geotagging
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ATP PhotoFinder mini geotagger doesn't require software
Most of the geotaggers we've seen have written location data to your photos using some fancy software on your machine after you've pulled images off your camera, but ATP's PhotoFinder mini moves the tagging step backwards in the process, writing geodata directly to images on your memory card. Like similar devices, the PhotoFinder mini records timelogged GPS data from a SiRF Star III chip while you shoot -- but when you're done, you insert your card into a base station, which tags your images using their EXIF timestamps. Sounds like a much simpler system than relying on third-party software to integrate with your photo-management apps -- we just wish the dock was also a card reader, which would make this a one-step process. No pricing info yet, but if this thing is reasonable, it'll certainly be tempting.[Via Photography Blog, thanks Mark]
Eye-Fi and SmugMug team up for geotagging
The Eye-Fi card is an SD card with a difference -- it has Wi-Fi built into it for easy camera-to-internet transfer of photos. It comes in three different flavors; Eye-Fi Home, Eye-Fi Share, and Eye-Fi Explore. The latter card (US$129) includes free Wi-Fi access at Wayport hotspots, unlimited geotagging using Skyhook Wireless (the same service Apple and Google use for location data on pre-3G iPhones and iPod touch handhelds), and an unlimited WebShare service for sharing photos.Eye-Fi and SmugMug (an online photo sharing site) announced a partnership providing a year of geotagging and hotspot access for SmugMug members using an original Eye-Fi Card or the $US99.99 Eye-Fi Share. SmugMug provides standard (US$39.95 annually), power user (US$59.95 annually) and professional ($149.95 annually) accounts, all of which provide ad-free, backed-up, and secure hosting of your photos.Do you use an Eye-Fi card with your digital camera? If you do, what service do you upload your photos to, and do you use the geotagging capability? Leave us a comment.
Maperture brings geotagging to Aperture
Maperture is a nifty little plugin for Aperture that lets you geotag photos in your library. We've covered quite a few different geotagging apps for the Mac, but this is the first one that works so well with Aperture as a plugin. Basically, Maperture integrates an interface to Google Maps which allows you to easily place your pictures on a map, saving the location information as metadata in the photos. Since it's a front end for Google Maps, you get its built-in features like the satellite and hybrid views, etc. In addition, Maperture will automatically place images already containing location information on the map for you. Now the only problem is remembering exactly where you were when you took the picture!Maperture is a free download from Übermind and requires Aperture 2.[via Macworld]
Sony Ericsson depletes stash of product names, announces slim T700 phone
Yippee, it's T700 day at Sony. First they launched the DSC-T700 digicam, now the T700 cellphone. The T700 candybar is mostly phone though with a smattering of camera just for kicks. We're talking quad-band GSM and UMTS/HSDPA 2100 with 4.5-hours of 3G talk and a 3.2 megapixel camera with cell-id geotagging and photo light. It measures just 10-mm thin with Bluetooth A2DP, stereo speakers, 2-inch TFT LCD, and 512MB of Memory Stick Micro (M2) storage tossed in the box. Available in "select markets" in Q4 for what's expected to be a middling price tag.
Nikon's Coolpix S60, S710, S610 and P6000 with GPS get outed
Well, well. What have we here? A few new Nikon's in the run-up to Photokina, based on looks alone. Up first is the previously rumored Coolpix P6000 (pictured front, £429; $835 $500), a high-end point-and-shoot with a patently absurd 13.5-megapixel sensor, a 4x optical zoom, 2.7-inch touchscreen monitor, built-in GPS for geotagging pics, full manual mode and the ability to capture in RAW. If that's a bit much for you, you can check out the ultrathin Coolpix S60 (pictured back, £299; $581 $350), which packs a 3.5-inch 16:9 touchscreen that controls just about everything, a 10-megapixel sensor, 5x optical zoom and an HDMI output. Next up is the S710, which unfortunately gets the aforementioned 14-megapixel sensor, a 3-inch LCD and a 3.6x optical zoom. Bringing up the rear is the 10-megapixel S560 (£179; $348 $250) and the S610 / S610c (£249; $484 $280), the latter of which includes WiFi for instant uploading. Look for most, if not all, of these to show up on shelves next month. Update: The whole gang just got official. Check out the details here. %Gallery-29195%Read - Nikon's Coolpix P6000Read - The rest of Nikon's stable
Nokia's $560 N78 now available in US
You've piddled around in our unboxing shots and replayed that hands-on video countless times. Now, the time has finally come to bust open the piggy bank and secure your very own Nokia N78. Dramatics aside, the HSDPA-packin' handset that also musters a 3.2-megapixel camera and A-GPS can now be purchased at Nokia flagship stores in Chicago and New York, numerous online retailers and the occasional mom 'n pop shop for around $560. So, who's getting one?
Samsung's i900 Omnia gets official, hands-on treatment
One of Samsung's worst kept secrets (if we can even call it that) has finally been "announced" by the company, and we're guessing the timing here isn't coincidental. Nevertheless, the Windows Mobile 6.1-powered i900 Omnia features quad-band GSM / GPRS / EDGE support, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, a built-in accelerometer, WiFi module, USB port, FM tuner, Bluetooth, 3.2-inch 400 x 240 resolution display and a 5-megapixel camera (with smile detection and geotagging). An 8GB and 16GB version will soon be available, and prospective buyers can expect to see Sammy's own TouchWiz user interface loaded on. Reportedly, the handset will be available later this month in undisclosed areas of the globe (probably after being showcased at CommunicAsia), while Europe is expected to see it in July. Hands-on photos await you in the read link.
Sellgino shows off GS-200 GPS Photo Tour geotagger
Geotagging devices are cropping up at a pretty steady pace these days, and it looks like you can now add one more company to the bandwagon, with Sellgino now showing off its GS-200 GPS Photo Tour device. Like other similar options out there, this one relies on your photo's EXIF data to match 'em up with the locations logged by the GPS receiver (a SiRF Star III, in this case), with some software provided to merge all that data together and plot out your travels on Google Maps. Somewhat more uniquely, this one will also double as a USB handset for VoIP calls (hence the design), and it can apparently be used as an external USB drive, though it's not clear how much storage space it packs. No word on a price or release date either, unfortunately.[Via Slash Gear]
iPhone 2.0 beta gets geotagging?
Here's a nice little tidbit: word on the street is that the most recent version of the iPhone 2.0 beta has added a "Location Services" feature that encompasses what appears to be GPS-based Google Mapping, along with geotagging for the phone's camera app. Sure, even if these shots are legit, Apple is late to the party here -- other featurephone users have been geo-tagging their shots for years -- but that doesn't mean we can't condescendingly congratulate Apple for these "achievements" while simultaneously pinning screenshots to the fridge alongside that 3G preferences pane and the hand-traced picture of a turkey in crayon.[Thanks, SuperSaf]
Altek reveals GPS-enabled 8MP point-and-shoot
Picking up a camera with built-in WiFi not good enough for you? How's about a point-and-shoot with integrated GPS? DigiTimes has it that Altek, a Taiwanese ODM / OEM maker of digicams, has just unveiled a camera with an 8-megapixel sensor, 3-inch touchscreen and GPS. The latter will enable users to "automatically record the longitude and latitude of where a picture is taken," giving the geotagging crowd one gigantic reason to take notice. Reportedly, the firm is already negotiating orders with potential clients in Europe and the US, and shipments could start heading out as early as this quarter.
Build your own Nikon D200 geotagger for under $100
While we wait patiently for camera manufacturers to realize that geotagging is a much more compelling feature than yet another megapixel, we'll be building this DIY GPS attachment for the Nikon D200 instead. Just like the $400 GeoPic II, the box is based on a SiRF Star III chip, but since you're building it yourself, you'll wind up shelling out less than $100. While you'll need a steady hand and a bit of soldering skill, it doesn't look too hard to put together -- so what are you waiting for? Instructions at the read link.[Via Make and hack a day]
ATP's GPS Photo Finder geotags your pix OTG
If you're heavy into geotagging -- and we think you are -- you may want to look into an interesting new product from ATP (no relation to the multifunctional nucleotide of the same name) called the GPS Photo Finder, a unique device which automatically tags your digital pictures with latitude and longitude, without the need for a PC nearby. The little rectangular box works by reading SD, MMC or Memory Stick data and then tagging pictures on the media with location coordinates (as long as your camera is synced to the clock of the Photo Finder). The internal 128MB of memory allows for roughly 550 hours of tracking, and the pictures / GPS data can be read by any application capable of handling geotagged images (such as Picasa). The device is scheduled for mass release in the first quarter of 2008, no word on price right now.[Via Coolest Gadgets]
GeoPic II geotags your Nikon shots, saves on battery
Geotagging kind of loses its appeal when it's cutting your battery life to ribbons, which is where GeoPic II comes in. The unit slides into your DSLR's hot shoe and embeds GPS information off of a SiRFstar III chip onto your photo's meta data, just like the competition, but what sets the GeoPic II apart is that in comparison to its predecessor, the unit get three times as much battery life, allowing you to tag a good many more photos. The device accomplishes this by only streaming GPS data to the camera when needed, which sounds like a given, but apparently took a good bit of R&D to pull off. There's no telling how this tech compares in power savings to NXP's swGPS, which was built with a similar purpose, but GeoPic II is available now for £200 ($408 US), while swGPS hasn't quite made it out of the labs just yet. GeoPic II is compatible with most Nikon DSLRs and the Fuji S5 Pro.
RapidoMap: slick geocoding for free
We've previously covered quite a few different applications to geocode your photos. Geocoding or geotagging is the process of adding location information (latitude and longitude) to the EXIF metadata of your photos, so you can see where they were taken. RapidoMap is one of the newest of these tools and looks to have a couple of particularly nice features. The application integrates a browser for Yahoo Maps which is how you actually locate your photos on the globe. It has an iLife media browser that makes it easy to get your photos in, and a built-in Flickr uploader.Best of all, RapidoMap is a free download from app4mac (points off to them, however, for using an installer package).[via Macworld]
Geophoto: Geocoding Refined
We've previously mentioned a couple of ways to do Mac-based geocoding-that is, applying location information to the EXIF meta data of your photos. Now comes the latest entry in the geocoding sweepstakes: Geophoto from Ovolab. Geophoto presents you with a Google Earth like interface that you can zoom in/out and drop your photos on the appropriate spot from the Finder, iPhoto, Aperture, etc.. In addition, you can subscribe to iPhoto Photocasts or Flickr geocoded photosets. Unfortunately, although you can search for particular locations by name, political boundaries (countries, cities, etc.) do not appear on the map, nor does the zoom go down to the street level, so putting a photo in exactly the right spot is difficult. (Ovolab says they are working on adding street-level detail in the future.)This is a very slick application, but that slickness comes at a rather steep price: $49.95. A demo (limited to 50 photos) is available for download. I think there is a lot of promise here, but this is a version 1.0 application and it shows.[Via MacMinute]
NXP Software's swGPS SnapSpot tech for GPS photo tagging
Sony got a good jump on the industry with its proprietary GPS-CS1 device for geotagging Cybershot pics, but NXP Software's new SnapShot is playing catch-up at PMA this week, and it looks like the company has a compelling offer. SnapShot reduces power consumption of GPS tagging by separating the capture and the processing of GPS signals, allowing the chip to be only turned on for a short time while obtaining a signal, and then having that data processed by your computer to be imbedded in your photos as they download. Of course, this means you'll have to run your pics through the swGPS software, which can be a bit of a hassle, but no more a hassle than having a GPS module half your battery life. Unfortunately, what NXP doesn't have is a product: they're showing of a credit card-sized accessory module, which could also be easily embedded into a camera, but they're leaving it up to other manufacturers to take the ball and run with it. Until then, we always have our hacks.
Mio readying c720 / c320 GPS handhelds?
Considering that Mio's known for cranking out a good variety of GPS handhelds, it's not too surprising to hear that the firm is readying a new duo of units to fill the voids surrounding the recently-unveiled c520. According to GPSReview, the c520 will slide into the middle position as the c320 and c720 flank both sides of the lineup, and while information on each of these presumably forthcoming units are a bit scarce at the moment, it seems that we could be getting a taste of something new. While both devices are slated to boast the same internal antenna, MP3 playback functionality, and SD / MMC support, the c720 could potentially get a two-megapixel camera affixed to the rear, which would likely be used to "store tracklogs" and enable geotagging. As with most not-yet-announced items, there's no word just yet on expected price or availability, but hopefully Mio won't keep us waiting around too long.
Sony's GPS-CS1 provides GPS for cameras
We'd like to think if you were carrying a 3.5-inch $150 GPS receiver on your person you'd be able to use it for more than just geo-tagging your Cyber-shot photos, but hey, that's Sony for ya. Their new GPS-CS1 tracks your coordinates while you're out and syncs your timed route to your PC with their Picture Motion Browser, which then uses the timestamps embedded in your photographs to provide maps with geographically coordinated "virtual push pins" for augmented photo library meta-posterity. It's an interesting and compelling concept even despite the typical Sony walled garden, but now that they've pioneered the method we think someone's liable to hack up a quick and dirty GPS-enabled smartphone app to do the same for the rest of Flickr-using types (and don't say Zonetag -- doesn't count).
Meetro released for OS X
Location based social-networking is a concept that has been bouncing around the net for a while now. The idea is to make getting together and interacting with people easier by sorting users by--or simply displaying--their geographic proximity to you. Services such as dodgeball have become hugely successful in mobile markets, and Meetro is attempting to do the same thing for desktops and laptops. With Meetro, you create a buddy list, and are alerted whenever someone on that list comes within a user specified distance of your current location. I'd get into the magic internet voodoo that Meetro uses to figure out where you are, but their FAQ page is currently down. Although Meetro is the first location-aware instant messaging service that I know of, I can't see it taking off. My issues with it are two fold; I have to create a whole new identity to use the service, and if I want to know where my friends are, I have to get them to do the same. Although the interface of the program has come a long way from when I first saw it in its early beta stages, its still not nearly as user friendly or intuitive as I would like. Ideally, I'd like to see a plug-in for iChat or Adium which allows me to see the location of my regular AIM/MSNIM/YIM buddies when I mouse over them. In any case, Meetro is certainly an interesting concept, and worth checking out, even if only to get a taste of what surely will be many similar services to come.Via MacNN
