Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
Author Mark Synnott has asserted in his new book that China may have been involved in removing and hiding photographic evidence of the first-ever successful ascent of Mount Everest.
British climbers George Mallory and his partner Andrew ‘Sandy’ Irvine made the attempt on Everest’s gruelling North Face in 1924 but subsequently went missing and were never seen again. That is until Mallory’s body was discovered in 1999 just 2000 feet from the summit.[Read More…]
This has been a saga that’s been building up for a couple of weeks now, beginning with accusations from Ukraine (via Blynk co-founder Bolodymyr Shymanskyy) that Russia is exploiting DJI’s AeroScope system in order to track drones within Ukraine in order to identify potential targets while blocking Ukraine from doing the same (or even tracking drones within their own airspace).
DJI’s US spokesperson, Adam Lisberg denied the claims and DJI Support responded via Twitter, stating that there are “malfunctions” with the AeroScope system within Ukraine. Fast forward to the present day and Germany’s largest electronics retailer, MediaMarkt, has now pulled all DJI drones from its website and shelves in Germany and the Netherlands as a result of what Pandaily calls “Security Concerns”.
We have welcomed the Year of the Tiger yesterday, and it looks like Lunar New Year isn’t only celebrated here on Earth. China’s Mars probe Tianwen-1 sends its greetings from the Red Planet’s orbit and shares a video selfie it snapped on 1 February, the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year.
Canon has announced the imminent shutdown of its main factory, the Zhuhai Factory based in Southern China. The factory was in operation for 32 years and was responsible for the manufacture of digital cameras, sensors, and lenses, the only such production base in the country.
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) launched its Tianwen 1 Mars mission in July 2020. And this Saturday, it has sent back its first photos of the Red Planet, along with the mission orbiter flying around it.
An article on the Japanese website Nikkei is claiming that the popularity of digital cameras in China is on the increase. According to the Google-translated version, sales of digital cameras have increased due to a seemingly unlikely suspect. What has historically been the downfall of dedicated cameras, smartphones seem to be the cause. Deficiencies in smartphones that can only be overcome by DSLR and mirrorless cameras have resulted in about a 20% increase in sales over the previous year.
They also say that live streaming is also expected to grow to five times its current size by the year 2025 and that the demand currently far exceeds the supply due to logistics issues as a result of the coronavirus situation, causing prices to remain high.
After DJI’s high yesterday with their Ronin 4D announcement, they’re being brought back down to earth by the FCC after Commissioner Brendan Carr has called for its addition to the FCC Covered List, which would ban the company from selling its products in the USA.
A letter published on the FCC website states that DJI accounts for more than 50% of the US drone market and collects “vast troves of sensitive data”. The Chinese government’s power to compel DJI to assist in espionage activities, it says, is a national security risk.
You’re in an exotic location where time seems to stand still. A farmer dressed in an outfit fit for the 19th Century walks slowly past, leading his buffalo to the field through the morning mist. Fishermen in straw hats mend their nets, effortlessly standing in the best light possible. If it all sounds too good to be true, it is, at least in Xiapu County in rural China where “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”.
An Instagram post from Kodak recently infuriated Chinese people. In fact, it caused so much backlash that Kodak deleted the post and issued a public apology. The company shared a photo by French documentary photographer Patrick Wack, showing the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. They linked the photographer’s account which mentions the mass detentions of the Uyghur people in the area, which caused a fierce backlash.
Drone light shows have become all the rage over the last couple of years across the world, but probably no more so than in China, where most of the world’s drones are developed and built. Drone shows have almost become the new fireworks displays in China, with every team attempting to outdo not only each other but their own previous displays.
Inevitably, though, something was going to go wrong one day, and it seems that it has. During a show in Shanghai, China, involving almost 1,000 drones, some started plummeting from the sky in the middle of the show, possibly causing injuries – maybe? It’s a little unclear. Also unclear is what caused the drones to suddenly fall from the sky in the first place.
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