Day: July 13, 2013

And, speaking of old style analog, film-based cameras. how about a 3D, Open Sourced, free camera?

Gizmodo reported this week on this cool project: “Despite the fact that many camera manufacturers have stopped producing non-digital SLRs, fans of film-based photography should be happy to hear that they’ll be able to 3D-print a replacement should their beloved hardware ever fail. The OpenReflex camera was created by Léo Marius, a recent design graduate who’s posted the plans and everything you’ll need to make your own over on Instructables — well, everything except a 3D printer.

The OpenReflex accepts standard 35mm film and should work with any lens, but since the camera’s plans are provided, ambitious photographers can modify it in any way they see fit. Material costs come to about $30, including the plastic, the internal mirror, and enough Sugru to ensure the entire housing is lightproof. And the camera’s various components only require about 15 hours to print, so even if you don’t have a 3D printer of your own, renting one for the task shouldn’t be too expensive.

Photos taken with the OpenReflex have a look and feel similar to what you’d get from one of Lomography’s cameras, but over time as the design is refined and perfected, the image quality and results can only get better and better. So thanks to Marius’ creation SLRs could endure forever, but only if we find a way to way to 3D-print cheap film stock too.”

Here’s the link: 3D-Printed SLR Makes Us Also Wish For 3D-Printed Film

A lot of you may not know this, but I wasn’t always just a computer geek. I actually started out in technology as a photographer. I shot high school newspaper and yearbook photographs as a “staff” photographer for the school that I attended, Central Davidson Senior High. So, it made sense that I would go to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and get a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting, Printmaking, and Photography. After I got out of college I opened my own photography business called Bailey Photographic Arts. As you might expect, I had my own fully equipped darkroom, and I had a series of Nikon professional cameras. And, I thoroughly enjoyed photography. However, I discovered that while photography was a great hobby, it really wasn’t what I wanted to do in terms of a career. So, over time I ended up getting into computers, at a time when personal computers were in their infancy, the late 70’s and early 80’s, and the rest, as they say, is history!

Why tell you all this? Well, I read many articles recently online that are predicting the death of the DSLR that is, the Digital Single Lens Reflex camera. Now you might say, “But wait, Dr. Bill, DSLR’s are fairly recent technologies!” That’s true, but this article from NBC News says it pretty well; dedicated cameras seem to be on their way out! Why? Because so many people are using their smartphones as cameras! As you know, there are a lot of photographs being posted to Facebook, Twitter, and lots of other web sites! It’s certainly not that photography is dead! It’s a matter of convenience. And the fact that smartphones have gotten better and better at taking pictures, resolutions are higher, tools are easier to use, and they’re getting better all the time! For instance. The Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone has the ability, within the phone, to shoot pictures and eliminate elements within the image, like the commercial that they have showing someone graduating from school and some knucklehead stepping in front of the people in the photo that the parents are taking, and then allowing you to eliminate that person from the shot! That’s pretty cool for camera in a smartphone, you have to admit!

So what does this mean for the future of Nikon and Canon the two best-known, high end, camera makers? As this NBC News article reports the president of Nikon, Makoto Kimura, said in an interview with Bloomberg recently that the company might have to “change the concept of cameras” in order to survive! That could be very interesting!

Here’s a link to the NBC News article: We’re taking more pictures than ever … so why are cameras dying off?

And, speaking of Apple, they are apparently guilty, at least according to a judge, of conspiring to “fix” e-book prices!

Judge: Apple conspired to raise e-book prices

USA Today reported: “SAN FRANCISCO — Apple conspired with five major publishers to illegally raise consumer prices for electronic books in 2010 and will next face a trial to decide how much it owes in damages, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

The decision was a blow to Apple, which had refused to settle the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit even after all five publishers negotiated settlements with the government and state attorneys general.

The company said it would appeal the decision. While states are seeking money damages from Apple, the Justice Department wants the court to bar Apple for two years from entering into any similar agreements that let publishers rather than retailers set prices or discriminating against competing e-reader apps.

‘This result is a victory for millions of consumers who choose to read books electronically,’ Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer said in a statement.

Apple shares fell $1.62 to $420.73 in regular trading Wednesday.

The Justice Department claimed Apple forged agreements with the publishers that permitted higher pricing on best sellers and new releases, effectively nudging e-books and best sellers to $12.99 and $14.99, respectively. That helped publishers who were unhappy with Amazon selling e-books for $9.99, a price they thought was too low.

Apple conspired to create an environment that enabled the company and publishers to eliminate all retail price competition for their e-books, Cote said.

Apple denied any wrongdoing.

‘Apple did not conspire to fix e-book pricing, and we will continue to fight against these false accusations,’ Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said in a statement. ‘When we introduced the iBookstore in 2010, we gave customers more choice, injecting much-needed innovation and competition into the market, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. We’ve done nothing wrong, and we will appeal the judge’s decision.’

Cote’s ruling followed a three-week trial that ended June 20. Witnesses included executives from Amazon, the publishers and Apple, including Eddy Cue, a longtime digital-rights dealmaker and a lieutenant of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died in 2011.

Apple backed what’s known as an agency model. That positioned publishers, rather than retailers, to set prices when Apple entered the e-books market in 2010 with its iPad and iBookstore. The deal allowed Apple to grab its 30% commission on books and the publishers had to match lower prices of any other retailers, such as Amazon.

Legal experts remained mixed on whether Apple’s actions were defensible or ran afoul of antitrust concerns.

‘The most explosive thing that may come out of this is the court’s imposing … restrictions on the way Apple operates its e-book and App Store platform. Apple may be forced to open up access,’ says Bob Kohn, a technology and media attorney.

‘Apple has good arguments to raise on appeal. But the new problem Apple faces is that the judge’s massive opinion relies so heavily on facts and inferences that an appellate court is unlikely to have room to modify the decision substantially,’ says Keith Hylton, a professor at Boston University School of Law.

Last year, Apple settled with the European Commission on an antitrust case over e-book pricing without admitting wrongdoing.”

Yes, yesterday (July 12th) was the 5th anniversary of the Apple App Store. We now use the term “app” among the general populace, and (for the most part) they know what we geeks are talking about! Pretty neat actually! We now have the “Google Play” App Store for Android, and even business oriented products like Citrix XenApp, and VMware Horizon Suite have “App Store”-like paradigm’s to relate to those of us that expect to find applications in an “app store.” Pretty decent adoption of a concept in five short years!