we’ve launched to date have made it into the top 10. Each of them has had varying levels of success with Camera+ obviously being the most significant with over 6 million sales to date, but we’re now closing-in on our 10 millionth overall sale for all our apps. So the other apps play a big part in our success and we’re hoping that some of the things we have in the works will be even bigger successes than Camera+.

VB: Your blog post mentions how the iPhone 4S release, with it’s many hardware camera improvements, helped drive sales of Camera+. Do you plan on capitalizing on the release of the iPhone 5? If so, how?

Casasanta: We were planning on capitalizing on the iPhone 5 back in June but they stuck us with this interim 4S thingamajig for now. But yeah, when an iPhone 5 really does [appear] and assuming that it has even more improved camera hardware, we’ll be doing what we can to take advantage of it.

But more than the camera hardware itself, I see some of the more significant improvements being done in software. Currently, the iOS SDK is fairly limiting regarding giving third-party developers low-level access to the camera hardware, and I definitely see that situation improving over time. When it does, we’ll be right there to do our best to add some cool things to Camera+.

VB: What’s next for the Tap Tap Tap team? Any plans for more in-app content for Camera+? Do you see in-app purchases and freemium app marketing strategies as the wave of the future or only the current fad?

Casasanta: We’ve been working very hard on Camera+ 3.0 since late Spring of 2011 and we’re finally close to getting it out the door. I don’t want to spoil the surprise and mention all the cool things that are in it, but I’ll throw you a teaser and say that one of the things that 3.0 will include is a very comprehensive API for third-parties to take advantage of. We’ve already seeded the beta of it to select developers so they’re already building it into their apps and we’ll have a bunch of great apps working with it for the launch.

As far as in-app purchases go, we’re being fairly cautious with that. Through in-app purchases, it’s become far to easy to turn an app into a nickel-and-dime-your-customers machine. One of our competitors, Hipstamatic, has greatly suffered because of that.

But this isn’t to say that we’re completely against it. For Camera+, we currently offer one add-on effects pack that sells for 99¢ and we get tons of requests to add more. So we plan to over time but were going to be very careful about the fine balance between adding value and bleeding customers.

The direction the industry is moving in this regard really does sicken me. The trend (mostly with games) is to have companies sitting around a big table brainstorming how to waste people’s time enough to the point where they pony-up some dough via virtual trinkets to prevent it. This is very unfortunate for society in general and companies like Zynga are the root of this evil in my opinion. Maybe I’m just old and crotchety but I recall a day when the primary goal of game designers was to create fun games. But I guess this new way is what we’re going to have to expect in this post-”appocalyptic,” 99¢ world where many of these entities can only be loosely called games.

And what saddens me about all this is the number of people who are OK with having their time wasted in this fashion. These are all the people who play these freemium games but don’t pay for the in-app purchases. From what I understand about the low percentage of people who actually pay, this number is pretty high. It kind of frightens me to think of what kind of society we’re becoming where the masses have built-up a tolerance to this kind of thing.

But worse, Apple is encouraging this behavior by featuring these apps. Apple used to set the standard for quality and one thing that the App Store has undoubtedly done is drop Apple back several notches in the quality department. I don’t think there’s anyone out there who’s been a fan of what Apple produces who looks at the App Store as a model of anything resembling quality overall. To put it bluntly, the App Store has been one big wart on Apple’s once fairly pristine ass. The good thing is there’s nowhere to go but up.

And again, I’m not trying to say that in-app purchases are inherently evil, even in games. One example of doing it (relatively) right is Rovio with their Mighty Eagle in-app purchases in the Angry Birds games. While I’m not a fan of the aspect of paying for it to more easily advance past levels, what it has done is added another dimension to the games themselves. Essentially, they’ve done it in such a way that you get a lot of replayability out of the games and it’s not done in the sleazy way that’s unfortunately becoming the norm for the so-called “games” these days.

For more info on the apps, including Serenity, Tap Tap Tap’s latest app offering, check out the company’s website, or its blog.

Top image via MacHeist

Camera startup Lytro has won the Last Gadget Standing competition at the Consumer Electronics Show for its “revolutionary” light-field camera.

Lytro debuted its camera in mid-October to considerable buzz, thanks to its engaging technology that changes how you can take pictures. The light field camera lets you take a photo once and go back later to change the focus point. Lytro’s light field tech also lets you display pictures in 3D.

The Last Gadget Standing competition at CES featured other upcoming gadgets including the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga, the PlayStation Vita handheld console and the Samsung Galaxy Note tablet/phone.

Lytro’s cameras can be pre-ordered now and the units are expected to ship in the next few months. The company will sell the 8-gigabyte version of its camera for $399 and the 16-gigabyte version will run for $499.

For more gadget news, be sure to check out VentureBeat’s live coverage from CES 2012.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

If you made plans for your weekend, you might want to kiss them goodbye.  Apple yesterday released its iTunes Rewind 2011 list, with the 40 top  iPhone and iPad apps of the year. The iTunes store now has more than 500,000 apps in it, but  this year’s top apps list shows that fun is the dominant theme. Games and social networking tools dominated, and photo sharing tool Instagram was chosen as the No. 1  app of the year.

People can’t get enough of Instagram. Since launching in October of 2010, the app has acquired over 13 million users. On the iTunes Store, the app has been rated by more than 207,000 people who give it 3.75 stars out of four.

Apple’s top apps list still has many other fun services and games to choose from. Some you know and love, others might be new. Don’t be surprised if your Saturday and Sunday disappear as you check out a few of the games you might have missed out on earlier in the year. It definitely happened to me over Thanksgiving weekend when I downloaded Tiny Wings for the iPhone. And now the list, without further ado:

Top Paid iPhone Apps

1. Angry Birds
2. Fruit Ninja
3. Angry Birds Seasons
4. Cut the Rope
5. Tiny Wings
6. Angry Birds Rio
7. Words With Friends
8. Camera+
9. Doodle Jump
10. Plants vs. Zombies

The top 10 paid iPhone apps were all games, with the exception of Camera+, a photo app with tons of cool filters. Angry Birds claimed the top spot, and it’s no surprise. 2o11 was the year Angry birds went from a niche meme to a full on cultural phenomenon. Making an unlikely appearance on the Top 10 list is Doodle Jump, a basic but “insanely addictive” platformer that first appeared on the iPhone nearly two years ago.

Top Free iPhone Apps:

1. Facebook
2. Pandora Radio
3. Words with Friends Free
4. Angry Birds Free
5. Skype
6. Netflix
7. Angry Birds Rio Free
8. Groupon
9. Fruit Ninja Lite
10. Twitter

The top free apps were dominated by games and social networking services. Facebook took the top slot, and it has has been the most popular iOS app for some time by a comfortable margin. More than 350 million people access Facebook through a mobile device, and it is the most popular  iPhone app of all time. Pandora is another heavy favorite for iPhone users, and Twitter, which was integrated into iOS 5, is an app that has become part of the mobile phone experience. No real surprises here.

Top Paid iPad Apps:

1. Angry Birds HD
2. Pages
3. Angry Birds Seasons
4. GarageBand
5. Angry Birds Rio HD
6. Penultimate
7. Fruit Ninja HD
8. Cut the Rope HD
9. SCRABBLE for iPad
10. Keynote

The top iPad apps showed a little more bias towards productivity and work, with Apple’s publishing tool Pages, and presentation designer Keynote making their way to the top 10. Overall, iPad owners still love their games. Cut The Rope HD and Fruit Ninja were still in the running, capturing people’s imagination on both the iPad and the iPhone.

Top Free iPad Apps

1. Angry Birds HD Free
2. The Weather Channel for iPad
3. Netflix
4. CNN App for iPad
5. Angry Birds Rio HD Free
6. Kindle
7. Skype for iPad
8. Calculator for iPad Free
9. Pandora Radio
10. Calculator Pro for iPad Free

The free iPad apps category shows the most diversity, with a mixture of games, such as Angry Birds Rio, a calculator app, and even the app designed for the Weather Channel. Pandora, Kindle and Netflix are all on the list, showing that people love their iOS devices for play and media, even when they can help get a lot of work done.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Update: iOS 5 is now available for download.
—

Apple announced today its latest mobile operating system update, iOS 5, will be available for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners to download on October 12.

Today’s Apple event had little by way of new features available in iOS 5, but did recap what we can expect next Wednesday when we all plug into iTunes.

According to Scott Forstall, Apple’s senior vice president of iOS Software, who took the stage to talk iOS, the new release has over 200 new features to offer. Here are the top ten features he highlighted:

Better Notifications: iOS 5 will include the new Notification Center, which can be accessed by swiping your finger downward on any iPhone screen. You can customize which notifications appear, including emails, texts, Game Center updates and weather. The point is to make notifications less like that interrupting cow in your knock knock joke.

iMessage: The new messaging feature allows iOS users to communicate over 3G and Wi-Fi with any iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad running iOS 5. You will be able to send photos and video, receive message delivery and read receipts, and see when others are typing. iMessages are synced to all of your devices, so you can pick up a conversation where you left off. Apple also promises your messages will be encrypted end-to-end for security.

Reminders: For the forgetful among us, reminders combines to-do lists and reminders. The feature can alert people to the simple things such as, “Pick up your dry cleaning,” or, “Your mother-in-law has been at the airport for an hour, prepare to sleep on the couch.” You can also set up a geofence around an area, that will set off a reminder once you leave that space. Reminders sync with Outlook, Apple’s iCal and iCloud so that they’re available across all of your devices.

Twitter Integration: Forstall said, ““We have integrated Twitter deeply into the OS. We have integrated Twitter into many of the built-in apps.” You only have to log in to Twitter once in your iOS device’s Settings screen. Then you can use it across the built-in iOS 5 apps and share websites from the Safari, YouTube, Photos app and more.

Newsstand: All of your favorite news publications, such as the New York Times, the New Yorker and Allure, are aggregated into a special folder on your home screen iOS device called newsstand. Apps purchased in the Newsstand section of the App Store automatically download to this folder. While you’re going about your business, Newsstand continues to download new content from your subscriptions.

Camera: When you need to whip out your camera and grab that fleeting shot of a seagull flying in front of the setting sun, you don’t want to wait to unlock your phone and access the camera. Apple’s answer to that is a shortcut in iOS 5 that doesn’t require you to enter a lock code to take a picture — just double click on the home screen and hit the Camera button. iOS 5 will also have new camera features, including auto focus and exposure lock, a rule-of-thirds grid overlay, pinch-to-zoom and the ability to use the volume up button as a shutter release button. On the other side, there are finally editing options to clean up pictures after you take them, including red eye removal, cropping and auto levels.

Game Center: We’re all about content discovery lately, and gaming is the next frontier. iOS 5 is rolling out game and friend discovery to its over 67 million Game Center users. A sequel to Infinity Blade by Epic Games is also coming out, made specifically for the new iPhone 4S.

New Safari: Forstall says, “”This next feature is one of my favorite: Tab browsing.” Tabbed browsing is just as it sounds, a way to switch between pages you’re reading simultaneously, like you do on a desktop. If you don’t have time to read a page, you can now “save” that page for later with the Safari Reader tool. Saved articles will be synced across all of your devices with iCloud, so you can pick up an article on your iPad where you left off on your iPhone.

Mail: The iOS Mail app will be more like a traditional email inbox! iOS 5 allows you to flag messages, search your whole inbox and write emails with rich text formatting, including bold and underlined fonts.

PC Free: Cast off the chains tying your mobile to your computer! With iOS 5, iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users will no longer have to physically connect to a computer in order to activate their new devices or download important iOS updates. And with iCloud, you can backup photos, email, and other data wirelessly as well.

Look out for the iOS update next week.

[Some photos by Christina Bonnington and Brian X. Chen/Wired.com]

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5 could get a revamped dual-LED camera flash, according to Taiwanese news site Digitimes. And in other iPhone news, T-Mobile revealed that it has over 1 million unlocked iPhones running on its network, according to 9 to 5 Mac.

The camera upgrade is seemingly minor, but if true, it will help the iPhone 5 better compete against other phones sporting brighter flash capabilities.

Digitimes says that Taiwanese LED firms Everlight Electronics, Lite-On Technology, and Edison Opto are being considered to supply the flash hardware. The news comes after Apple reportedly reduced its orders for Philips’ flash component, which is currently being used in the iPhone 4. Digitimes’ sources noted that Edison has a good chance of become Apple’s dual-LED supplier, after being tapped to provide flash solutions for other phones.

T-Mobile’s unlocked iPhone numbers are interesting because they show the lengths consumers will go to avoid AT&T. To work on T-Mobile’s network, consumers need to jailbreak and unlock their iPhones, then plug in a T-Mobile SIM card. The company tells 9 to 5 Mac that most of its iPhone customers are using older iPhone models. Some have also bravely cut down their T-Mobile SIM cards to fit in the iPhone 4′s Micro-SIM slot (the carrier doesn’t yet offer Micro-SIMs).

Unlocked AT&T iPhones on T-Mobile’s network don’t get access to the carrier’s 3G or HSPA+ 4G network, since it runs on a different frequency than AT&T’s network. Still, the fact that so many customers are content to stick with T-Mobile’s slower Edge network is worth noting. We already know that Apple is testing the iPhone on T-Mobile’s network, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up offering the iPhone on T-Mobile later this year.

As of last week, Apple began offering an official unlocked iPhone in the US for $649. But T-Mobile customers will still need to slice up their SIM cards and deal with slower network speeds to use it.

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive mobile trends at our fourth annual MobileBeat 2011 conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the rise of 4G and how it delivers the promise of true mobile computing. We’re also accepting entries for our mobile startup competition at the show. MobileBeat is co-located with our GamesBeat 2011 conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com.

Click here to download the VentureBeat Windows 7 desktop app. The Intel AppUp developer program is the official launch sponsor.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The iPhone 4′s camera is one of the better mobile shooters on the market, but Apple’s basic photo application leaves much to be desired with its lack of customization and editing options. That’s where ProCamera comes in, an iPhone app which is bursting at the seams with features that will help you take better pictures and video.

ProCamera ($2.99 in the iTunes Store) certainly isn’t alone in the photo app arena, but in my testing it’s one of the best. That’s why we’ve selected it for VentureBeat’s Mobile App Spotlight, which highlights some of the most interesting new apps.

Like most photo apps, ProCamera offers features like grid lines to help you align photos, as well as brightness and color controls. You can also tap anywhere on the screen to take photos, instead of trying to aim for a small shutter button like with Apple’s photo app. But where ProCamera really shines is in its expert mode features, which give you the ability to manually tweak focus, white balance and exposure settings.

The expert mode capabilities are only available on the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS. ProCamera also runs on the fourth generation iPod Touch and the iPhone 3G.

ProCamera includes three editing studios for photos. Pro Lab lets you tweak colors, brightness and other options; Pro Cut helps you crop and realign crooked photos; and Pro FX offers dozens of filters and effects. Along with its advanced shooting features, the editing studios make ProCamera the single most powerful photo app I’ve seen on the iPhone.

Upcoming features for the app include HDR photography (ironically, something that was recently added to Apple’s photo app), photo stitching and improved social sharing features.

The app was developed by Mannheim, Germany-based Daemgen.net, a small startup that is spearheaded by software developer and consultant Jens Dämgen.

Want to have your mobile app featured like ProCamera? Then submit to our Mobile App Spotlight!

The Intel AppUp developer program is sponsoring VentureBeat’s Mobile App Spotlight. However, VentureBeat’s editorial staff selects apps for the program according to its customary editorial standards, without input from Intel.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple may be holding back its promised white iPhone 4 in order to avoid a scandal surrounding the phone’s camera, according to the Apple fan site Cult of Mac.

An Apple source tells the site that the white case leaks in light, which produces poor quality pictures. The problem is apparently more pronounced when the iPhone’s flash is used. Since the back of the white iPhone is semi-translucent, pictures inevitably get washed out.

The issue was apparently found at the last minute prior to shipping — luckily for Apple, as it would have been a far worse situation than the black iPhone’s antennagate scandal, where the company was forced to issue users free bumper cases for their iPhone 4′s to circumvent problems with the antenna.

Even though Apple announced the iPhone 4 would be available in a white version when it launched in June, the company has yet to deliver on that promise. Most recently, the company announced that it would be delaying the white iPhone 4 until spring 2011 — the third such delay for the device.

Apple is working to isolate the camera sensor to resolve the issue, the source says. It may end up requiring a complete redesign — so the spring 2011 push may lead to Apple foregoing a white iPhone 4 altogether, and instead offering a white case with the next iPhone.

There have been a few possible theories on the delay, including reports of color issues with the home button, but nothing yet has seemed as plausible as this camera issue. Apple isn’t a company known for its hardware flaws, so it must have been something major and unexpected that caused the white iPhone 4′s delay.

It’s also yet another reason we can expect a dramatic shift away from the iPhone 4′s design with the next version of the device.