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A lot of people don’t carry cameras anymore, now that they have smartphones. But that means that you could miss opportunities to capture great moments, especially when you’re missing out on the great optical zoom available on some more expensive or specialized dedicated camera devices. That’s what Snapzoom hopes to fix with its binocular mount for smartphone cameras, and the best part is that it’s completely universal, meaning it fits a wide variety of both phones and binoculars.

The project got started when Hawaii-based co-founders Daniel Fujikake and Mac Nguyen started using their own smartphones to film their surf escapades via a completely DIY, garage-made mounting device that they hacked together. They saw the utility, and other surfers asked them about it every time they went out, so they partnered up with a professional designer to form HI Resolution Enterprises and build a proper prototype using 3D-printed materials.

The duo took to Kickstarter to fund a production run for Snapzoom, and has already blown past its $55,000 goal in just over a week. The funding will help the two turn the 3D printed prototype into a glass-filled nylon injection molded retail product, which the company hopes to manufacture both in the U.S. and overseas.

“It’s going to be extremely tough, since it’s something that’s meant to be used outdoors,” Fujikake told me. “You can put it in your bag, you don’t have to worry about babying it, you can get it wet, you can drop it, it’s very very tough.”

Already, before even closing its Kickstarter funding, Snapzoom has had a lot of interest from well-placed retail partners, including U.S. camera equipment and accessory retailer B&H Photo. Based on funding interest and prospective retail partner enthusiasm, the team seems to have tapped a strong, unaddressed consumer desire, even if it is a bit niche. And it’s not just voyeurs who are interested; this is great for nature photography and action sports, too.

Snapzoom is looking to ship in September, and retail price for the mount is expected to be around $79.99, but currently pre-order backers on Kickstarter can get one for just $70. The team is working on stretch goals now, since it has already earned almost $10,000 more than its original goal.

Android: Fast Burst Camera allows any Android device to take rapid-fire snapshots in quick succession, much like the burst shooting modes on newer phones like the Samsung Galaxy S III and the HTC One X. The end result for you is that you can capture multiple shots—up to 30 frames in a second if you camera allows it—with your smartphone of a kid’s soccer game or a bird in flight and then sift through them later to stitch them into an animation or find the perfect shot among the many. More »

Volgens diverse bronnen is Nikon bezig met een Android-camera die binnenkort al moet gaan verschijnen. Het zal een camera worden die tot de CoolPix-lijn gaat behoren en hij zal direct verbonden…

Google announced they closed the loop on features for Google Translate by adding in a Google Goggles feature to the Translate App.

You can now take a picture of something, brush your finger over the words in the picture that you want to translate and Google will use OCR technology to convert the words in the picture to character and then translate them. You can even have Google speak them in either language if you wanted.

It is available on the Google Android Translate App. Here is how Google describes it:

To use our new camera feature, push the camera button, point at some text, tap to freeze the picture, brush the part you want with your finger, et voila — enjoy your machine translation. As usual, you can click the text-to-speech icons to listen to the source text or the translated text. We currently support optical character recognition for Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish, and weâre also working hard to get more languages on the list.

Here are pictures:

Forum discussion at Google+.

A picture speaks a thousand words, and with its latest update, Google Translate can translate both.

Google is rolling out a big update to its translation app, which now allows users to translate objects like street signs and notes just by photographing them.

While the feature is new to Google Translate, it’s been a fundamental part of Google Goggles for a while now. Goggles allows users to search the web by photographing physical objects like landmarks, books, and text on street signs (which can then be translated).

Lack of pure novelty aside, the addition is a massively important one to Google Translate, which can now help people save lots of time during one of the most common instances of encountering new words.

Alongside the camera addition, the Google Translate update also improves Japanese handwriting input, adds dialect preferences, and offers instant translation results.

Photo: Shutterstock/Stephen Aaron Rees

Filed under: mobile

It’s still relatively early in mobile health, although there are glucose monitors that can be tacked onto iPhones, heart rate and sleep monitoring apps and of course, plenty of exercise and diet-tracking products.

Now that many basic product concepts have been laid out, it’s time for iteration. Enter Cardiio, a startup and graduate of the Rock Health incubator. Founded by a team of Ph.Ds out of MIT’s Media Lab, the company has built a $4.99 heart rate monitoring app that doesn’t require you to touch the iPhone’s camera. It actually doesn’t require any contact aside from holding the phone so that the front-facing camera captures your face. From that, Cardiio’s sensors can pick up minute changes in the color of your face that indicate heart rate.

“We can measure the amount of light reflected across your face,” said co-founder Ming-Zher Poh. “The more blood that flows into your face, the more it absorbs light. This is reflected off your face every time your heart beats and the camera is actually good enough to pick it up.”

In a few tests of my own, it matched the resting pulse I was able to pick up by counting my heart beats for one minute. It is in some ways reminiscent of Azumio, the Silicon Valley-based biofeedback startup that’s raised funding from Founders Fund, Accel and Felicis. But the difference is that with Azumio’s heartrate app, you have to touch your finger to the iPhone’s camera. Azumio’s heart rate monitor also picks up heart rate from color changes in your finger.

Like other heart-rate monitoring apps, Cardiio does long-term tracking so you can see how your resting heart rate has changed over the past month or more. It also can compare you to the population average.

Right now, the team behind the company is just two people and they have initial funding from Rock Health. They’re holding off on raising more funding until they can prove traction.

Long-term, the company wants to expand out to measuring other types of biofeedback. “Our long-term vision is a contact-free and software-based approach of measuring information about your body,” Poh said.

When we first saw pictures from NASA’s Curosity mission to Mars, many of us asked, “That’s it?” Yes, the images weren’t as detailed as we wanted, but they were from another planet, so we happily gobbled them up.

But why does the Mars rover feature paltry 2-megapixel sensors on its main imaging cameras? The decision stems from planning of the rover’s systems back in 2004, Malin Space Science Systems project manager Mike Ravine told Digital Photography Review.

The planning team selected the 2-megapixel sensor on Curiosity for several reasons. First, it had to produce a reasonable amount of data for transmission back to Earth via a UHF transmitter. Second, it had to meet the needs of four different camera types. Third, the team had deep familiarity with this imaging technology.

“We developed all four cameras around a common architecture, so the choice of sensor was hedged across all of them,” Ravine said. “We wanted to be able to capture high frame rates, particularly with the descent camera. We also looked at a 4MP sensor, but it would have run around half as fast. And the state of CMOS sensors wasn’t credible in 2004. They’re an interesting option now, but they weren’t then.”

In light of advanced camera technology featured on today’s smartphones, Ravine seems slightly disappointed the images on Mars aren’t more breathtaking.

“There’s a popular belief that projects like this are going to be very advanced, but there are things that mitigate against that,” Ravine said. “These designs were proposed in 2004, and you don’t get to propose one specification and then go off and develop something else. 2MP with 8GB of flash [memory] didn’t sound too bad in 2004. But it doesn’t compare well to what you get in an iPhone today.”

As you might know, the latest iPhone features an 8-megapixel sensor with 1080p HD video recording. It’s ultimately more powerful than what Curiosity has, showing how far camera technology has come in the past few years. Heck, Nokia even has a 41-megapixel camera in one of its phones.

To compensate for having less powerful sensors, Curiosity’s Mastcam can take multiple images and stitch them together. In the photo above, you can see how this function can create panoramas and better detail.

You can view more photos from Curosity at NASA.gov. Or check out the gallery below:

Filed under: science

De camera’s in mobiele telefoons worden steeds beter de Nokia 808 Pureview is een van de toestellen die meer iets weg heeft van een fototoestel met telefoon functie dan andersom Maar fotocamera’s die uitgerust zijn met bijvoorbeeld een slot……

The Google+ live video chat function called Hangouts has been with us over a year now and I thought at the time it might be the best feature of Google+. However, it was the recent On Air addition, which allows you to broadcast and record your Hangout to your YouTube channel, that made me really take note.

The opportunity to create and record engaging video content just got a whole lot easier with this tool.

Whether you want to do a one on one interview or host an industry panel discussion featuring ten experts, Google+Hangouts On Air gives you a live streaming platform and automatic HD video capture.

I love the immediacy of a live broadcast, but you also have the option to edit the final version in YouTube to take out slower moments or edit out questions or to simply give it punch with an intro or images.

If you have someone monitoring the live YouTube stream you can even take text questions from the live audience. There is a screen sharing option so you can also present slides or share anything from a Google doc or spreadsheet.

I conducted a recent panel discussion with six participants. We had over 300 live viewers and the archive has been viewed several thousand times. The format, platform and ease of use has me hooked.

I could see some great uses for this:

• One on one interviews vcast style for a video blog
• Peer to peer industry discussions
• Pre conference or event showcases
• Opinion or current event discussions
• Survey data analysis and discussion
• Live customer case study or success profile
• Meet the author book club groups
• Product launches
• Educational seminars

The tool is very easy to use, but I thought I would share a couple tips

• When you create a Hangout you will have the option (in Advanced drop down box) of making it just a Hangout or adding the On Air feature. (You will be asked to confirm ownership of the YouTube channel you are linking to so you must be using a YouTube channel that is associated with the same email as your Google+ account)
• Privacy settings in Google+ make it so that you may not be able to add or invite someone to a Hangout unless they have you in a circle, so make sure all invitees take this step and be careful not to add Public or anyone will be able to join (Also make sure you click the option that restricts your guests from adding anyone unless you want to give them this option.)
• Remind your guests to log in to Google+ at show time and join the Hangout that will be listed on their page.
• Remind them further to have their video camera on, microphone chosen and earphones for listening. (They cannot play the Hangout through speakers or it will echo back through their mic)
• It’s a great idea to test everything ahead of time if you can so you make sure all plugins and such are up to date.
• Good, natural lighting is a real plus when it comes to video
• It is a good practice to share the URL for the YouTube channel so your guests can invite viewers, but remind them not to have the YouTube broadcast live in a browser tab as it is delayed a few seconds and can cause some real confusion
• When you launch the Hangout the On Air function is not live so you have some time to make sure everyone is on and has working tech. When you want to go live you push the On Air button and wait for the countdown plus add about 3 seconds of you smiling into the camera before you start to make sure you record everything
• When On Air Hangouts has the host featured in the video box with all the guests in small panes below the main box. It moves whoever is speaking to the main view so any noise can be interpreted by the tool as speaking – tell you guests to make sure they are in a private, noise free environment and that they are on camera at all times, so even the pecking of keys while they return email will move them to the main screen.
• Once you’ve finished with your event you turn the On Air feature off and have the ability to debrief with guests if you like.
• Go to your YouTube channel and make immediate modifications if you like such as choosing a thumbnail and adding rich description. You can also use the increasingly full set of editing tools to add more flair.
• You are suppose to be able to schedule Hangouts as Events in the future and have them show on your YouTube channel as coming soon, but I tried to use this feature and it did not work.

So, there you have it, yet another great way to create content. Use a tool like Speaker Text to create a transcript of your Hangout and you have content in several forms.

So, how have you used or viewed a Google+Hangout On Air?

Google Plus Hangouts On Air is a Killer App is a post from: Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

Nike isn't an official Olympic sponsor, but it's been running a whole campaign anyway around the London Games under the theme "Find your greatness." Among the numerous TV spots from Wieden + Kennedy, one truly stands out—the one with Nathan Sorrell jogging. (It's now over half a million views and counting on YouTube.) At 5-foot-3 and 200 pounds, the London, Ohio, native is, well, fat. In the spot, he's shown running toward the camera down a country road at dawn—an arresting and unsettling image of physical struggle and, according to Nike, everyday greatness. Nathan is not identified by name in the spot, and so plenty of people have wondered who he is. Well, a local Ohio paper tracked him down for an interview. It turns out Nathan is not actually an early-dawn runner. In fact, he threw up in a ditch during the shoot. In an editorial, the paper heralds Nathan as an inspiration, though it seems he was the one most inspired by the shoot. Nathan and his mother Monica have vowed to help each other lose weight through good old-fashioned diet and exercise. If they succeed, Nike will return for another taping. How great is that? Check out a bunch of other spots from the series after the jump.