9 Jan
2014

Goodbye cameras, hello networked lenses

Networked Lenses

Jason Kottke sees the world clearly and explains his rationale with ease. 

Craig Mod, writing for the New Yorker, says goodbye to cameras as photography transitions to the use of “networked lenses”.

After two and a half years, the GF1 was replaced by the slightly improved Panasonic GX1, which I brought on the six-day Kumano Kodo hike in October. During the trip, I alternated between shooting with it and an iPhone 5. After importing the results into Lightroom, Adobe’s photo-development software, it was difficult to distinguish the GX1’s photos from the iPhone 5’s. (That’s not even the latest iPhone; Austin Mann’s superlative results make it clear that the iPhone 5S operates on an even higher level.) Of course, zooming in and poking around the photos revealed differences: the iPhone 5 doesn’t capture as much highlight detail as the GX1, or handle low light as well, or withstand intense editing, such as drastic changes in exposure. But it seems clear that in a couple of years, with an iPhone 6S in our pockets, it will be nearly impossible to justify taking a dedicated camera on trips like the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage.

And indeed, the mid-tier Japanese camera makers (Panasonic, Fujifilm and Olympus) are struggling to find their way in the networked lens era. A few years ago, I wrote a post called “Your company? There’s an app for that.” about how smartphones were not only going to make certain devices obsolete, but drive entire companies and industries out of business. This bit, about cameras, seems almost quaint now:

Point and shoot camera — While not as full-featured as something like a PowerShot, the camera on the iPhone 3GS has a 3-megapxiel lens with both auto and manual focus, shoots in low-light, does macro, and can shoot video. Plus, it’s easy to instantly publish your photos online using the iPhone’s networking capabilities and automatically tag your photos with your location.

The best camera is the one you have with you the one with built-in posting to Facebook.

Via Kottke

1 comment blevine32
29 Dec
2013

35 Reasons Elon Musk has been an interesting story in 2013

Elon Musk

We have talked a lot about Elon, TESLA, Solar City and more here on this blog. Check out the 35 reasons why Business Insider thinks he has been a great story — Here.

Image via Forbes

0 comments blevine32
12 Dec
2013

The best innovations of 2013

Mars One

(Bryan Versteeg/ Mars One)

Via the Washington Post:

At times, 2013 seemed like a science fiction movie come to life. The new DARPA Atlas bots seemed to be inspired from the “Terminator” film franchise, Stewart Brand’s concept of “de-extinction” seemed to be lifted directly from the storyline of “Jurassic Park,” Motorola’s new “password pill” reminded some of “The Matrix,” and new test-tube food concepts brought to mind earlier “Soylent Green” visions of the future. And, of course, there were the many other nifty gadgets and gizmos that continued to deliver onthe promise of a “Jetsons” future. We’ve picked out the trends and concepts of 2013 that seemed to have the most staying power for the year ahead.

Here, in no particular order, are 10 innovations from 2013:

1) The crowd got involved in space exploration.

While NASA is still at the forefront of space innovation, this year marked the first year that the crowd became actively involved in the future of deep space exploration. After launching in April, the MarsOne project quickly signed up over 100,000 people worldwide for the chance to take a one-way mission to Mars. According to the MarsOne organizers, the crowd would also play a role by selecting the four people chosen to become Mars astronauts in 2022 via a reality TV show, and part of those application fees ($38 a pop) would go towards funding the audacious mission to Mars. In other words, you no longer have to be a professional astronaut to go to outer space.

And that’s not all. In order to put the new ARKYD deep space telescope into operation, asteroid-mining firm Planetary Resources created a $1 million crowdfunding project on Kickstarter, with one perk at the $25 funding level being the ability to send a “space selfie” into outer space. The project, touted as “a space telescope for everyone,” ended up being wildly over-subscribed, raising just over $1.5 million. Based on the success of this crowdfunding venture, NASA recently unveiled a new asteroid-detection project in partnership with Planetary Resources that would rely on the crowd for the detection of potential asteroid threats.

Read 9 other interesting inventions of 2013 —