Posts in Digital Cameras
Looking for love online
Damian Koh | Feb 23, 2006
We have no statistics and we're probably speculating, but chances are you're more likely to get sued in the land of freedom than in a traditional Asian society. That's what happened to Google's popular image search function when a federal judge ruled that the small thumbnail versions pulled from other Web sites during an image search was likely to violate US copyright law.
So in the, ahem, interest of checking this out for our readers, we did search of Perfect 10 using Google's image search. Even with the SafeSearch turned off and after clicking through the first 20 pages of search results, we didn't find that many exposed pictures, much less nude photos. However, we can't say the same if the search string was changed to "beautiful natural women".
In this unusual tussle between an adult Web site and a prominent Internet firm, the Los Angeles judge said he would award Perfect 10 a preliminary injunction against Google. Both parties have till March 8 to propose the injunction wording. This apparently isn't the first copyright lawsuit Google is facing as reported by Declan McCullagh, a staff writer from CNET News.com.
The full report can be found here.
Cap no more
Damian Koh | Feb 09, 2006
Rejoice. Secure Digital card users who have always wanted to use their memory card as a USB storage device now have another option: SanDisk's Ultra II SD Plus--a dual-purpose SD card with built-in USB connectivity. That is if you don't break the card even before you start using it.
Though not the first of its kind, the mechanical design of the card means you won't have to meddle with a removable cap. In addition, the new Ultra II Plus SD card has a rated write speed of 9MB per second and sequential read speed of 10MB per second.
For convenience sake, the package comes with a key ring casing for you to store the SD card should it not be in a digital camera, PDA, camcorder or camera-phone. Hell, the card even features a blue LED indicator which blinks when you are doing data transfer.
The 1GB Ultra II Plus card is currently available in stores at a suggested retail price of S$159 (US$111.75). Halving the capacity doesn’t mean the price will be halved, too. The 512MB card will set you back by S$95 (US$66.77), also available now.
For those who want a different design (one with a removable cap), the Japanese-designed YouSD is also available on shelves here. An INX 256MB Secure Digital SD Card will set you back about S$81 (US$56.93) to S$30 (US$21.09) for a normal stick.
Megapixels no more
Damian Koh | Feb 06, 2006
While we're all waiting for the upcoming annual Photo Marketing Association (PMA) convention end of February, columnist David Pogue from The New York Times wrote an insightful piece last week on the future of digital cameras. His take included liquid lenses, hydrogen-powered shooters, 4-inch OLED screens, GPS-equipped units and sophisticated face recognition software. Sounds darn exciting?
The man's waiting for February 2010.
In his article, Pogue addressed several questions which few had the answers to. How are we going to archive and manage the whole lot of digital photos which we take today, in 10 years' time? Can hard drives and compact discs last? And the most important question: The future of JPEG files.
One thing's for sure--digital imaging is the future, while the megapixel race, according to Chuck Westfall, director of Media for Canon's camera marketing group, "is pretty much over".
Pixel counting joins film in obsolete bin.
Photos you thought were real
Damian Koh | Feb 02, 2006
Healing facial blemishes with Photoshop is common, especially if you have an ugly zit on special occasions. However, we're not talking about merely duplicating neighboring pixels or airbrushing your photo, but painting in new backgrounds on negatives. Photo manipulation is a lot more common than you think, according to L. Frank Kenney, an analyst at Gartner.
Enter Hany Farid, a Dartmouth College professor who hopes have a beta version of his software out in the next six months. Good news is it will be made freely available under an open source license.
Software that is used in fraud detection searches for photographic anomalies that the human brain ignores or cannot identify. According to Farid, "there are statistical correlations that don't occur naturally" and changes in photos can be quantified from a mathematical and statistical perspective.
Soon, you'll be able to find out if the item you're bidding for on eBay is for real.
Pictures that lie.
Sieving out the real from the fake.
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