picture

Almost everyone takes pictures when traveling so they have something to bring back the memories once their vacation is over. A few years ago I went to several countries across Europe and took a ton of pictures with my digital camera. When I flip through the albums now, in some cases I'll forget where some of the more nondescript or interior pictures were taken. Today I found a program for Mac which not only solves that problem, but makes it more fun to view pictures from around the world.… Read more

Anyone who's addicted to gadget catalogs can tell you that two of the most common items are digital photo frames and personal weather stations, including some built into the tips of umbrellas. So it's small wonder that the two functions would be combined in a single device.

Its name? The "Digital Picture Frame With Weather Station," what else? The combo appliance has a 7-inch color LCD, radio-controlled clocks and all the data you can shake a meteorologist's stick at, including the phases of the sun and the moon. As for its multi-tasking abilities, its remote … Read more

While there's a giant crowd of people waiting for Digg to unveil its pictures section, there are already several services available for browsing popular news by pictures, including Google News and AOL's Mgnet (coverage). There's also a smaller, more independent group of sites that have been created by fans of some of these sites who have created their own visual solutions. One of them--Reddit Media--has increasingly become so popular it's led to Digpicz (Digg in pictures), and now PicUrls--which is a play on words, and similarity to the popular aggregator PopUrls.

The site … Read more

Big on Digg yesterday was a face mutations site called Mutating Pictures that would let you rate how much a randomly thrown together pile of geometric objects looked like a human face. Voting up a picture would in turn create more "offspring," or similar variants of the chosen picture, while simultaneously "killing off" the lower ranked faces. The result is a user-controlled evolutionary system at a very basic level.

Today, almost ironically, we've got a mutation of the site called Face Maker that attempts to solve the same problem using an either-or model. Instead of … Read more

Picnik is launching a new premium subscription service tomorrow morning. $24.95 gets you a year of access to a slew of advanced effects and fonts. Many of the premium effects have been available during the service's beta testing period, but there are some new ones that do a pretty incredible job of taking a drab photo and making it look special.

The biggest thing premium users will notice is over a dozen effects that aren't available in the standard version, and seven brand-new ones. According to CEO Jonathan Sposato, the No. 1 request from users is more … Read more

The results of a fifteen-month study accessing the time to patch software associated with electronic health record (EHR) systems were published today by the eHealth Vulnerability Reporting Program. The program is a collaboration of health care industry organizations, technology companies and security professionals that is attempting to establish best practices within the emerging field of electronic health records in the adoption and reliance of eHealth systems, including electronic medical records (EMR), picture archiving and communication system (PACS), and medical devices. The 39-page report found much room for improvement.

It's one thing to have your credit card information compromised--that can … Read more

Epson announced today two new members of its PictureMate family of portable, standalone snapshot printers: the Dash and Zoom. Both are dedicated 4x6 printers that can produce borderless photos in as little as 37 seconds, according to Epson. Both models offer 3.6-inch preview LCDs on which you can edit photos or watch a slide show. You can resize photos, edit them, or change the color treatment without touching your PC. Built-in memory card slots and a PictBridge-enabled USB port let you print from memory cards, digital cameras, and USB flash drives; if you want to print wireless via Bluetooth, … Read more

A small group of automotive journalists gathered recently in Southern California to watch an unusual sight: A fully functional Volkswagen Touareg that could be controlled without anyone in the driver's seat.

The custom-made SUV was part of a special showcase hosted by Volkswagen, where a select few got a glimpse at some of the stunt driving skills used in the making of The Bourne Ultimatum, the third and newest installment of the Bourne films. The movie's stunt team developed a special cockpit attached to the top of the Touareg, complete with a seat, steering wheel, and pedals that … Read more

One of the joys of the iPhone is its camera.

I didn't think that I'd like it or even use it very much. But in addition to the phone's SMS texting, e-mail and Web-browsing technologies, I've actually used the iPhone's camera feature much more than I thought I would. I've already posted a few photos on this blog, but here are some more random pictures and thoughts.

(1) The iPhone camera works best at moderate light and is great at capturing stealthy candid shots, which are the best ones, I think. In low light, … Read more