iPhone 6 camera tipped to retain 8-megapixel sensor

It’s been suggested this week by suppliers overseas that Apple’s next iPhone will continue to work with an 8-megapixel sensor. While this - for those of you only counting these megapixels - means that the end resulting photos will be the same amount of pixels wide and tall, there’s still plenty of room left for improving the resulting images therein. It’s also been suggested that Apple’s current OIS - optical image stabilization - will be improved in their upcoming engine.

The tip comes from Nomura Securities in China where the China Post reports their chat with the team - apparently there’s been a rumor of similar parts being used in the next iPhone compared to the one that’s out right this minute. This bit of news apparently had adverse effects on Largan Precision, suppliers of Apple’s camera module.

Stocks “tumbled” for Largan once it was suggested in China that Apple’s next iPhone will not work with a 16-megapixel camera as it’s been anticipated by “industry observers”. Instead it could very well be that Apple’s improvements in the camera environment will be to the image quality, not the size of the image.

In other words - the misconception that the amount of megapixels you’ve got is the most important factor in the quality of your camera prevails. Apple’s mod recent camera works with larger pixels and a new and improved flash module - next we’ll likely see tweaking in the pixels and the delivery once again. Stick around as the iPhone 6 rumors and leaks continue for the next several months at least!





VIA: MacRumors

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Apple acquires SnappyLabs for quick-shot photography

This week the folks responsible for picking up companies at Apple have made a purchase - the SnappyLabs group responsible for quick-shot photos in iOS devices. This app was titled “SnappyCam” and can still be accessed for a short time - if you’re rooted. As for the real-deal app on the iTunes App Store, you’ may very well be out of luck. Until Apple incorporates the app’s abilities into their own naive camera app, that is.

What we’re seeing first is the disappearance of the SnappyCam app earlier this week. Their websites were erased from the earth, and anonymous sources spoke with TechCrunch on the matter, suggesting that Apple had scooped up the whole lot. It wasn’t long after this set of events that Apple confirmed with Re/code that they’d picked the site up with their usual note:

    ”Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do no discuss our purpose or plans.” - Apple

The SnappyLabs founder let it be known that their next-generation handling of JPG files. A blog post from the founder contained the following on the subject - until recently, of course:

    ”First we studied the fast discrete cosine transform (DCT) algorithms … We then extended some of that research to create a new algorithm that’s a good fit for the ARM NEON SIMD co-processor instruction set architecture. The final implementation comprises nearly 10,000 lines of hand-tuned assembly code, and over 20,000 lines of low-level C code. (In comparison, the SnappyCam app comprises almost 50,000 lines of Objective C code.)

    JPEG compression comprises two parts: the DCT (above), and a lossless Huffman compression stage that forms a compact JPEG file. Having developed a blazing fast DCT implementation, Huffman then became a bottleneck. We innovated on that portion with tight hand-tuned assembly code that leverages special features of the ARM processor instruction set to make it as fast as possible.” - SnappyCam founder John Papandriopoulos

The original app worked with HUD control connectivity, volume shutter connectivity, and high and low speeds. This app allows 60 photos a second, pushes through 6x zoom in fast lossless mode, and infinite shooting mode to boot. We’ll likely see some next-level photography action in the next iPhone - surprise!

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Panono Panoramic Ball Camera tips Indegogo goal ahead of CES

Just today the folks behind the Panoramic Ball Camera known as Panono have reached their goal of a cool $900k in their crowd-funded venture through Indegogo. This means the team will be able to move forward with producing the product, starting with those people that contributed the prerequisite amount to purchase their own unit through the project.

We've been following this project for a quite a while, having been first on the scene back in October of 2011 when we declared the project a "must make" before it was even set to be a real-deal beyond-prototype project. Back then it was just ready enough to be shown to the public in its first form. Now the full production-level machine is being brought out to play.

This machine is able to be tossed up in the air where, at its topmost point, it takes a photo. Once this photo is taken, all 108-megapixels of it, it's stitched together and made available for sharing. Users are able to view these massive globe photos from all angles, all 360-degrees of them, up, down, and in-between.

We'll be having a chat with one of the founders of Panono, President and creator Jonas Pfeil, at CES 2014 as well. Stick around through SlashGear's Panono search portal and find some up-close visions coming your way, sooner than soon!



sourse : slashgear

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Google+ Auto Backup brings drive uploads to desktop

The same service you’ve been using with your smartphone for several months is hitting the desktop world this week with Google+ Auto Backup. This software ships - strangely enough - with the newest version of Picasa, uploading your photos automatically from a certain directory to your Google+ social networking account. This service works with photos that are 2048pixels on their longest end unless you’d like to devote Google Drive space to the effort.

This upload process could easily be done by you with a series of uploads from your folders of photos manually, but the idea is an extra added bit of simplicity. Here you’re able to tell this internet-connected app to watch a directory in your computer, uploading any and all photos that come along from the point at which you start.

This app can also be configured to work with your media locally. While you’re able to pull media from a variety of locations - folders and physical drives included - you’ll be able to have all of this data copied to a single local hard drive while you’re at it. It would appear - for now - that you don’t actually have to use this Google+ Auto Backup app to connect with Google+ at all, if you don’t want to.

In releasing this app with Picasa 3.9.137, we may be seeing one of the last signs before Picasa is fully folded into Google+. It’d be a strange idea, collapsing the service entirely, but it’s not without precedent. Look at how similar the icons are already!





VIA: 9to5Google, Picasa

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Panono panoramic ball camera breaks 100 megapixel point

With little doubt of its ability to shine in the face of the massive amount of non-unique cameras in the field, the Panono throwable panoramic ball camera has, this week, been revealed to be working with 108 megapixels of shooting power. This is the first time a consumer camera has broken the 100 megapixel point - or gotten even close to it, as it were. It’s all added up with an array of shooters, the ball capturing one single massive photo in a single stitched-together shot.

This beast of a ball of cameras has been in the making for some time. Reaching all the way back to SlashGear’s first article on the subject, you’ll find that the concept was unleashed well before the idea of a crowd-funded venture. Now we’re a whole lot closer to a real-deal delivery. Here near the end of 2013, the ball is coming up in a collection for release in early 2014.

This ball camera is simply tossed up in the air, snapping one massive photo when it reaches its highest point. The photo is stored on the ball’s internal memory and/or delivered to your smartphone or other smart device as such whenever you’d like it. The deliverable media appears in two forms: one as a photo sphere, the other as a large and wild vision inside a rectangle.

The final product is still - believe it or not - available through the Panono Indegogo page for a cool $535 USD. That includes a tripod stick - if you want to be less wobbly about it, a tripod adapter, and a protective pouch. Have a peek at our compact archive of Panono bits below for greater insight.

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Hasselblad Stellar leak beefs up Sony’s RX100

This week it would appear that the team at Haselblad have been working on a custom modification of none other than the Sony RX100 according to several leaked images. This run of customizations would have a series of odd – and awesome – new grips for the machine while the outer body gains its own bit of Hasselblad-unique flare. Included in this lineup is a Padouk wood grip, carbon-fibre, Walnut, Wenge, Olive, and Mahogany.

If you planned on working with the Sony RX100 for quite a while after you’d purchased it and want to make a day of it with a custom body the likes of which you’d only be able to get at this massive price-range, Hasselblad has your back. With prices expected – no confirmed, mind you, expected – to range between $1,600 and $3,200, you’ll be getting a bit more exotic right out of the box.

According to PhotoRumors, the big H up front is set to continue to be a staple of the customized series. The series is also set to be released somewhere around the 26th of July – soon – and the major differences are quite likely to remain aesthetic – exterior on the whole.

You’ll see too that the lenses keep the same name – no ZEISS update here. Have a peek at a few photos of the Sony Cyber-shot RX100 II from our most recent hands-on (also linked above) and see how this update would make the shooter look – and possibly feel – a lot smoother. And cooler, without a doubt.

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