Latest News

About a month or so ago the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper decided to fire all of its 28 professional photographers and provided each of it's reporters with an Apple iPhone. These writers and reporters were instantly "promoted" to photojournalists with the responsibility of taking their own pictures for the stories they were reporting on. They were given a short course on "iPhone photography basics" and let loose.

Sony's upcoming cameraphone, the Sony i1 Honami has recently appeared in a number of leaked images. The first set of images look to be press shots of the smartphone. These press shots show what look to be international versions along with one set for NTT Docomo which is a carrier in Japan. The press images only show the front though with no indication of how the back looks like, perhaps to keep the camera part under wraps.

The more affordable Apple iPhone that Apple itself said they'd never make looks to becoming a reality as more leaked images of casing shells appear. Unlike previous images these don't look like rendered images drawn by an expert 3D artist with too much time on their hands. The green casing shell reveals a metal undercover that looks like it would fit well with the iPhone and the Apple logo on the back seems to complete this rumour.

As owners of the first LTE-A network in the world, SK Telecom have approached Apple with the intention of having LTE-A support in an Apple iPhone device. Since the next iPhone to come out from Apple would be the iPhone 5S it would make it the next smartphone to have LTE-A support (and offer SK Telecom another LTE-A device for those LTE-A users who don't like the Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE-A).

Intel seems to finally understand that releasing a new chip or two every year isn't going to let it break into the mobile market. There are many ARM-based competitors already offering much better alternatives such as Qualcomm, Samsung, Huawei, Apple, TSMC, NVIDIA and many more. New players emerging from China such as MediaTek are also offering equal if not better performance processors at much cheaper price points. New Intel CEO Brian Krzanich has had this to say about it:

We see that Atom is now at the same importance, it's launching on the same leading edge technology, sometimes even coming before Core," says Krzanich.

I think you'll start to see stuff with our silicon toward the end of the year and the beginning of next year," We're trying to get our silicon into some of them, create some ourselves, understand the usage and create an ecosystem."-Brian Krzanich, CEO, Intel

Pico Projectors are teeny tiny LED (usually) based projectors that are much easier to carry around than your average projector (which are about the size of a standard mini-tower desktop). While there are pico projectors for smartphones, most pico projectors of that kind only work for a certain type of smartphone. So far, only the Samsung Galaxy Beam and the Promate lumiTab are the only smartphone and tablet that have built-in pico projectors. Well, now with the Smart Beam (or otherwise known as the INNOIO INNOCUBE) cube you can get a pico projector that works with any smartphone.

According to Instructables, invisible headphones are more or less tiny magnets that you insert into your ears that pick up signals from a coil of magnetic metal fashioned into a necklace. When connected to an amplifier and MP3 player it allows you to have invisible wireless headphones. While the Instructables site it was based on tells you to put the magnets in your ears, Rich Lee went one step further and had them implanted permanently. While he still has to wear the coil necklace and amplifier to pick up sound, it works much in the same way as the bone induction audio used by Google Glass. He says:

"Listening to music is nice and probably the most obvious answer, but I intend to do some very creative things with it. I can see myself using it with the GPS on my smartphone to navigate city streets on foot. I plan to hook it up to a directional mic of some sort (possibly disguised as a shirt button or something) so I can hear conversations across a room. Having a mic hooked up to it and routed through my phone would be handy."

Recently, Panasonic announced their Lumix G 20mm f/1.7 II ASPH lens for their Micro Four Thirds systems. The lens picks up from it's 20mm f/1.7 lens which was discontinued by offering a new metallic profile that is both lighter and probably stronger than the previous version while maintaining the same levels of performance. The new lens comes a rounded pancake shape for better performance in out-of-focus areas. The lens has a metal mount with multi-coated lens elements which minimize ghosting and flaring. It will also be available in both black and silver. Tech specs for the Panasonic Lumix G 20mm f/1.7 II include:

• Supports Panasonic and Olympus Micro Four Thirds Lens Mounts
• Focal Length: 20mm
• Angle of View: 57°
• Aperture: f/1.7 - f/16
• Filter Size: 46mm
• 35mm equivalent: 40mm
• Min Focus: 20cm
• 63mm | 87g

If you have the money for it, then you can get a really good premium compact camera without ever having to drop into the higher-end performance range with interchangable lens. Sony's take on this type of compact camera now includes the newly released Cyber-shot Sony RX100 II and Cyber-shot RX1R. Sporting a larger 20.9 CMOS sensor, the RX100 II's very good low light performance and features include the following:

• 1-inch 20.9MP Exmor R CMOS Sensor
• f/1.8 Zeiss lens
• 3.6x Optical Zoom, 7.2x Clear Image Zoom
• multi interface shoe (viewfinder, flash, etc.)
• Supports WiFi + NFC

Samsung recently partnered with Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS) to launch the Samsung GALAXY NX-AIPS Young Reporters partnership program. Started in 2011 the AIPS program seeks to nurture and train youth on sports photojournalism. For the current program this is done by providing the Samsung Galaxy NX to trainee participants who will undergo a 10-day course on sports reporting using the Samsung Galaxy NX. The course started on 25 June 2013 and ends on 4 July 2013, in Lausane, Switzerland. Experts will be on hand during the course to help these youths and trainee AIPS reporters gain the skills necessary to do successful sports photojournalism. Participants are then expected to return home with the Samsung Galaxy NX and then continue reporting on local sporting events using the device through Samsung NX and AIPS social media channels.