tech Archives - DIY Photography

USB 3 is about to get renamed (again) and it’s going to get even more confusing

February 28, 2019 by John Aldred 7 Comments

While not strictly a photography topic, all of our cameras use USB, as do our card readers, many of our flashes, flash triggers, and other devices we use during the course of our daily photographic lives. And the numbering system used with our equipment is about to get a bit more complex.

Yes, the current USB 3 protocol is being renamed. Again. USB used to be so simple. We just had whatever the current version was. Now we’re going to have three different USB 3.2 protocols, and two of them have already have names. And one already had a name before its current name![Read More…]

Google used this crazy 5-phone case to tweak Portrait Mode on the Pixel 3

December 3, 2018 by John Aldred Leave a Comment

When the Google Pixel 2 came out it was extremely impressive. Despite only having the single rear camera, it beat out everything else on DxOMark and held the position for quite a while. When the Pixel 3 was announced, it also had only the single rear camera. And despite one or two issues with the phone overall, Google made some great improvements with it.

Google has published a blog post on how they taught the Pixel 3 to predict depth for its Portrait Mode. Given that it only has a single camera, and not the dual cameras of other brands, it seems like it wouldn’t be possible, but the techniques used are pretty interesting. And involve a case that holds five separate cameras.

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LumiWatch is a projector smartwatch that turns your arm into a really bad touchscreen

April 27, 2018 by John Aldred 1 Comment

The idea of a smartwatch that could project a “screen” onto your arm with an interactive touch UI has been around for a while. But up until now, they’ve all either been vapourware or concepts. Now, though, it seems to be a reality, in the form of the LumiWatch, developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. Although, it doesn’t actually look very good. In fact, it looks quite terrible.

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GoPro licenses out its camera tech to third parties

March 26, 2018 by John Aldred Leave a Comment

Well, it seems that GoPro may be struggling even more than many of us thought. Despite reporting the first profit in 2 years at the end of 2017, GoPro followed up by laying off 300 staff and getting out of the drone business for good. Now they’re at the point where of licensing out their proprietary tech to third parties.

It might come as a bit of a sad but good move for the company’s future. Everybody wants to see GoPro succeed and again become the company they once were, but things haven’t been looking great. Now, a new deal with Jabil Inc. may help them to keep the cash coming in and keep creating great action camera tech.

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Blockchain Copyright Protection – A Viable Solution To Prove Ownership of Creative Works?

March 17, 2018 by JP Danko 3 Comments

Everywhere you look in the tech scene at the moment ‘blockchain’ and ‘ICO’ are the hot topics.

Investors are throwing millions of dollars to anyone that posts a quick website and publishes a vague white paper related to the topic.

Blockchain copyright protection may seem like a bulletproof solution for creative professionals to secure the use of their work online – but is blockchain really the answer to the current state of rampant global copyright infringement and abuse of intellectual property law?

In this article, Pixsy Chief Operating Officer (COO) Kain Jones offers his insight on the blockchain hype and some reasons why blockchain copyright protection might not be the silver bullet creative professionals, photographers and artists are looking for.

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