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Three free Picnik alternatives

Google announced that it is shutting down its photo-editing service, Picnik, much to the dismay of many Picnik users.

Once Picnik closes its doors for good on April 19, Picnik users will be forced to seek out alternative photo-editing tools. There's always the popular free desktop tools like Paint.NET or GIMP, but true alternatives to Picnik are Web-based editors. Here are a few of them to consider:

Photoshop Express Adobe's Photoshop Express has all the basic editing tools like crop, resize, red-eye, as well as more advanced editing features like fill light, sharpen, and exposure. It also … Read more

No Picnik: Photo-editing site's users blast Google

Ever since Google CEO Larry Page announced plans to put "more wood behind fewer arrows" last June, the Web giant has cleaved a few dozen services from its portfolio, everything from Google Health to Google Labs.

But none of the cuts has caused as much outcry and as many allegations of Google underhandedness as the closing of its Picnik photo-editing service. The company said Friday it will cancel Picnik and move many of the popular service's features to other Google properties, including the Google+ social network.

Since the move was announced on Picnik's Web site, the … Read more

Google cancels Picnik and closes a few other businesses

In its continuing effort to bring focus to its operations, Google said it will shutter a half-dozen businesses--including Picnik, the photo-editing service that the company acquired less than two years ago.

Since the middle of last year, Google's been on a slashing binge, cleaving under-performing and peripheral businesses from its portfolio. In October, it announced plans to kill its Buzz social network. In July, it discontinued Google Labs. And in June, it pulled the plug on Google Health.

Google vice president of product management Dave Girouard said in a blog post that the latest round of cuts comes … Read more

Not exactly a picnic

Picnik is a great online image-editing tool that makes it easy to make basic tweaks to your photos. The Picnik extension from Google Chrome seems like a great idea at first glance, providing a way for users to quickly snag images from the Internet and start editing them in Picnik. Unfortunately, the add-on doesn't quite work as it should.

Picnik installs easily in Chrome and appears as an icon to the right of the address bar. When the icon is clicked, a menu with three options appears: Go to Picnik, Send the Visible Page to Picnic, or Pick an … Read more

Picnik's editor now built into Picasa Web Albums

It was only a matter of time, but three months after acquiring Web-based photo editor Picnik, Google has gotten around to integrating the service into Picasa Web Albums.

Now, if a Picasa Web Albums user wants to make a quick edit to a photo, they can do so without leaving the photo page. Previously a user would have needed the software version of Picasa installed, or to use an external editor (such as Picnik)--both of which made for a disjointed experience.

While a seemingly minor move, it's the first step by Google to integrate the Picnik editor into … Read more

Take Picnik for a picnic with Mozilla's Jetpack

Web-based image editor Picnik, which is now a part of Google, has long been the built-in editor for Yahoo's Flickr photo-hosting service. And if you've found yourself wishing it was just as simple to edit other images around the Web, you're in luck. A relatively new Firefox extension called "Instant Image Edit with Picnik" lets you edit any image on any site, using Picnik--all with little more than a right-click.

The extension was built using a new part of Mozilla's Jetpack API, which lets developers add items to the contextual menu of a user'… Read more

Buzz Out Loud Podcast 1176: F1 is now FU

Microsoft's latest security measure involves telling everyone not press F1. Well that's reasonable. If you read everything Microsoft says. Also the juiciest weirdest firing ever happens to the developers of the most successful video game ever.

Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subscribe with RSS (audio) Subscribe with RSS (video) EPISODE 1176

Top Stories

WELCOME BACK JASON!!!!!

Picnik acquired by Google http://blog.picnik.com/2010/03/google-acquires-picnik/

Google wins patent for location-basedadvertising http://digital.venturebeat.com/2010/03/01/google-location-ads/

Apple Sues HTC For Stealing iPhone Technology http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-sues-htc-over-patent-infringement-2010-3

Top Infinity Ward … Read more

Google acquiring Web-based photo editor Picnik

Picnik, which makes an online photo editor, announced on its blog Monday that the company is being acquired by Google.

The editor works directly with online photo libraries like Flickr, Facebook, and Picasa Web Albums. Users can also upload files to the service and download them again when they are done. The editing capabilities it offers are a natural complement to a Picasa, even though the technology appears to be a mismatch: Picnik works in Flash, while most advanced Google apps use the slower JavaScript. (Google, however, is working to improve JavaScript performance with its Native Client technology.)

Neither Picnik … Read more

Slick online photo editor

Picnik is a really slick piece of Webware for tweaking and editing photos, and it offers a truly lovely user interface that's refreshingly simple to use. You can pull in photos from any URL or upload them from your home computer. There are a variety of basic photo editing tools like cropping, resizing, red-eye correction, and a handy autofix button to make a picture look better without fussing around with each setting.

When you're done tweaking your photo you've got a few options: you can save it to your hard drive, print it, e-mail it or even … Read more

10 worthy apps for the MySpace user

MySpace is in some trouble. The social network announced on Tuesday that it has been forced to reduce its workforce by 30 percent amid a decline in advertising revenue and outside pressure from competitors. It's a problem, but MySpace does have at least a few things going for it.

Those include some cool applications. Apps developed for Facebook tend to get more attention in the social-networking space, but these 10, ranging from music- to game-centric, are all worth trying out.

10 MySpace apps

Causes: Like its Facebook counterpart, Causes is one of the best apps in this roundup for one reason: it helps you help others.

After you sign up, the app lets you pick a "cause" about which you care. From animal rights to protecting children, you can join any cause and try to increase its awareness. You can donate to the cause and post bulletins on MySpace, so all your friends know what you're supporting. It's a really great app.

Family Guy Picture Hunt: The Family Guy Picture Hunt might not be as useful as some of the other apps in this roundup, but it's extremely fun. Simply look at a picture from one of your favorite scenes from the television show Family Guy, and try to find the different areas on the picture that match the blocks to the right of the image. At first glance, it seems like a simple game, but you'll quickly realize that it's difficult and fun. The game is timed, so you can play with friends and see who is the superior searcher.

Family Tree: Like its Facebook counterpart, Family Tree is a really great app. When you access it, the app lists all your MySpace friends and asks you to find family members. It then sends confirmation requests to make sure that they're really family members.

Once complete, you can input your relationship to those people, and the app will create a family tree. The app's best feature is the option to see which people might be in your family. It does that by analyzing your friends list to see if there are any matches you might have missed. The app even has a family news feed, so you can be kept abreast of what's going on in each other's lives.

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