Here's an interesting new software concept from Xerox, The Xerox Aesthetic Image Search.

Still in development stages the software is designed to use algorithms to automatically judge the aesthetics of an image. All of which raises a lot of questions about what actually makes a good image, with the software favouring alot of plain backgrounded images.

Although the current iteration is very flawed technology wise, it does have the potential of being able to filter out your out of focus or poorly exposed shots from a large batch, cutting down your processing time after a shoot?

Judge for yourself with this demo of the software.

So perhaps we were premature with our previous article about the Lytro release! Yesterday company founder and inventor Ren Ng showed the world the new camera for the first time and announced how you can get your own!

As you can see the design is unlike any other camera on the market, an anodized aluminum and silicone skin case holds the seven element, 8x zoom lens with an f/2 aperture and LCD touch screen, the battery is said to capture 400 images on one charge. Other features, including a facebook sharing app and free hosting of images on the Lytro site were also announced.

The price is a relatively affordable US$399 for a 8GB version and US$499 for a 16GB which promise to hold 350 and 750 images respectively, avaliable for pre-order in the US only with shipping to take place in early 2012.

The software is also only supported by a Mac OS X and there has been some questions raised about the image resolution, the quality of the LCD screen and the need to hold the camera completely steady to avoid blur. So we might wait for the version 2 to splash our money on it but it is a very exciting concept that we still believe has the potential to shatter the world of photography as we know it.

 www.lytro.com

One the orginal lomo apps Hipstamatic brought us the first examples of interchanable backs and lenses, but eventually lost ground to the ever popular Instagram. However they are hoping to regain some downloads with their latest concept, recreating the film experience.

The latest app will make you take 24 images before you can see them all at once. In an attempt to recreate the excitement and anticpation of waiting till you have burned through a roll before seeing your latest work.

They orginally planned to take the concept further by making you pay to get the images printed and sent to your home before you could get them see them.

"It’s the coolest idea ever but we can’t use an in-app system for it," explained founder Lucas Buick. "We’d have to take your credit card details when you downloaded the app and you’d end up paying to shoot stuff that you can’t even see. I could already see the one star reviews."

The app will be avaliable by the end of the month.

In the mean time why not relive the excitement of the printed photograph with our latest offer from Photo Art Centre. 20% off all photo prints!

So it's not the much anticipated iPhone5 but last night apple announced an upgrade to their iPhone4. The biggest improvements apparently being the longer battery life and improved camera.

With apps like instagram and hipsmatic making the iPhone the most used camera on the planet, They are clearly keen to keep ahead of the competitiors snapping at their heels, such as HTC and Samsung.

So the new iPhone4S comes with a new sensor set behind a hybrid infrared filter, a new back illuminated 8-megapixel CMOS that apparently captures 73% more light. A new processor also provides a better white balance sensor and a faster start up time, making it the fastest opening camera phone by 1 second.

Last month we blogged about the introduction of Facebooks new Facial recognition feature, well Hamburg's data protection authority (DPA) has taken issue with the feature and it's opt-out only introduction.

The DPA claims that the feature amounts to storing "biometric data", which is illegal in the EU without explicit consent. Facebook's service is automatically turned on, and users have to opt-out in order to switch it off.

Facebook maintains they've done nothing wrong, with spokesperson Tina Kulow saying:

"We will consider the points the Hamburg Data Protection Authority have made about the photo tag suggest feature but firmly reject any claim that we are not meeting our obligations under European Union data protection law. We have also found that people like the convenience of our photo tag suggest feature which makes it easier and safer for them to manage their online identities."

The DPA, who also went up against Google Street view forcing them to blur faces and licence plates to protect privacy. Claims to have repeatedly asked Facebook to remove the feature, and that they may face a €300,000 fine if a deal isn't reached.

Buttons is a brand new media capturing device, that instead of recording a scene with optics, records a moment.

"Buttons takes on this notion of the camera as a networked object. It is a camera that will capture a moment at the press of a button. However, unlike a conventional analog or digital camera, this one doesn't have any optical parts. It allows you to capture your moment but in doing so, it effectively seperates it from the subject. Instead, as you will memorize the moment, the camera memorizes only the time and starts to continuously search on the net for other photos that have been taken in the very same moment."

The idea is that you create an emotional attachment to that image and associate it with the moment using your memory.

"After a few minutes or hours, depending on how soon someone else shares their photo on the web, an image will appear on the screen. In a way, it belongs half to the person who had pressed the button and still remembers that moment. Because of that connection, the photos are never dismissed as random, no matter how enigmatic they may be."

Google has recently added EXIF data to Google Images, allowing you to quickly look up details on how a particular photograph was taken (as long as the data is embedded). Simply click any of your search results to see the details in the panel on the right. You'll never have to guess what the setting are on that shot ever again.

Elsewhere in the photography software world Microsoft has finally given into the photography demand and released a free codec pack for Windows Vista and Windows 7 that allows you to view and work with the RAW files of more than 120 different cameras directly in Windows Explorer. Simply download and install the codec pack to get started.

Mac's new operating system 'Lion' has been so popular that it recieved over a million downloads in it's first day. However the system has had some issues, especially for photographers.

Some photographic software is having issues working with Macs new OS, Nikon and Adobe have already issued statements about troubles their software is having.

Of special interest to photographers are issues with Capture, PictureProject,  NX 2, Illustrator CS5, Illustrator CS5.1, InDesign CS5.5, the entire Acrobat family, Adobe Drive, Lightroom 3, Lightroom 2.x, and Photoshop CS3, CS4, and CS5.

Photography Bay has a list so far of software that is having issues you can check out.

Apple has just released a new patent that will enable them to block the use of iphone cameras when in the range of infared sensors.

The patent is most likely aimed at preventing the filming of live concerts and events who's venues often stipulate that there be no photography, but until now have been unable to enforce effectively.

 
Now however, software is being developed capable of sensing when someone is trying to record a live event and then switching off the device's camera.

However some have already speculated that the technology could be hacked to allow miscreants to prevent iPhone users from using their cameras.

Some reports have suggested that Apple's motivation for developing the system was to placate broadcasters who are upset that people are posting their own footage of events on YouTube.

It has also suggested that system could be used to benefit users, such as museum visitors by transmitting information videos directly to their phones.

Source http://www.patentlyapple.com/

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EDIT THIS!! Winner.

Congratulations to this weeks winner of our member editing competition EDIT THIS!

Stimpymk2 for his version of the elephant shot,

In December Facebook announced that they were working on a feature that will recognize similar pictures and suggest the names of friends who might appear in them.

“Every day, people add more than 100 million tags to photos on Facebook … Because photos are such an important part of Facebook, we want to be sure you know exactly how tag suggestions work: When you or a friend upload new photos, we use face recognition software—similar to that found in many photo editing tools—to match your new photos to other photos you’re tagged in. We group similar photos together and, whenever possible, suggest the name of the friend in the photos..”

The facial recognition has now been introduced into some areas, unfortuately Facebook forgot to ask for user permission first. You can however disable this feature so that your name is not suggested when your friends use it if you are uncomfortable withg the idea. But they will still be able to tag photos of you manually.

To opt out of Facial Recognition:

Go to the Account -> Privacy Settings.
Next click on Customize Settings (blue link at the bottom of the page)

Scroll down to the “Things Others Share” section. Look for the line that says “Suggest photos of me to friends. When photos look like me, suggest my name“. This is where you can Disable Facial Recognition.

(If this area is greyed out in your account, that means it has not been rolled out in your area yet. Keep checking back periodically as this function should be available soon.)

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Hot on the heels of Apples new Aperture release, Adobe has posted a beta of the new Lightroom.

Some of the new features included for you to play with in the Lightroom 3 beta are:

• Brand new performance architecture, building for the future of growing image libraries
• State-of-the-art noise reduction to help you perfect your high ISO shots
• Watermarking tool that helps you customize and protect your images with ease
• Portable sharable slideshows with audio—designed to give you more flexibility and impact on how you choose to share your images, you can now save and export your slideshows as videos and include audio
• Flexible customizable print package creation so your print package layouts are all your own
• Film grain simulation tool for enhancing your images to look as gritty as you want
• New import handling designed to make importing streamlined and easy
• More flexible online publishing options so you can post your images online to certain online photo sharing sites directly from inside Lightroom 3 beta (may require third-party plug-ins)*

If you are prepared to fool around with pre-release software to get an idea of what the future holds for Lightroom, you can download the application from here...

Lightroom3 Beta Download