Cameras

Welcome to the wacky world of tech patents—a place where you’ll find not just the crazy-sounding ideas that inhabit any category of patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), but some ideas that seem so minute or so obvious that you wonder how they ever qualified as patentworthy. Once issued, however, a patent isn’t just a shield. It’s a weapon that companies and individuals can use against their competitors. “Patent trolls” are infamous for acquiring patents and then making the business of filing lawsuits against alleged infringers their core competency. The technology sector is hardly alone in taking patent-holding to extreme levels of judivial enforcement. But some of the most bizarre tech patents we found suggest that we may need a new idea for protecting ideas—one that can more easily weed out the lawyers and the loonies. The 'Interactive Web' patent 1998 To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A devastating tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma on Monday, May 20, 2013. It was reportedly over 2 miles wide at one point, and covered 20 miles during the 40 minutes it was on the ground. The National Weather Service has classified it as at least an EF-4 tornado with winds of at least 166 miles per hour. NBC affiliate station WMC-TV had a helicopter camera in the sky capturing the whole thing, and released the time-lapse video above showing the storm traveling across the land before finally disappearing back into the clouds. The 2013 Oklahoma City tornado as it passed through south Oklahoma City. Photograph by Ks0stm The tornado was also extremely well documented by cameras and gutsy storm chasers (and ordinary folk) on the ground. Here are some of the videos that were uploaded to the web just hours after the storm struck: One family even had its camera rolling as it emerged from their storm shelter and surveyed the destruction: Photo galleries of the tornado and its aftermath can be found on The Denver Post’s Plog and The Atlantic’s InFocus. USA Today has published a list of relief organizations you can donate to if you’d like to help the victims of this disaster.

Almost month ago we have published sample images taken with a new Samyang T-S 24 mm f/3.5 ED AS UMC lens. Since then we have managed to make its full test and today we have the pleasure to present our review of this lens. Enjoy! Read more >>>

B&H has Lightroom 4 for only $93.95 (reg. $121.95). This is boxed copy with a perpetual license. Check it out here at B&H Photo. Copyright/DMCA Notice: The RSS entry was originally published on Photography Bay and is protected by copyright laws. It is unlawful to (a) edit, modify, alter, or create derivative works of the text, content or links supplied by Photography Bay, (b) use any robot, spider, scraper, other device or manual process to monitor or copy any content from the Photography Bay RSS feed, (c) sell, retransmit or commercially exploit the Photography Bay RSS feed, headlines or content in any manner except as expressly permitted in writing by authorized representatives of Photography Bay, (d) incorporate advertising into or the placement of advertising associated with or targeted towards the Photography Bay RSS feed or (e) use the Photography Bay RSS feed for any unlawful purpose or in violation of the rights of others. RSSID#794326 Related posts: Deal Alert: Adobe Lightroom for $169 (Norm. is $299) Deal Alert: Adobe Lightroom Still on Sale for $169 Lightroom 3 Now $149 at B&H – Deal Alert

B&H has the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens for $899 (reg. $1049). Check it out here at B&H Photo. Copyright/DMCA Notice: The RSS entry was originally published on Photography Bay and is protected by copyright laws. It is unlawful to (a) edit, modify, alter, or create derivative works of the text, content or links supplied by Photography Bay, (b) use any robot, spider, scraper, other device or manual process to monitor or copy any content from the Photography Bay RSS feed, (c) sell, retransmit or commercially exploit the Photography Bay RSS feed, headlines or content in any manner except as expressly permitted in writing by authorized representatives of Photography Bay, (d) incorporate advertising into or the placement of advertising associated with or targeted towards the Photography Bay RSS feed or (e) use the Photography Bay RSS feed for any unlawful purpose or in violation of the rights of others. RSSID#794326 Related posts: Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM Lens Pentax D FA MACRO 100mm F2.8 WR Lens Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4 DC Macro OS HSM Lens for $299 – Deal Alert

Google will retire its Checkout payment processing tool on Nov. 20, and warned retailers they will need to move to a different payment processing platform.Checkout, which launched in 2006, was merged with Wallet, which is a mobile payments tool, last November. The product was aimed at taking on eBay's PayPal service, which dominates Web-based payments.Google said it has partnered with Braintree, Shopify and Freshbooks to offer discounted options for retailers that have not yet selected an alternative payment processor.Wallet will now be the company's focus. Developers for its Play store will be moved to the Google Wallet Merchant Center, Justin Lawyer, senior product manager for Google Wallet, wrote. There will be no changes for consumers using Wallet on sites such as Priceline and Uber, according to Lawyer.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer is in a giving mood. Not only did she just announced earlier today that she is paying US $1.1B for Tumblr, making founder David Karp the latest billionaire, now she is offering 1TB of free photo storage to every Flickr user. The night is young out here in the East Coast, with one hour to go as I type this post, and who knows what other surprise she might spring on us yet! How much is 1 terabyte of storage? A helpful slider calculates how many images you will be able to save in 1TB: 1 terabyte = 537,731 6.5 megapixel photos (* Assuming the resolution of today’s most commonly used smartphones)

For just $9.48, you could take home one of this mini DV camcorder ‘DM80′. This pocket-friendly camcorder sports a 2MP image sensor, a microSD card slot (up to 8GB), voice-activated trigger function, a mini USB port, a built-in lithium battery and can capture 720 x 480 video at 30fps. [Product Page]

Flickr rolled out a bit update today that spiffed up the overall look, expanded the file storage to 1TB and killed the $25 Pro account in favor of a $50/year fee for no ads.  The biggest update for all users is the 1TB of free storage, which includes photos up to 200MB individual file size and 1GB video files at a max of 3 minutes in length. Additionally, all photos are stored at full resolution and original quality. Flickr also changed the layout so that your landing page at Flickr.com is no longer your own photos, but rather your contacts. And, it’s more akin to social media streams than it was before. The photos are bigger, bolder and span the full width of your browser when looking through your photostream. Individual images also are much larger and are featured on a black background. Full screen default view of single images on Flickr after update If you want to get to the comments section, you actually have to scroll down, which also reveals groups, tags and additional info about the photo. As noted, if you want to go ad-free, you’ll need to pony up $50 per year; however, you are still at the same 1TB limit and other account features as free users. If you happen to need more than 1TB of storage, you can buy more storage by paying $500 for a Doublr account and a total of 2TB of space. Copyright/DMCA Notice: The RSS entry was originally published on Photography Bay and is protected by copyright laws. It is unlawful to (a) edit, modify, alter, or create derivative works of the text, content or links supplied by Photography Bay, (b) use any robot, spider, scraper, other device or manual process to monitor or copy any content from the Photography Bay RSS feed, (c) sell, retransmit or commercially exploit the Photography Bay RSS feed, headlines or content in any manner except as expressly permitted in writing by authorized representatives of Photography Bay, (d) incorporate advertising into or the placement of advertising associated with or targeted towards the Photography Bay RSS feed or (e) use the Photography Bay RSS feed for any unlawful purpose or in violation of the rights of others. RSSID#794326 Related posts: Flickr Accidentally Deletes Photographer’s Account and Almost 4000 Photos Flickr Now Holding Onto Photos After Deleting Accounts Royal Family Joins Flickr

Sprint Nextel said it had received permission from SoftBank to negotiate a rival acquisition offer from Dish Network.The board of Sprint Nextel has the right to terminate its existing merger agreement with SoftBank, subject to certain requirements, to accept a "Superior Offer," the company said in a statement late Monday. The board has not determined that the Dish offer is in fact superior, and has not changed its recommendation with regard to the SoftBank offer, it added.SoftBank of Japan announced in October last year that it had reached a deal to acquire a 70 percent stake in Sprint for US$20 billion. Dish, a satellite TV service provider, made a $25.5 billion counter-bid to acquire Sprint last month.The Japanese company said on Monday that it had given Sprint a waiver of certain provisions under the merger agreement including allowing Sprint to give Dish access to certain non-public information for due diligence purposes, and to negotiate with the rival bidder.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here