imaging

Audiophiliac readers have strong opinions about the gear I cover in this blog, so last month I asked for Readers' Choice nominations in a variety of categories, including headphones, speakers, receivers, etc.. I've sorted through all the comments, and here's what I found: there's a wide range of gear you love, but it was in the headphone category where the clearest winners stood out.

The Klipsch Image S4 in-ear headphones were the single most popular product in the survey, you people really love 'em! Grado SR60, SR80, and SR225 full-size headphones also drew raves, and Koss' PortaPro … Read more

Evernote for Mac is just one part of an excellent, access-from-anywhere note-taking system. In addition to the Evernote desktop client, you can create and get to your notes from a variety of mobile devices (including apps for the iPhone and iPad) and any Web browser on any computer. A free Evernote account links all your notes together.

Evernote is a mature and popular application, with an impressively streamlined interface that shares similarities across its multiple platforms and gives you many different ways to create notes and collections of notes called notebooks. Your notes can be text, images, or Web clippings, … Read more

Google's Project Glass glasses might not be the most stylish pair of lenses you've ever worn, but a new image released by the search company shows how far they might go in changing the state of photography.

Google fellow and vice president Sebastian Thrun yesterday posted an image he took while wearing his Project Glass eyewear. In it, he's spinning his son, Jasper, around with both hands while the glasses he's wearing snap the photo.

Soon after it was posted, the image went viral on the Google+ social network, and it was reposted by company co-founder Sergey Brin, … Read more

Most versions of Windows do a pretty good job of changing your wallpaper, whether once a day or every few seconds. But if your version of Windows lacks those features (some do) or you're running an older version of Windows (some do) or you just don't like the Windows tool (some don't), you can use aftermarket freeware like 100dof Wallpaper Rotator.

It's a simple tool that can rotate your wallpaper at startup or manually. It stretches images to fit, and it handles the most common image types. What sets it apart from the crowd is its … Read more

By now, we have all seen how it happens. Pictures from "stars," such as Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton, are leaked on the Web, and all the gossip Web sites spread the pics like wildfire. People also probably remember the scandals that followed Brett Favre and Congressman Anthony Weiner when their pics were leaked and went viral. Even worse, many people out of the public eye will send risque pics to their significant others only to find the pics online when the relationship turns sour.

SnapChat (free) is an app that puts a time limit on pics sent … Read more

Dropbox users who find it a hassle getting photos off their camera and onto their online storage site now have a way to avoid the middleman.

The new Dropbox 1.4 software for Windows, OS X, or Linux can automatically upload photos not just from a camera, but from a smartphone, tablet, SD card, and just about any other gadget that houses your images.

How can Dropbox users set this up? Here's how it works in Windows:

First, install the new version of Dropbox. Then right-click the Dropbox icon in the System tray and select Preferences. You should see … Read more

Certain image formats are better suited to particular tasks than others, so if you do a lot of work with digital images it makes sense to have a program that can easily convert between a variety of formats. AVD Batch Converter is definitely not the fanciest file converter we've encountered, but if you need a no-frills way to convert batches of images from one format to another, it can get the job done.

The program's interface is intuitive, if not particularly attractive. Three panes let users navigate to specific directories, view a selected directory's contents, and preview … Read more

Photofunia is a ridiculously simple photo effects app that lets you drop your photos into funny and interesting scenes, similar to those you might find at an amusement park photo booth. If, say, you want to see what your face might look like on a billboard in Times Square, Photofunia has an effect for that. How about on the cover of Esquire Magazine? Photofunia's got that covered too. With an incredible number of effects available, the possibilities seem endless.

To get started with Photofunia, just fire up the app and start looking for an effect you like. You can … Read more

One day, capturing a physical environment and turning it into a 3D image will be as easy as using a point-and-shoot camera. Right now, technology like that can cost north of $100,000, and it's a challenge for businesses to get access. But Matterport CEO Matt Bell and his team are developing a patent-pending system that is cheap, fast, and consumer friendly. CNET visited their Silicon Valley offices for a look.

Bell said he believes the technology could be a game changer in a variety of fields -- from real estate to architecture. In the future he said he … Read more