‘Photo booth’ app creates, prints & mails strips of snapshots | Springwise

Looking for a way to create photo booth strips on the fly? There is an app for that... A few of them, actually.

The newest is called PopBooth. The free app from Sincere, inc. allows you to take photos with your IPhone or IPad and then turn them into photo booth style photo strips, to which you can apply a number of different filters. The strips can then be shared with your friends, via email, facebook, or for a fee ($2.99/2 prints)you can have high res prints sent .

We heard about this app on Springwise.com you can also check out the manufacturers website at popbooth.com/ for more info

Pentax sold to Ricoh for £77m ($126m)

Originally posted at bjp-online.com
Author: Olivier Laurent 01 Jul 2011

Ricoh is expected to boost its position in the interchangeable lens market when it acquires Pentax, which is currently owned by lens-maker Hoya. The deal, which was confirmed this morning, is evaluated at ¥10b ($124.2m / £77m / €85m).

Hoya first acquired Pentax in October 2007 for more than ¥100b.

Reuters reports the deal is expected to be finalised in October, and the Nikkei business daily says that "the move by Ricoh could trigger a major industry realignment."

In a notice of sale posted by Hoya and Ricoh, the companies confirm that Ricoh, through this acquisition, plans to "enhance its digital camera businesses (especially the interchangeable lens camera market which is expected to grow), [and] create value-added businesses for taken photographs (creation and development of value-added services that encourage seeing, storing and refinishing photographs and utilize photographs as communication tools), [as well as] expand to other fields (study of entry into the image archiving business using medium-format digital cameras and enhancement of security-related products)."

The statement also reads that Ricoh aims to establish a consumer business. To achieve this goal, "Ricoh takes it as an indispensable initiative to obtain the small and lightweight interchangeable lens camera technology, lens technology and sales channels held by the Pentax Imaging Systems Division to pave the way for further advancement and innovations in the digital camera market."

Pentax currently offers two ranges of digital cameras - its K system of conventional digital SLRs, as well as its most-recent digital medium format camera, the 645D. Pentax also plans to release a new compact, mirrorless interchangeable lens camera dubbed the Q-system.

It remains unclear, however, what will happen of Pentax's European operations. Hoya writes that "with respect to one of Hoya' European marketing companies for the Pentax Imaging Systems Business, Hoya will make a final determination on whether or not [it] will transfer PEIS' shares to NewCo [Pentax's new name after the sale] upon completing prior negotiations with PEIS' workers counsel as required under applicable laws."

In a statement released to BJP, Pentax UK welcomes the news: "Ricoh is globally renowned within the digital camera industry, having successfully brought a range of products to market since its inception in 1939," says Jonathan Martin, general manager of Pentax Imaging Systems UK. "We are extremely pleased with today's announcement and see this as the natural next step in the evolution and continued development of the Pentax brand in the UK and abroad. With Ricoh's involvement we can continue to grow the Pentax business in the UK and ensure we maintain our commitment to provide our customers with innovative, cutting edge, high quality products to suit all camera users."

In regards to Pentax Europe, a spokeswoman says: "With regard to the French subsidiary (PEIS) (or its UK and German subsidiaries), the transfer of shares will be finalised after consultation with the workers counsel of PEIS which is required under the French law."

She adds: "If the transfer of shares of PEIS has not been finalized by the scheduled closing date, the closing date may be postponed."

The acquisition does not include Pentax's digital camera module, DVD pickup lens, endoscope, artificial bone, and voice synthesis businesses.

The news comes after Hasselblad revealed yesterday that it had been acquired by German private equity firm.

The 1.4-Gigapixel Camera Standing Between Us and Armageddon

Originally posted at gizmodo.com

Andrew Tarantola 

— First step in preventing Armageddon: Spot the asteroid before it obliterates all life on earth. The PS1 Telescope sits atop a Hawaiian mountain with a 1.4-gigapixel digital camera to ensure we get the Ben Affleck-approved ending, not Deep Impact.

The PS1 telescope is the first of four Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System), a series of telescopes designed to discover, track, and map near-Earth asteroids ranging in size from 300 meters (984 feet, or "Say goodbye to Dallas-Fort Worth and all of its surrounding suburbs") to 1-kilometer (0.6-miles, or "Congratulations, you get to witness the end of the world"). All four telescopes will be located either at Mauna Kea or Haleakala on Maui and will point in the same direction, so that CCD artifacts caused by chip defects and cosmic rays can be removed. The four images are then combined to create an image equivalent to that from a 3.6m telescope— allowing it to see objects ten times fainter than other surveys. The entirety of the Hawaiian night sky will be observed 3 times each lunar cycle.

Twice a minute, the PS1 captures a 1,400-megapixel (1.4 gigapixels) image of a specific region in the night sky. That's 3,600 times bigger than the Hubble's main camera with a resolution 1,000 better than the Red One. If you printed that image at 300dpi, it'd cover half a basketball court. In all, it generates 5TB of data every night and maps the entirety of the sky every six months. "It provides the best early-warning system we have," according to Edo Berger, a professor with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The camera itself is 40cm square and packed with about 1.4 billion pixels. Individual CCD (charge-coupled device) cells are grouped in 8x8 squares on a single 5cm square silicon chip, called an orthogonal transfer array (OTA). There are a total of 60 OTAs in the focal plane of each telescope. The system is designed like this so that if one CCD cell or even a whole OTA fails, it alone can be swapped out instead of having to replace the entire array.

And it's not just dangerous space rocks the PS1 is finding. "We have been able to find more explosive astronomical phenomena (like supernova explosions) in one month than the entire astronomical community found in a whole year," Berger said, "We will also be able to map the solar system in much greater detail than was previously possible and to study the formation of the Milky Way galaxy through observation at an unprecedented sensitivity."

So thank you PS1 for giving us the heads up about killer asteroids and exploding stars... though if it gets me out of seeing another Tea Leoni movie, the end of the world doesn't sound too bad.

HD digital camera comes in smartphone-sized body

Originally posted at independent.co.uk

Relaxnews

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX55 lays claim to being the world's thinnest camera with full HD video at a skinny 12.2mm thin, however, smartphones such as Samsung's Galaxy S II and LG's Optimus offer Full HD 1080p video and measure just 8.5mm and 10.9mm thin respectively.

Luckily for Sony, the smartphones don’t ship with a 16.2 megapixel Exmor R CMOS sensor, a 10x zoom, or the ability to create super-detailed panoramas with a 42.9 megapixel resolution.

Sony’s Cyber-shot TX55 also boasts a 3D Sweep Panorama mode and can capture still images in three dimensions. It has a large 3.3" OLED wide touchscreen, built-in picture effects, anti-shaking system, and a battery life of 125 minutes (250 shots) with the LCD turned on.

Rival electronics maker Panasonic unveiled its latest digital camera offering during the week, the Lumix DMC-LS5. The 14.1megapixel entry-level compact camera is an easy-to-use camera with 720p video and the "added convenience" of running off AA batteries.

The Sony Cyber-shot TX55 will be available in September along with Sony's more curvaceous sibling, the Cyber-shot DSC-WX30. The Panasonic Lumix LS5 will be available in November. Pricing has not been announced.

Photo Booth | Party Supplies | Wedding Photos

Whether you are planning a corporate picnic, a back to school party or starting your new life as man and wife, we have a perfect way to make your special occasion unforgettable. Route 66 Photobooths offers your own photo booth to capture your guests expressing their individual personalities. Our portable photo booths can be delivered to your site. Whether you live in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Oklahoma City; Dallas, Texas; or even Fayetteville, Arkansas, we can help you party like a rock star!

Our photo booths can capture each guest or group of guests expressing themselves with our great dress up gear. Do you have a diva on the guest list who loves tiaras and boas or a down home boy who wants a cowboy hat to express who he is? We have multitudes of options that will help you and your guests make the special event all the more memorable and enjoyable.

If you are looking for wedding photo booths, we offer special packages to make your special day all the more special. Traditional photography is great to capture professional poses and special moments, but you want something more. Something that will give your guest a way to remember your wedding as something truly special and give you a way to see everyone that came to celebrate with you! Whether you are getting married in Tulsa, OK or Arkansas, Dallas Texas or Oklahoma City, we will get your wedding photo booths to your venue on time with professional delivery.

We also offer party photo booths that spice up any get-together. It offers a party favor for your guest as well as a CD with all the images for you, so you can remember all the guests and their individual personalities. If you're looking for something a little different, try our sticker photo booths, which print out stickers instead of photo prints. It's perfect for children's birthday parties, mitzvahs or pre-prom bashes. You will show your guests that you know how to party like a rock star!

Route 66 Photobooths are more than just a party favor. We offer photo booths for corporate events as well as wedding photo booths and party photo booths or our unique sticker photo booth. We offer professional delivery whether you are in Arkansas or Tulsa, Oklahoma; Dallas, Texas; or Oklahoma City, we will get your portable photo booth to you with time to spare. Our fast, high-resolution prints will keep your guests talking, or our sticker prints from our sticker photo booths will keep your guests smiling and going back for more! Lucky for you, the prints are unlimited, so keep your guests and your pocket book happy! Our portable photo booths offer something special—the chance to truly make your special event memorable for you and your guests and give you the ability to party like a rock star!

If you need any information on any of our portable photo booths, please do not hesitate to call Route 66 Photo Booth at 918-694-7113 or visit our website at www.route66photobooth.com.