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Gold iPhone 5S poses with current model in leaked group shot (updated with more shots, dual-LED flash?)
Yes, new rumors about iPhone colors seem to come along every day now. But these images from Weekly Ascii in Japan show an intriguing look at the champagne version of the alleged iPhone 5S model allegedly coming September 10, next to black and white iPhone 5 models... allegedly, of course. If real, they match up with previous images, while also showing a bit more refinement in the design and quality. The new color would be far from the blingy gold we saw before, though, perhaps ruining the dreams of the Chanel-bag-and-small-dog crowd. Grab your salt shaker and check after the break for another shot, or hit the source to see them all. Update: Yet more photos have surfaced, this time over at App Advice. The site's got some close-up shots to share with the world, offering a better look at that gold option and, if you look close enough, evidence of that once-spotted dual-LED flash. A slightly expanded hole now resides next to the camera lens, likely making space for a pair of LEDs on the incoming iPhone refresh. Scrutinize for yourself right after the break.
Getty Museum makes 4,600 high-res images free to download with Open Content Program
Journalists and news consumers alike may be familiar with the Getty name -- Mark Getty founded his namesake stock photography company in the 1990s, and Getty Images is responsible for distributing thousands of photographs every day. But many Southern Californians best know the family for its contributions to the J. Paul Getty Museum, which houses an enormous collection of art at two locations in Los Angeles. It's that latter institution that's making waves today, opening up its digital collection for anyone to view, download, modify and publish, free of charge. The Open Content Program enables access to 4,600 (and counting) high-res images, such as the photograph posted above. The organization's only requirement is that artwork be accompanied by an attribution line, such as the one published below. [Digital image courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program.]
Another Samsung flip-phone leaks out: the Hennessy, with dual 480 x 320 displays
In the realm of Samsung flip-phone rumors, color us confused. Earlier, we saw a manual on Samsung's site for a Galaxy Folder (SHF-E400K), with dual 800 x 480 displays, a dual-core Snapdragon 400 CPU, 2GB of RAM, gold trim and LTE support. Now, we're seeing a so-called Samsung Hennessy (SCH-W789), another dual-screen clamshell model with 320 x 480 resolution on both of its 3.27-inch screens, a quad-core 1.2GHz CPU, 5-megapixel camera, dual-sim support and, yes, a "Luxury Gold" color trim option. The latter model has leaked multiple times from Asian rumor sites, while the presence of a manual and photos for the Folder seem to all but confirm that model. We remain skeptical, though, as the sources may have mixed up the similar-looking models, and in any case they may never arrive in the US. If they're real, though, we've obviously underestimated the size of the cognac-and-cigar throwback market.
BlackBerry might re-try the Porsche Design thing with leaked P'9982
Those canny folks at Tinhte may have revealed yet another previously unknown handset, this time from BlackBerry. A leaked image appears to show a Porsche Design version of the Z10, packing what looks like a carbon fiber shell and other touches from the design house. Tinhte says the device would also run a custom version of BlackBerry 10 and cost $2,000 or more, while N4BB claims it'll be called the P'9982 (punctuation and all). Though the pictures look convincing enough, information about the naming, OS and price is purely speculative -- you might need an entire salt shaker to swallow it whole. Check the images for yourself at the source.
SkyDrive.com gets a slew of photo and sharing upgrades
Just about a week after rolling out offline file access, Microsoft's file hosting service is getting a number of updates. This time the features are rolling out to SkyDrive.com, starting with support for devices with high DPI. The site will detect and match photos and thumbnails to the resolution of your display. Also on the docket is photo rotation and the ever-important ability to view animated GIFs in their full stop motion glory. There are also a couple of updates on the sharing side of things, including the ability to share individual groups of files from anywhere in your account, while a new shared view shows files you've shared at the top and stuff that's shared with you below. Oh, and when you send someone a document now, recipients can edit it without having to sign in. All of those upgrades and more can be checked out in further detail at the source link below.
Daily iPhone App: Image Blender allows you to blend images with just a few taps
Sometimes during a spare moment, you will browse through your camera roll and notice two photos that would look great together. You don't have Photoshop on your iPhone and your Mac is miles away at home, so what should you to bring your composition to life? One easy-to-use solution for these moments of creative inspiration is Image Blender. As its name implies, Image Blender lets you blend two images together into one. Image Blender prompts you to choose a background image and a secondary image that is superimposed on top on the base photo. You can pull these images from your camera roll or snap them as a new photo. If you have Camera + installed, you can import images in from that app as well. Once you choose your two images, you can select a blending mode to get the right effect. All the familiar blends like Multiply, Overlay, Screen, Color Dodge and Color Burn as available within the app. You can also change the overlay image by resizing it, rotating it and applying a mask. The mask feature is extremely useful -- you can use it to remove background parts of the image that you don't want to overlay. I used the mask on a photo of my sleeping cat. I was able to trim the couch on which she was snoozing and then superimposed her sleeping on top of the dog. When you are done with your blended image, you can export the finished image to your camera roll or flatten it and add another overlay layer. Image Blender is perfect for iPhoneographers who want to mix and matches images while out and about. It's also great for creative types who want to combine their images in an artistic way. You can download Image Blender from the iOS App Store for $2.99.
Google Glass gets a one-stop shop for downloads, including a rooted image
Early Google Glass owners are dominated by developers and tinkerers, so it's only fair that they get easy access to the downloads they need. Appropriately, Google has quietly set up a page that centralizes both Glass images and kernel source code. The company has even saved owners from having to hack their eyewear the hard way -- one image comes pre-rooted for those willing to toss caution (and their warranties) to the wind. Most of us can't take advantage of these downloads for about a year or more, but those with early access can swing by the new code hub today.
Daily iPad App: NASA's Earth As Art shows us our beautiful planet
NASA has a series of excellent educational iOS apps that appeal to adults and kids alike. Most have a strong scientific bent, but if you lean more towards art than science, NASA has an iPad app for you, too. Mixing a little bit of earth and planetary science with a keen eye for art, NASA has created its Earth As Art app, an iPad title that shows off the unseen beauty of our planet. NASA's Earth As Art app picks the best images of Earth from the Terra, Landsat 5, Landsat 7, EO-1 and Aqua satellites. It also adds in some choice photos from the USGS Landsat image gallery. The satellites used to take these photos can measure light outside the visible range. The resulting images show you the Earth as you have never seen it before. The images are presented in gallery format, allowing you to see a thumbnail of each stunning photograph. You can also switch to list format, which is sorted by geographical location. When viewing an image, you can pinch and zoom to look closely at a specific section. Each image has a brief and only slightly scientific description that you can access by tapping on the "i" in the corner. You may not understand the scientific reasons why each photo looks the way it does, but this is an art-centric app. You are expected to sit back and enjoy the images, not necessarily dissect them. Besides stunning images, the app also has a several time-lapse photos that show changes in a specific location. I particularly enjoyed the Dubai series that shows the creation of its artificial palm islands and the rapid development of the area. The changes in just a short 11 years is unbelievable. The NASA Earth As Art app is available for free. It's an iPad app and requires iOS 4.3 or later.
Extract App Resource Icons with AppleScript
Whether I'm preparing for a demo or writing an article, blog post, book, or technical documentation, I often find myself performing the same set of repetitive steps. I need to navigate into an app's packaged resources folder, find one or more icon files, occasionally convert them to PNG and scale them, and add them to my document, Keynote presentation, etc. Fortunately, this doesn't need to be a manual process each time, thanks to the following AppleScript. Creating the Script 1. Launch AppleScript Editor (in /Applications/Utilities) and create a new script document. 2. Enter the following script into the document. NOTE: If you have any trouble following along, you can download the completed script here. 3. Run the script from AppleScript Editor, save it as an app, or add it to your script menu. Running the Script When you run the script, you're first asked to select an app from which to extract icons. Make your selection and click Choose. The script looks inside the app's /Contents/Resources folder for any files with an extension of .icns. If multiple files are found, it allows you to select the ones you want to extract. The default is all of them. Next, the script gives you the option to extract the .icns files themselves, or PNG versions. Click the button to make your choice. If you click the PNG button, then you're given a choice of sizes to create. You might not need the full sized icons, for example. You might only need 256x256 icons. Depending on the options you chose, the script extracts the .icns files, or it converts the .icns files to PNG and scales them, as needed. You're notified when the icons have been extracted, and they're displayed in the Finder for you. Now you can simply drag them to your document, presentation, file, etc., and you're good to go! Happy Scripting!
Skitch update (iOS and Mac) includes PDF annotation, stamps
If you are already a Skitch user and happen to have an Evernote Premium account, a new update now allows you to annotate PDFs using the app. Once you open a PDF in Skitch you'll get a 30-day trial of the premium PDF annotation feature. All users see a new way to add graphics to documents in Skitch: stamps. Like map markers, these can be used to call out specific points with an icon and text for easy viewing. There are many icons available for call outs, like an exclamation point or heart, and you can add text next to the stamp. Skitch has always been a handy tool for quickly marking up an image for collaboration, but the PDF features add to Evernote's suite of tools for managing, storing and now altering documents. Other PDF improvements include a text notation tool, plus all the shapes you could add to images. There's a summary feature of annotations for PDFs, which adds a page to a PDF you share, cleverly pulling out the marked sections and displaying them in a summary page. I can see this saving a lot of time when sending and marking up large documents. Again, any PDF over 25 MB will require a Premium account. Skitch is a free app but Evernote Premium is $5 a month or $45 a year.
Ask Massively: Whitebackgroundgate, image captions, and sockpuppets
OK, AndyMonahan. You win. You broke me. This Ask Massively is for you. AndyMonahan asked (approximately eight million times): It doesn't matter what games you cover as I can't spend more than five minutes on the site before my eyes bleed. Any news on a choice of background colour? Do you really think you're going to like the only answer you know I can give?!
Toy Fair 2013 features such wonderful toys
Toy Fair 2013 is happening up in New York this week, and in addition to those Tomb Raider minimates we spotted earlier, there are a bevy of various playthings, action figures, and replica items available from a number of famous video game franchises and settings. Just down below, we've compiled a few galleries of the video game-related toys on display for you to browse through at your leisure.Thrill, for example, at the newly revealed Motorized Patriot figure from Bioshock Infinite. Gaze upon the (still boxed!) figures from Batman: Arkham City, including Talia, Deadshot, and Bats himself. Or if full-sized replicas are more your thing, you can see some closeup shots of the Gears of War Judgement "Taxi Lancer," as seen above. Sure, your significant other may exclaim that you're too old to play with these toys, but they didn't say you couldn't look through a few galleries of them, right?
Google Images gets redesigned, focuses on speed and metadata
Page and Co. have just unveiled a new look for Google Images that places a premium on metadata visibility, speed and slick looks. After gathering feedback from both users and webmasters, Google redesigned its image search to feature relevant information right next to images and speed load times by no longer loading source pages behind selected graphics. Mountain View also designed the new layout with keyboard surfing in mind, to boot. The new UI isn't available across the board quite yet, but the search titan says folks will start to see the refreshed UI in the next few days.
Daily iPhone App: Bezel Photo adds some shapely fun to your photos
Bezel Photo lets you snazzy up your pictures with shaped frames and photo filters. The app allows you to take a photo with your camera or pull one in from your photo library. Once you've got the perfect shot, you can highlight a section of the image by adding a circle, square, triangle, diamond or heart-shaped frame to your composition. Filters, contrast/brightness sliders and optional color borders (US$0.99 in-app purchase) let you add some flair to your framed photos. When you are done tweaking your shot, you can export the photo to your camera roll or share it on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Bezel Photo is lightweight and easy to use once you get used to the icon-driven, gesture-based UI. The first time through you'll have to take a few minutes to tap on all the icons and figure out what they do. The second time you fire up Bezel Photo you will be able to breeze through the app like a champ. The only drawback I found while using Bezel Photo was the filters. Once I applied a filter, I could change it, but I could not figure out how to remove it. I could step back to the beginning to remove the filter, but then I lost my photo and had to start over again. Besides this small hiccup, Bezel Photo worked exceptionally well at adding a shaped frame to your pics, and I will keep it in my arsenal of photo apps for this purpose. You can download Bezel Photo for free from the iOS App Store.
Possible Asus ME172V tablet images leak out, give credence to earlier benchmark results
Sometimes, all a good rumor needs to bolster its street cred is a couple of images, and thanks to Notebook Italia and a Russian retailer, the 7-inch Asus ME172V has transformed from mere benchmark figures into a solid possibility. A site called oro1.ru is showing the device up for pre-order at 6,990 rubles (about $225) for a 16GB version, complete with 16GB, 1,024 x 600 screen, Android 4.1 and 1GB RAM. We espied the device earlier on GLBenchmark, which validates those specs while also showing a 1GHz CPU and Mali 400 GPU. Notebook Italia also scoped a photo on Picasa from an apparent 7-inch Asus ME371MG tablet, which allegedly sports a 1.2GHz Intel Atom Z2420 chip, 1,280 x 800 IPS display, 1GB of RAM, 3G and 16GB of storage. Considering the slim evidence, that slate's more doubtful, though, and we can't vouch for the Russian vendor's credibility either -- so you may wanna cool your jets until there's official word from the Nexus 7 maker. [Thanks Daki X]
Free online tool creates images with adjustable depth of field from standard DSLR video
We've seen a couple of ways to change the depth of field (DOF) in pictures after they've been shot, but those methods have all featured specific hardware for the job. Knowing that most aren't inclined to fork over the notes for such luxuries, online auteurists The Choas Collective have released a free online tool for creating DOF-changeable images -- and all you need is a basic DSLR that shoots video. Instead of fancy in-camera tech that captures all the focal range data in one instance, their method requires you to shoot a short, steady video of the subject scene while you manually change the focus from one extreme to another. Upload the clip, and the Collective's neat tool cuts each frame into a 20 x 20 grid and works out what's in focus. The result is an embeddable image which allows you to play around with depth of field on the fly. We know you're probably eager to try this out right now, but before you go looking for your camera, head to the source link for full instructions and tips for shooting the clip. Alternatively, if you're sans DSLR, check out the example of a DOF-changeable image we've hidden below the fold.
ZTE's Nubia Z5 turns to face the camera in 'leaked' photo
We already got a look at the rear of the latest China-bound smartphone from ZTE, but now the Nubia Z5 has turned around to shown us its face. The image was apparently "leaked" on Chinese social network Weibo by an enthusiastic PR manager at the firm. Things are still pretty sparse on the specification front, but -- all things going according to plan -- that 5-inch screen and italian design will be hiding quad-core internals and at least 13 megapixels of camera power. With the official reveal tipped for next week, though, it shouldn't be too long until we're seeing a whole lot more of it. Leaked or otherwise.
Grand Theft Auto 5 promotional materials, in-game locations leak out
Retailers running preorders for Grand Theft Auto 5 (which is coming out in spring 2013) were supposed to wait until November 5 to give away any promotional items. Pictures of what appears to be a little keychain image viewer have leaked, both revealing that as a pre-order bonus for the game and showing off some locations to be included in Rockstar's latest paean to the West Coast.Looking through the viewfinder on the tiny accessory shows off not only the Zancudo River, but also the Vinewood Hills (a play on Hollywood), the Del Perro Pier (likely Santa Monica's landmark playground), the Vespucci Canals (with a view of downtown), and Grapeseed (a winery area that's likely a tip to California's Napa Valley).Fans have also spotted a poster promoting the game (which you can see after the break below) featuring a woman wearing a Love Fist t-shirt, and a few of the keychain viewers reference an air travel company called "FlyUS", so it appears that GTA's usual parodic shenanigans are in order. We'll likely hear even more about this one in the next month or so, as Rockstar's promotional machine for the game finally starts kicking into gear.
Trippy Far Cry 3 trailer introduces Vaas, Buck, and a hungry tiger
The latest freaky trailer from Far Cry 3 asks you to meet Vaas and Buck, who are really just two misunderstood guys living in Ubisoft's virtual tropical island simulator. Vaas seems to have a thing for gas, as in pouring it all over you and some poor lady, all while pontificating on the quality of the common household cigarette lighter.And Buck... well, Buck might not be misunderstood. He might just be completely crazy. What are you doing with that knife, Buck? Don't bother coming any closer, please pal? How else are we going to stick around for the next trailer, which is going to show off a drugged-up group of native NPCs called the Tribe? How, Buck?%Gallery-166641%
Roku's official iOS and Android remote apps add 'Play on Roku' to stream music and pics
Along with price and release date details of its new Streaming Stick plus the launch of Vudu, Roku is announcing upgrades for its mobile remote control apps. Hinted at earlier this year when software updates went out to its newer boxes preparing them for future upgrades, the updates for its official app on Android and iOS bring a new "Play on Roku" feature. While it's not quite as feature-filled as AirPlay or DLNA streaming, it will allow owners to present images (JPG or PNG) and DRM-free music files (MP3 or M4A) right through their home theater with the press of a button. The update also includes international support, the ability to name different Roku boxes, a one touch quick rewind button and a few other tweaks. Currently there's no support for video or anything else more complicated, but we're told this is a first step as it plans to build up the second screen experience going forward. Hit your respective app stores to try out the new feature yourself, or check out the press release and demo video after the break.
