viewfinder
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First look: Viewfinder supercharges Flickr search
The new Mac app Viewfinder by Connected Flow (developer Fraser Speirs is the man behind the FlickrExport plugins for Aperture and iPhoto) is designed for browsing/searching images on Flickr. This application provides many ways to work with the service's photos; you can select licenses to constrain your search to images you can use (such as Creative Commons or commercial use images), or search through the full text of tags and descriptions. Once you've found a photo, you can save a few steps in performing common tasks that would normally require you to download the image separately. You can set the selected image to your desktop picture in one click. You can also insert the selected image into a Keynote presentation immediately. You can see the selected image(s) on Flickr, or you can download them. Also, you can get a "quick look" of the image by pressing the space bar on your keyboard, just like you would using the Finder. If you're a frequent image searcher on Flickr, Viewfinder is a nice way to supercharge your search tasks. If you're not an image search pro, however, you're probably not going to need this application. Viewfinder requires Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard (which makes it Intel-only); Keynote '08 or later is required to insert an image into a Keynote presentation. It's available for a introductory price of US $23.60.
Olympus E-P2 tap keeps leaking, new viewfinder now on show
Now this is how you build up anticipation for a new product. Start off with just the name accidentally popping up on one of your corporate websites in order to get our imaginations flowing, then leak a teeny tiny image of the optional viewfinder. There's actually a good bit of info here -- you can tell the new attachment (titled VF-2) seems to be vertically adjustable, something missing from the previous generation, but there's also the bogus news that it'll fit only the forthcoming E-P2. The silver lining to that knowledge, though, is that the body we can only partially see must be the as yet unannounced E-P1 successor, which means the new Micro Four Thirds shooter will at least have the option of a black body... which some people care about. Deeply.
Kopin crafts world's smallest VGA microdisplay, 2k x 2k postage stamps up next
Think your cellphone display packs a lot of pixels into a small space? Pssh. Kopin Corporation has just announced the smallest VGA color-filter liquid crystal display, checking in with a 600 x 480 resolution and a 0.27-inch (diagonal) size. The feat was accomplished by shrinking the color dots to 2.9 x 8.7 µm from 3.75 x 11.25 µm, and according to the company, it's a huge step in reaching its goal of creating a "2,048 x 2,048-resolution display in a size smaller than a typical postage stamp." Already, the firm has stated that it can concoct SVGA (800 x 600) displays at 0.34-inches, XGA (1,024 x 768) displays at 0.44-inches and and SXGA (1,280 x 1,024) displays at 0.56-inch using the same color dot size, which will apparently be used in digicams, camcorders and possibly even handsets. And you thought that D90 panel was something to ooh and ahh over...
Rohm's miniscule OLED shown at CEATEC
Rohm certainly has a thing for cranking out diminutive devices that elicit attention, and the firm chose CEATEC as the venue to demonstrate its long-awaited full-color OLED that's "smaller than a fingernail." According to a company spokesperson, the 320 x 240 resolution display measures around four- by three-millimeters, is "embedded in a prototype chip and is designed for use in a video-camera viewfinder." Notably, the unit actually requires humans to view it under a microscope in order for it to be clearly seen, and although nothing was said about a commercialization date, it was suggested that Rohm is already working up a similar version with twice the pixels.
