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Huawei caught passing off DSLR pictures as phone camera samples
Huawei doesn't have the best track record when it comes to advertising. Campaigns for both its P8 and P9 phones were revealed to be at least a little dishonest, and it seems the advertising around its newest launch, the Nova 3, falls into the same category.
Selfies are shifting our definition of beauty
Selin Pesmes says she uses selfie filters because they smooth out her skin and present a "better-quality version" of herself. That's likely the same thinking for the millions of other people who regularly post edited pictures of themselves on social media, which are often created using selfie-enhancing tech from apps like Instagram, Snapchat and FaceTune. While some of these filters are fun or creative (for example: They can give you dog or bunny ears), many of them are simply there to make you look prettier. With a quick swipe, they can get rid of blemishes, fix the nose you don't perceive as perfect or give you lips that resemble Kylie Jenner's expensive fillers. Some people love these selfie filters so much that they're going to plastic surgeons and asking for cosmetic procedures that'll make them look like a software-enhanced version of themselves.
Amazon Echo Look review: Good selfie taker, so-so stylist
Walking into my closet can sometimes feel like visiting Narnia. There are beautiful, whimsical friends in there, alongside a dizzying array of outdated pieces and random monstrosities from the early aughts. I'm someone who would benefit from Amazon's Echo Look, a stand-alone camera designed to snap photos of your outfits of the day and recommend clothes that suit your style. Aside from the chance to get reacquainted with my clothes, I also relished the excuse to take full-length selfies every day, all in the name of improving my already excellent taste.
Lenovo teases a true all-screen phone
Apple said its iPhone X is "entirely screen," but that's only if you ignore the omnipresent notch. Teasing a sketch and part of a render, Lenovo Vice President Chang Cheng showed off a smartphone that's nearly all screen. The Lenovo Z5, he said, would have a screen ratio of 95 percent and packs "18 patented technologies." He didn't say, however, exactly if or how Lenovo would integrate a front-facing selfie camera on the device.
This penguin selfie is the best thing you'll see all day
Animal selfies will never not be wonderful and lucky for us all, there's another one to add to the collection. As the Washington Post reports, Eddie Gault, a researcher with the Australian Antarctic Division, put a camera on the ground near an emperor penguin colony at the Auster Rookery in Antarctica. Shortly thereafter, a couple of penguins wandered over and started checking out the camera. And since it was already recording, it captured some fantastic, up-close images of the pair. You can check out the recording below.
Amazon’s Echo Look taps into Vogue and GQ for style help
Magazines are constantly looking at ways to bridge the gap between their paper-based and digital audiences, especially with an ecommerce slant, which has demonstrated its potential in a number of innovative areas, including augmented reality. Now, Condé Nast fashion bibles Vogue and GQ are experimenting with content on the exclusive Amazon Echo Look, which is basically Alexa with a camera (and is only available to purchase by invitation at this stage). From February 19, readers can take a selfie with the Look, send it to the app and get a host of celebrity and fashion content in return, some of which they can buy through the app, with Condé Nast getting a cut of the sale.
Behold, the bouncing selfie ball
Facebook's attempt to assess news sources through its users. Donald Trump's Twitter meltdowns. Instagram's influencers and ad-labeling challenges. Our lives have become dominated by social media and an incessant need to document our most mundane activities. Decades, or even centuries from now, future generations will look back on 2018 as the year we hit peak social media obsession. They will observe a gadget introduced this year called the Hypno Eye -- a mobile photo booth in the form of a selfie-taking ball -- and argue that it signified the beginning of the end for real-world interactions.
Meet the selfie drone that lives in your phone case
Imagine you and a group of friends are at the peak of a mountain after a long hike. It's sunset and the sky is alight; you want to take a photo. You pull out your smartphone, but instead of flipping it around to take a long-armed selfie, you unclip a tiny drone from the back of your phone, make it hover at the perfect height and snap a series of photos, no extendo-arms required.
Google puts celebrities to work answering your search questions
It's easy to find celebrity info if you're determined to look for it, but wouldn't you rather hear it straight from the source? You just might. Google is adding a feature to mobile searches in the US that has celebrities answering questions in selfie-style videos. If you want to know Gina Rodriguez's favorite movie or whether Will Ferrell can play the drums, you'll see a video that can take over the full screen.
Google's Santa hub has you taking 'elfies' around the world
Google has brought back Santa's Village for another year, and this time it's particularly trendy. Fire up the Santa Tracker app on your Android phone and you can play Santa Snap, a game that has you flying around Google Maps to take "elfies" at famous landmarks around the world. Basically, it's Amélie with Santa's helpers in place of gnomes. Other activities will pop up daily between now and December 24th, including a equally of-the-moment AI drawing game (a festive take on Quick, Draw), an elf dance coding game and a virtual snowball fight.
The best devices and apps to up your selfie game
The first time a stranger on the train told me I had a nice smile, I didn't believe her. Back then, I hadn't yet had my crooked teeth fixed, and my self-esteem wasn't anywhere as high as it is today. I was an ugly kid, and it took a shocking number of selfies to convince myself that I'm not an ugly adult. It may seem like a superficial pastime, but selfie-taking has real benefits.
Monkey selfie copyright battle ends with a settlement
The battle over who owns the rights to a monkey's selfies has raged for years, but it's coming to a quiet end. Camera owner David Slater, PETA and Blurb have reached a settlement in the case before a federal appeals court could rule whether or not Slater or PETA (on behalf of the monkey, a crested macaque named Naruto) owned the photos. The truce doesn't appear to alter Slater's original court victory, but it will have him donating 25 percent of future revenue from the selfies to charities that protect the habitats of Naruto and his species.
Nokia 8's dual-camera is good, but rival phones offer more
The Nokia 8 broke cover in the run-up to IFA 2017, so while it wasn't officially launched at the show in Germany, it's one of several phones vying for your cash ahead of a certain company's next phone. It's the most accomplished Android phone that Nokia has made, but with Nokia's tradition of pushing mobile-imaging forward, how does it fare against the mighty cameraphone competition in 2017? We took an early device around Berlin to see how it fared.
Researchers think algorithms can improve your trash selfies
Whether we take selfies to match our own perception of what we think we look like or trying to understand how others perceive us, there's no doubt that the self portrait is the defining photographic trend of our time. Chances are, we could all use a little help in upping our selfie game, which is where new research and the resulting algorithm-powered smartphone app comes in. Computer scientists at the University of Waterloo in Canada asked thousands of Mechanical Turk workers to rate artificial selfies to find the best choice across three dimensions: lighting direction, face size, and face position. They had workers rate the selfies and then created an app that acts as a "director" for selfies, helping you get your best possible self-portrait. The researchers then had real people take photos with and without the app and submitted the selfies to raters from Mechanical Turk. They found a 26 percent improvement in the ratings of self-portraits taken with the app than those taken without direction.
Snap's next purchase might be a popular selfie drone maker
Snap's hardware business could soon extend well beyond cute-looking camera glasses. Sources speaking to The Information understand that the Snapchat creator is in discussions to buy Zero Zero Robotics, best known for its selfie-oriented Hover Camera Passport drone. It's not clear how advanced the talks are, or how much money the deal would involve. However, this might not be an impulsive decision. Snap has reportedly been talking about buying drone makers over the past year, allegedly bought a tiny outfit in Los Angeles, and was rumored to have built its own drone. This would just be the next logical step.
Ai Weiwei's 'Hansel & Gretel' is a surveillance playground
Should you Instagram an art exhibit? Taking an art selfie might mean participating in the aesthetic experience, hacking and remixing it with your presence. Then again, maybe commoditizing the affair for likes detracts from art's ability to make us slow down and be immersed in something outside ourselves. At Hansel & Gretel, an interactive installation about modern surveillance by Ai Weiwei, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, selfies are part of the experience. The installation begins in a 55,000-square-foot dystopian playground. Set within New York's Park Avenue Armory, the hall is cool, dark and quiet, giving the illusion of privacy. But everyone who enters is tracked relentlessly from above by 56 computers with infrared cameras, projecting bird's-eye images of visitors onto the ground next to them, outlined with red boxes. Start walking and these ghostly portraits remain, leaving a digital trail. The spying feels aggressive when whirring drones survey the area, but they're just a distraction when everyone is already being tracked in silent, subtle ways without escape.
DJI's palm-sized Spark drone delivers epic selfies
Everyone loves taking selfies, even if they don't like to admit it. And if you're looking to take those snaps of yourself to the next level, DJI's new, cutesy Spark drone may be just for you. The company's latest drone is designed to fit on the palm of your hand and can be controlled with motion gestures, letting you take some over-the-top pictures and videos without much effort. You can wave your hand to have move it up or down, right or left and pull it toward or away from you, while a quick gesture that resembles you taking a picture will trigger the camera's selfie mode. The only drawback to this is that the Spark can only go up to 10 feet away from you, and that's where the Spark's companion app and remote control come in.
Amazon's Echo Look app is ready for your fashionable selfies
Amazon still hasn't said when it plans to ship its new Echo Look camera, but it appears that will be happening very soon. The company has started rolling out companion iOS and Android apps for the device, which costs $200 and is only available via invite to Prime customers -- at least for the time being. To refresh your mind, Echo Look is an Alexa-powered camera for people who want to take pictures or videos of their daily outfits, enhanced by an artificial intelligence algorithm that'll learn your habits and make clothes recommendations based on that.
Hover Camera can now follow and record its owner sans phone
The term "selfie drones" may suggest an added level of convenience, but in reality, these machines still share one common pain point with conventional offerings: they need to be connected to a mobile device for initiation, mode selection and landing. The folks over at Zero Zero Robotics, however, are tackling this issue with a software update for their Hover Camera Passport. As we previewed back at CES, this foldable, fully-enclosed drone is finally getting an "Owner Mode," in which it can follow and record its owner without ever having to turn on the smartphone.
The Morning After: Tuesday, March 21st 2017
Hey, good morning! You look fabulous. Welcome to the Morning After, and the start of Adult Week here at Engadget. (We mean it in the grown-up sense, not the sexy one.) We also break down Samsung's new, weirdly-named Siri competitor, and introduce the app the world deserves: a selfie rating service. Smile!
