Category Archives: news

The iPhone X deep-dive – Why this phone will disrupt the mobile imaging ecosystem

AR, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented reality, computational imaging, computer vision, Content Recognition, depth imaging, Facial recognition, imaging, Interface, mobile, Mobile Photo Connect, news, photo sharing, PhotoTech, Social Media, technology, visual recognition, VR September 15, 2017 Floris van Eck 1 Comment

Key takeaways: Apple has launched the iPhone X as a showcase for the direction in which the mobile and imaging industries could be heading; The iPhone X’s high price will limit its audience, but its features will trickle down in the coming years. At the same time, the developer ecosystem gets a head start on building new apps for consumers to create enticing content, which is often the bottleneck for the adoption of new technologies; The 3D revolution is now in full-swing; many of the…

WWDC takeaways: lots of great news for photo app developers, but one major puzzler

Artificial Intelligence, Augmented reality, computational imaging, content, Content Recognition, Facial recognition, mobile, Mobile Photo Connect, news, photo merchandise, photo organizing, photo sharing, tablet, visual recognition June 9, 2017 Hans Hartman 1 Comment

The photo app developers I spoke with are overwhelmingly excited about a range of WWDC announcements, even though one of these dumbfounded several developers. We’ll get into that one later; let’s start with the four most exciting announcements. ARKit: making mixed reality easier to create and more realistic to view Apple’s OS 11 developer ARKit enables developers to build mixed reality apps that interpret the imagery from the user’s iPhone camera by identifying surfaces, tracking motion, estimating scale as well as ambient lighting, and by providing fast and…

The battle of the photo format

Adobe, big data, computational imaging, content, editing, flickr, mobile, news, Social Media, technology, video June 8, 2017 Paul Melcher 1 Comment

Hidden deep inside Apple’s WWDC 17 was an announcement that made little waves but that might have great repercussion: In their OS11 release, the Cupertino company plans to store images using their new HEIF format rather the almighty JPEG. The reason? HEIF compression takes half the space of the JPEG compression, suddenly doubling storage for photos. What is HEIF? HEIF is short for High-Efficiency Image Format. It was created by MPEG, the committee in charge of all standard video compression formats ( MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264/AVC, HEVC/H.265). An HEIF file…

Freeing images from the page paradigm will change – yes – everything

3D, Augmented reality, content, Interface, mobile, Mobile Photo Connect, news, technology, UGC, VR, wearable September 29, 2016 Hans Hartman Leave a comment

We’ve all witnessed a scene like this: a toddler inspects a magazine and taps the paper, expecting to see a larger version of her favorite photo appear, just as it does on her smartphone. Soon, she’ll also expect the ability to navigate that photo – or video – from all angles, whether by tilting her viewing device or using a convenient headset that will also allow her to see it in 3D. Images are escaping the constraints of the page – whether physical or virtual…

Mobile Photo Connect announces five prominent new sponsors

content, imaging, Marketplace, mobile, Mobile Photo Connect, news, photo merchandise, photo organizing, photo sharing, Social Media, technology, video August 10, 2016 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

Mobile Photo Connect, the premier conference for the mobile photo ecosystem conference, today announces five additional sponsors of its October 25, 2016 conference. New Gold sponsor is Portugal-based Storyo, makers of the highly acclaimed automatic multimedia story telling app of the same name. Storyo will complement the conference’s previously announced Gold sponsors: HP, Fujifilm, Walgreens, and di support. Mobile Photo Connect’s also announced the first Silver sponsors for this year’s conference: · Media optimization company, Beamr · Flash storage provider, SanDisk · Mobile printing platform company, Printicular · Video trailer app developer, Sharalike The initial nine vendor sponsors are supplemented by six association sponsors, including the…

10 Questions to a Professor : Lauren Walsh

content, editing, editorial, interview, LDV Summit, mobile, news, photojournalism May 4, 2016 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

Photography has experienced major shifts in the last half-century and is on the path to experience even more. Not only have our cameras evolved dramatically but how we consume images has exploded in multiple formats. And photojournalism has been in the eye of the storm. No longer do we view a few amount of carefully curated images selected by well-trained gatekeepers but instead thousands of unfiltered photos spread out throughout our various social media feeds. How does photojournalism evolve ? What constitute an iconic photograph…

We need a new photo file format

advertising, Brands, computer vision, content, e-commerce, editorial, in-image, mobile, news, Social Media, tablet, technology March 31, 2015 Paul Melcher 3 Comments

Photos are too short and videos are too long. Photos say too little and videos too much. In an age where we can link data so quickly and easily, it is amazing to see that photos are still just the online equivalent of their printed version : A flat 2D representation of the offline world with a little editorial text around it. It is an aberration that in 2015, photos still need text captions to explain their content. Photos should not only be able to carry…

Mapillary announces new app and new funding

big data, computer vision, content, Funding, imaging, Interface, investment, mobile, news, Social Media, technology, transaction January 15, 2015 Paul Melcher 1 Comment

Mapillary, a company we reviewed last year, announced today a new iOS app that makes it even easier for consumers to build a photo representation of the world. The company also announced that it has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by Sequoia. Other backers include the international funds Playfair, Wellington, and LDV Capital, and a number of prominent angel investors, including James Currier, Taavet Hinrikus, and Naval Ravikant. The Mapillary community uses their smartphones and other devices like GoPro, Garmin Virb and low…

Behind the curtains of Apple’s annoucement

Interface, mobile, news, phablet, PhotoTech, tablet, technology, wearable September 11, 2014 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

Apple has mastered the art of hiding its shortcomings by using the magician trick of attention distraction. Larger screen, faster processor, better camera, all are features Apple presented as extraordinary while already in the market in various Android phones. Same with the watch. What Apple did not release, for example, is the ability to multi function : Not to have to close apps to use other apps. Sure, it is an OS feature but still something that puts the iPhone way…

Photo by Chalky Lives : https://www.flickr.com/photos/traitlinburke/

10 Questions for a founder : One Degree

commercial stock, content, editorial, interview, license, Marketplace, mobile, news, photojournalism, prosumer, Search, technology, UGC August 19, 2014 Paul Melcher 1 Comment

Photo sharing apps are dime a dozen with new ones being offered everyday. They are built on the premise that every photo taken and shared should have an audience, which is not often the case. In fact, we are being forced fed photos from our friends and relatives with few having any kind of appeal. Some entrepreneurs have taken the extra step in trying to first define a demand and then connect it with people willing to satisfy it. David Giles , with his app…