imaging

Apple has asked a bankruptcy court judge for permission to sue Eastman Kodak over alleged patent infringement.

The iPhone maker filed its request with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York. Apple says that it plans to file a complaint against Kodak with the International Trade Commission (ITC), as well as a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Manhattan, for allegedly violating patents it holds related to printers, digital picture frames, and digital cameras.

As Bloomberg, which first reported on the request, points out, Apple isn't required to ask the bankruptcy court for permission to sue Kodak. … Read more

In response a great deal of criticism and controversy, Reddit has decided to ban the posting of sexually suggestive or exploitive images of minors.

After years of dealing with child pornography on a case-by-case basis, the social news site announced today that it would ban all subreddits that focus on the sexualization of children. Beyond obviously illegal content, the large amount of content in a legal grey area eventually convinced the site's administrators that its previous policy had "become unsustainable."

"We have changed our policy because interpreting the vague and debated legal guidelines on a case … Read more

Sigma has radically repriced its SD1 camera, saying manufacturing improvements let it lower the unusual SLR's cost by two-thirds to $3,300.

Sigma introduced the SD1 in 2011 with a premium price of $9,700--chiefly for its Foveon sensor, given that other specifications were ordinary. Although the sensor is small, about the size of those on mainstream SLRs from Nikon and Canon, it has the unusual ability to capture red, green, and blue light values for each pixel, not just a single color as with conventional sensors.

The Foveon design therefore can produce better detail, at least theoretically, … Read more

Facebook has launched a new photo viewer that will feel awfully familiar to Google+ users.

Users who open images in Facebook will find that the world's largest social network has changed how those photos are displayed. Facebook now puts an image on the left side of the screen, and on the right, includes the photo's owner and when it was uploaded, comments made by friends, and sponsored stories. In a pop-up on the bottom of the image, Facebook lets users "like" or tag the photo.

Facebook started rolling out the update yesterday, and told CNET sister site ZDNet … Read more

The image sensor group that beleaguered photography company Eastman Kodak sold last November has been named Truesense Imaging.

Platinum Equity, which bought the Kodak image-sensor group shortly before Kodak filed for bankruptcy protection, announced the new name yesterday.

Getting a name is a cosmetic detail, but it's an important one for a former business group trying to set up shop as a business. The company sells image sensors for industrial and professional applications such as high-end medium-format cameras and video equipment with high frame rates.

"As an independent company, we now have a great opportunity to expand our … Read more

To IS or not to IS?

That is the question Canon faced when deciding whether to put image stabilization in a trio of new lenses it announced today. Curiously, it reached two different answers.

For a rework of a highly regarded professional-grade staple, the 24-70mm F2.8, Canon decided against image stabilization, evidently discouraged by drawbacks such as weight, complexity, and expense. But for new incarnations of its 24mm and 28mm F2.8 lenses, IS is now an option.

Canon's new EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM follows the pattern of several lens upgrades in recent years: spruce … Read more

The program that you use to edit or organize your digital images may not be the best option for viewing or displaying them. ModernView is a program made especially for this task, with a variety of panning and zooming features. Although it doesn't do everything we'd expect an image viewer to do, it provides an interesting set of tools that might be especially useful when dealing with large images.

ModernView has a pane down the left side that lets you preview images in a chosen directory. Across the top there are buttons for navigating through the directory and … Read more

You have a high-resolution wide-screen LCD monitor, good video card (or cards), and HD sources, yet you're using Windows to display images? Or maybe you've had to flip through huge batches of image files and wished there was an easier way. There is, in the form of Fullscreen Photo Viewer. This simple, free tool is optimized for displaying high-resolution images in full-screen mode. With keyboard, mouse, and command line options, it lets you move quickly through batches of images with minimal effort.

Fullscreen Photo Viewer opened with a black screen with basic instructions displayed DOS-style in the upper-left … Read more

Whether you need to scan a document for signatures or you're prepping for tax season, this app is extremely useful.

There have been many attempts at document scanners on the Android Market. Most of the time these apps will utilize your camera and turn pictures you take into JPEGs or PDFs. Unfortunately, it's really difficult to take pictures of proportional rectangles in real life and have them look the same on your phone. 

That's why HandyScanner is so useful; it corrects the common issues with taking photos of documents, and even allows you to … Read more