curves
Latest
Snapseed makes it easier to add drama to your photos
Snapseed doesn't see quite the amount of updates that other Google-owned products do, but each one lately has been pretty significant. The name of the game for the latest is the addition of curves. Essentially, what this new feature does is allow manipulating things like contrast, brightness and color intensity in a given image. Oftentimes, it's one of the easiest and most dramatic ways you can edit a photo.
EU ruling allows Apple to trademark its store layouts
Love or hate them, it's hard to argue that Apple's retail stores aren't highly distinctive. That's what the EU's highest court thought when it overruled a German verdict and said that Apple's store design could be registered as a trademark in Europe. Though Apple holds a store trademark granted last year by the USPTO, Germany's patent office rejected it, despite admitting that the retail layout was "an essential aspect of (its) business." The Court of Justice of the EU disagreed, saying that "an integral collection of lines, curves and shapes" (in Apple's stores) fulfill all the criteria for a trademark. It noted that any store design like Apple's which "departs significantly" from others in the same sector also merits trademark protection. Meanwhile, Apple may be planning changes to its stores anyway, having just hired ex-Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts as head of retail. For now, though, you're less likely to walk into a store like this in Europe.
Levytator claims to be the world's first bendy escalator, has the patents to prove it (video)
You've seen conveyor belts before, most probably at your local airport ferrying beaten-up luggage in circles, but for some reason the same tech doesn't seem to have been applied to people yet. Leave it to City University London prof Jack Levy to correct that oversight with his eponymous Levytator -- an escalator that follows freeform curves (but not convention!) and offers a better "cost per usable step" than your typical moving stairs. Patented in Europe, the USA, and even China, all this thing needs is the gentle push of a kindly investor -- see the video after the break to determine if it's worth your cash. [Thanks, Conrad]
Nexxion Curves: TVs in color
Mmmm, teevee. If we can't have 'em big, then please oh gods of the blessed manufacturing process, deliver them in a variety of fashionable colors. Rising from the offal of our sacrificial lamb come these new 15-inch neXXion CURVEs which feature a 4:3 aspect ratio, 1024x768 resolution, 500:1 contrast ratio, 160-degree visibility, 12-millisecond response, and slot loading DVD player. Can somebody, we said a-somebody, give us an "amen" brother!? Ok, then how about the $400 or so dollars these will pull when they hit Japan June 23rd? Yeah, didn't think so.[Via Impress]
