Thursday, April 17, 2014

drag2share: Eyefi's new service sends your camera's photos to the cloud as soon as you shoot

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/17/eyefi-cloud/

Eyefi Mobi SD card

There are plenty of cameras that send their photos to your phone, but you frequently have to transfer those pictures yourself -- and it's another hassle to get the pics to other devices. Eyefi thinks it can solve these headaches by launching its own online service, Eyefi Cloud. If you're using one of the company's WiFi-equipped Mobi cards in your camera alongside new Android and iOS apps, any photos go both to your mobile device and Cloud right after you've hit the shutter button. You only need a browser to manage your shots, so you're not stuck if you want to see your photos on a new PC.

Cloud costs $49 per year for an unlimited number of uploads, so it's potentially superior to auto-syncing storage services like Dropbox or Google+ if you take a lot of snapshots. Don't worry if you're hesitant to pay up front, though. You'll get three months of free service just by grabbing the app and signing in. The necessary Mobi cards start at a relatively high $49 for an 8GB model, but you may not have to worry about capacity now that there's an easy way to back up images before you get home.

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Source: Eyefi

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Wednesday, April 16, 2014

drag2share: HTC allows devs to tap into the power of the One's Duo Camera

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/16/htc-duo-camera-sdk-preview/

The HTC One (M8) brought with it a load of new camera features, including its unique Duo Camera setup on its back side. Now, the handset maker is opening up the code that powers the pair in a SDK preview for third-party devs. This means that apps can be designed specifically for the M8's cameras with DualLens and DimensionPlus APIs baked right in. In other words, developers will get their hands on that bokeh-style refocusing and multi-angled shot selection in addition to depth maps from the pair of cameras. Of course, only time will tell how eager app makers are to latch on to HTC's smartphone snapshooting tricks, but at least now they'll have the necessary tools to do so.

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Source: HTC

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drag2share: Google's new camera app brings Photo Sphere and Lens Blur to Android devices

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/16/google-stock-camera-app-photo-sphere-lens-blur/

While Google has continued to toss new features into the camera app shipped on its Nexus devices, many Android phones replace it something else. But just as we revealed a few weeks ago, now it's available in the Play Store, ready to run on any phone or tablet using Android 4.4 KitKat. Beyond bits like Photo Sphere that we've seen before, Google is filling in the blanks on its new "Lens Blur" option. Meant to emphasize the subject while blurring the background for an impressive depth of field effect, it uses algorithms to simulate the large camera lens and aperture your phone or tablet doesn't actually have. Taking the photo requires an upward sweep to capture multiple images, used to estimate the depth of objects for a 3D map that lets the software re-render the photo later and blur specific items based on where it thinks they are. Google's Research Blog has more details on how it's all done, including the Lytro-like ability to change which object is in focus after you take the shot.

Tired of tilt-shift effects after years of Instagramming, no matter how much math is at work? There's more to the new camera app than that; it has all the other features we'd heard about, like a "100% viewfinder" that makes sure you can see everything that will be in the picture on your screen before the shot is taken with no "dropped pixels" and a larger capture button. Panorama shots are better now too, with higher resolution, and Google's 360-degree Photo Spheres can be captured at up to 50 megapixels.

Of course, the other element is that Google can extend its camera setup onto Android phones and tablets by other manufactures like LG, HTC and Samsung. So far their skinned retail devices have often skipped Google's enhancements for custom camera apps of their own, but like many other Android features over the years (Gmail, Calendar, Keyboard) making it an app in the marketplace should bring its features to more devices, and allow for frequent updates. If you don't yet have Android 4.4 KitKat, there's still hope, as the team says this app will come to more devices over the coming months.

We gave it a quick try, and while not all of the features are available on every device (no Photo Sphere option on our Moto G, for example) it worked pretty well. Taking a Lens Blur photo is similar to a panorama -- except for swiping the camera vertically, and we were able to go back and edit the resulting image quickly. One cool, but unmentioned addition to the app is a reminder for video recording that tells you to put the phone in landscape instead of holding it in portrait. Surely, you already knew to do that, but hopefully it makes the next WorldStarHipHop brawl easier to watch in widescreen.

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Source: Android (G+), Google Research Blog, Google Play

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drag2share: Chrome Remote Desktop for Android browses a PC or Mac from your phone

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/16/google-chrome-remote-desktop-android/

While we'd seen rumblings that it was in beta testing, Google's Chrome Remote Desktop app for Android made its official debut today. This means that those who fancy Mountain View's mobile OS can take a gander at files that reside on a Windows or Mac machine that's safely docked in the office. The Remote Desktop app has been available on the desktop for quite some time, and now the same access is available through Chrome on Android smartphones and tablets. For those who prefer Apple's devices, an iOS version of the software should be on the way soon.

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Source: Google Chrome Blog, Google Play

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drag2share: Toshiba's vision for Project Ara extends to wearables and beyond

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/16/toshiba-project-ara-wearables/

Project Ara is primarily focused on building a modular smartphone in the hopes of changing the industry, but is that the only type of mobile device on the drawing board? Absolutely not. An executive at Toshiba, one of Google's partners on the project, just revealed that his company's vision of the concept goes beyond smartphones. Shardul Kazi, Senior VP and Technology Executive at Toshiba, posited that devices like smartwatches (and beyond, he says) could also take advantage of Ara's blocky component modules, which allow you to mix and match whatever features and components you want to have.

During his presentation at the Ara Developer Conference, Kazi showed the above slide depicting a module being removed from the Ara phone and placed into a wearable device. Indeed, just as the handset has an endoskeleton that makes it possible for blocks to attach to the phone in the first place, a future wearable could certainly be constructed the same way. Kazi's example here relates to activity trackers with nine-axis sensors and Bluetooth LE, but it's not limited to just that particular use case; such a thing would be wide open to the imagination of module makers and developers.

Kazi's quick to point out that this is purely an idea at this point and isn't actually in development. Still, it goes to show how easily adaptable this kind of platform could be to other form factors -- if consumers love using modular smartphones, might they feel the same way about modular tablets, smartwatches and other wearables? Naturally, the folks behind Ara don't want to bite off more than they can chew -- just putting together a phone in less than two years is a job and a half for the team, after all -- but it makes sense to see how many other ways the same tech can benefit our lives.

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drag2share - drag and drop RSS news items on your email contacts to share (click SEE DEMO)

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