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Checking out the Wii Photo Channel
In sitting down with the Wii to post messages and check out the overall package, we stumbled across Nintendo's Wii Photo Channel. Written off as merely a tacked-on, unnecessary "feature" for the console, we can't find many arguments against that claim. Maybe if Nintendo had their servers turned on so that we may connect to share them online, then perhaps we could find some more worth. Still, it's a good way to waste a couple minutes and that's exactly what we did in capturing video, embedded into the post after the break.
Video Sandwich: October 24, 2006
The PSP can be a lot of things. It can take pictures, for example. Sony Japan's newest ad shows off the upcoming PSP camera and all the fun things you can do to harass Japanese businessmen. Awesome~! I hope once the device comes to the States, all members of the press start carrying this peripheral around: photos like these will make the news so much more interesting, because everything's at least 30% funnier when a giant afro is transplanted on top of someone's head!But once you've taken such classy photos, you'll want to show them off... with style. An enthusiastic fan has crafted an elaborate, elegant wooden frame for his PSP. Just drop the PSP in and let it display your photos. It'll look a whole lot cooler than a traditional photo frame, and it'll kill a lot less trees. And we love trees, don't we?
Have GBA, will travel
Here's one from the just plain unusual file: one intrepid family has decided to turn traveling around the world into a photo project starring the GBA. Rather, a young boy playing a GBA, hence the pun in the name of the set at Flickr -- "Game Boy Around the World." Ah, Game Boy-spotting, Game Boys in the wild, Game Boys gone wild -- the humor potential here is almost frightening in its vastness. Too bad the photos are actually good; we'd much prefer to crack jokes, but we're too busy goggling at all the wonders. We just hope the kid featured in the pictures took some time to look around as well ... after all, this project is funny because it's true.[Via Joystiq]
Confirmed: Wii has MP3 playback support
In the most recent "Iwata Asks" interview, Iwata talks with Kouichi Kawamoto about the Photo channel for the Wii. Aside for some basic Photobooth functionality, Kawamoto mentions an interesting tidbit: MP3's stored on the SD card along with the photos will be played in the background during a slideshow. While this seems horrendously not cool, consider the fact that this functionality is in fact very similar to the Xbox 360's ability to play personal tracks during gameplay. In fact, a developer could most likely easily implement this functionality into any game they desire, so keep on the look out. If nothing else, it's an easy cop-out if Nintendo wants to add an extra "music channel" to expand functionality.
Target gets ready for Wii mania
What's next, holiday merchandise? Oh, wait, that stuff's already up in many stores. Guess we shouldn't be too surprised then that some Target stores are setting aside space for the Wii despite the long (and sadly empty) weeks remaining until release day. Have you seen something similar at Target -- or any other store? Let us know! Take some pictures, tell a story, grab a video -- whatever works for you. Just be careful about taking pictures when and where it's not welcome. We wouldn't want you to have to throw down just for us.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom + Flickr Uploadr
Fraser Speirs already released a Flickr plugin for Aperture, but what about the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom users in the crowd (John Gruber has a nice piece on the ridiculousness of adding the 'Photoshop' prefix to Lightroom's name)? As it turns out, through a little trickery, Lightroom can be tweaked for uploading your images to Flickr.This Mac OS X Hints post describes the simple setup, as well as a couple of drawbacks, to using Lightroom and the official Flickr Uploadr tool in conjunction; one simply needs to change the external editor preference to the Flickr Uploadr, then chose the Uploadr as the option from the Post-processing page during an export. Check out Mac OS X Hints though for more details and possible inspiration for asking Mr. Speirs (nicely) for a true-blue Lightroom Flickr plugin.
Play with the Chotto Shot official website
The PSP camera peripheral comes with software called Chotto Shot. It reminds me a lot of the Game Boy Camera from way back in the day (and Nintendo's Photo Channel on the Wii): you can manipulate the pictures and videos you capture and make them more colorful, lively, or simply disturbing (pictured above). The Japanese official website features tons of footage from the game, and to be honest, I sort of want one now. But, will the novelty of making sticker picture-quality images stay for long?[Via PSP-Vault]
TGS 06: PS3 XMB gets very sexy
We all know the PlayStation 3 will have the same XMB as the PSP. However, there are some very pretty improvements. Phil Harrison demoed the console's photo ability and it is absolutely beautiful. Unlike the PSP, the PS3 can manipulate your photographs and make them appear as physical photos in a 3D environment. With upgradeable firmware, the PS3 will be able to have even more functionality as well.The browser will also have multiple tabs, a la Firefox. The console will also support one universal login for online games (according to the 1UP Show). Hopefully, the improvements made to the XMB on the PlayStation 3 will find their way over to the PSP in a future firmware version.
Delkin eFilm ExpressCard 34
Finally, something to do with the ExpressCard slot on your MBP. Storage and digital photo accessory supplier Delkin Devices today announced their eFilm ExpressCard 34 is available for pre-orders. To be officially unveiled at Photokina and shipping Oct. 16th, the EC-34 is the first Compact Falsh-to- ExpressCard converter. It is plug-and-play on both Macs and PCs in both 34mm and 54mm EC slots, and will allow photographers and others to transfer photos and other data directly between their CF cards and computers at 20MB/s without the need for external USB readers. All I can say is: Delkin, where were you when I came back from vacation this Summer?From the press images, it looks like there is also an eFilm EC-34/8GB CF Card combo pack in the works, but it's not listed in the store yet.
The skinny on Wii Channels
The new interface of the Nintendo Wii is organized into "channels", each containing different services and functions. The English version of wii.com gives a nice summary of the initial channels. Here's what they do: The Disc channel is simply for playing games based off of optical media, i.e. Wii or Gamecube discs. Nothing fancy here. The Mii channel allows a player to create his or her own digital avatar. These avatars will most likely be your online "identity", but will also appear in certain software, such as Wii Sports. The Photo channel is a channel that allows you to view and share digital photos and movies from an external source. The Wii also contains an iPhoto-like functionality, allowing you to touch up, alter, and distort your photos to your heart's content. The Forecast channel will give you a look at local weather. You can also zoom out in a very Google Earth-esque fashion, and view data for pretty much anywhere in the world. The News channel is for, well, news. Various topics will be broken down into topical categories for your viewing pleasure. Remember, this and the weather service are free of charge. The Wii Shop channel is, as expected, the online marketplace for the Wii. You'll mainly be in here buying games for the Virtual Console, but you can also purchase Opera's web browser and whatever else Nintendo decides to charge. Hopefully, extra multiplayer maps and the like will remain free, but we suppose that's up to the publisher. The Virtual Console channels are the channels that allow you to play games from any of the various systems supported: NES, SNES, N64, Sega Genesis, and the TurboGrafx-16. The Internet channel allows one to surf the internet. However, this is not free; an Opera browser must be purchased for a currently unknown price. However, the browser supports Adobe Flash, AJAX software, and essentially every feature a major browser should; it's a nice step up from the DS version. The Message Board channel allows users to post messages on various boards, and send messages or photos directly to PCs or cell phones. This is also the service through which games will be updated and patched. And there you have it! Looks like we're gonna be doing some hardcore channel surfing when the Wii hits the streets.
Say hello to homebrew on 2.80 PSPs
Over the past few weeks, the homebrew community has been working hard on a new exploit in PSP firmware that would allow users of PSPs 2.0+ (including the recently released 2.80) run homebrew without Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories. NOPx86, a team of coders, worked to take advantage of a flaw in libtiff. What that means is that the potential for homebrew is here: and it's easy as well. The team released a "Hello World" application as a proof of concept, and you can try it out yourself here. Just extract the image, place it in PSP's PHOTO directory, and then try to view the image. You'll see the homebrew message working, even on a 2.80 PSP!This is absolutely fantastic, especially because of how incredibly easy this is. Try it out, and who knows what kind of exciting new developments we'll see?[Thanks PSPFan]
Google releases Mac photo uploader for Picasa Web Albums
No, Google hasn't brought Picasa to Mac OS X, but they did release two tools to let Mac users upload photos to their Picasa Web Albums service (think: 'Google does Flickr'). The first app (honesty a bit of a surprise) is a full-on plugin for iPhoto to let users upload their images right from within Apple's popular photo-management app. The second tool is a good ol' fashioned stand-alone uploader for those who want to fly solo.I've never used the service before myself, though I signed up when Google first opened it up (I like to make myself available, when possible). I just took the iPhoto plugin for a spin and it works well, though I don't think Picasa Web Albums is aimed at your typical Flickr user (its largest and most obvious potential competitor). Most of the social aspects of Flickr, such as tagging, groups, etc., don't exist in Picasa Web Albums - it seems much more geared to those who mainly want a place to upload their photos online, with a simple gallery that is easy to link family and friends to (it's also obviously geared towards Picasa users on Windows too). Users can chose whether to make uploaded albums public or private, which is where one of Picasa Web Albums' social features comes into play: users do have the ability to set other users as favorites in order to more easily view images and albums they upload (though, strangely, I can't seem to find any kind of public area where I can go hunting for other users). On the downside, however, Picasa Web Albums only offers a measly 250MB of storage space for free, with a $25 upgrade option for an extra 6GB of space.All in all this is a handy service and the new tools are a great gesture on Google's part towards the Mac community. However, due to Flickr's overwhelming popularity (especially among Mac users) and a seeming lack of integration with other Google tools (where are my GmailThis! and BlogThis! buttons?), I think Picasa Web Albums has a little ways to go before it gains any significant interest among Mac users.
Change desktop wallpaper with an Automator action
Sometimes randomly rotating your desktop wallpaper through the Desktop System Preferences pane is just a little overkill. Wouldn't it be nice if you had a simple drag-and-drop Automator action for setting your own wallpaper whenever your heart desired a change of pace? Then why not use this macosxhints post to make one. A few simple steps creates an action that you save as an app somewhere (I named my action 'Wallpaper') and simply link to in your Dock. For added convenience I saved it as a Finder plugin so I can right-click any picture I find to quickly chose Automator > Wallpaper from the context menu. Handy.As an extra tip: make sure you turn off automatic wallpaper rotation in the Desktop Preferences pane if it's on. Otherwise, at least from my testing, this action won't work.
Fraser Speirs: "who wants me to make an ApertureExport?"
Fraser Speirs, creator of the highly useful FlickrExport and other apps, is asking for feedback on his blog as to whether users would be interested in a similar ApertureExport app. He warns that ApertureExport wouldn't be quite as well tied into Aperture as FlickrExport is to iPhoto, and this is due to the current version of Aperture (apparently) lacking a plugin API.Still, if the idea of being able to point at a feature in your own copy of ApertureExport some day and telling your friends "that was my idea!" sounds appealing, head over to Mr. Speirs' post and toss in your $0.02.
'Smart' photo-sharing site releases Mac OS X upload client
Riya is a unique photo-sharing site I remember hearing on Inside the Net (iTMS link) a while ago: it can look at your photos and learn to recognize things like faces and text, essentially bringing that whole Star Trek thing (or 'Minority Report thing', for those wearing tin foil hats) one step closer to the image sharing and tagging experience. It sounds like a great concept, though I haven't played with it much since they haven't offered an upload client for Mac OS X - until now. Macworld is reporting that Riya has indeed released a Mac-friendly client (you need an account for that link to work), removing my only excuse for not signing up yet.If you've been using the service and/or play with this client, feel free to post your thoughts on the experience, then go let Flickr know they need to make an acquisition so their users don't have to spend so much time tagging photos anymore.
Adobe releases Lightroom beta 3
This one slipped past us: Adobe has released a third beta of Lightroom, their Aperture-competitor for professional photographers. The release notes are in PDF (I guess HTML is old news for the company who owns both Flash and Acrobat), but overall, improvements include: enhancements to import/export options, live comparisons of image adjustments in Before and After previews, a new straightening tool and a new heavily-requested Web export module with HTML and Flash options.The new beta can be had here by Mac users, while a beta for Windows (oddly) is yet to be seen. If, for some odd reason, you'd like to be notified when a beta is available for Windows, a sign-up notification form is here.[thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
Flock releases 0.7 beta
Finally, after months of small alpha version bumps, Flock, the social web browser based on Firefox, has unleashed a 0.7 beta with a whole slew of updates, improvements and bug fixes. Along with a site re-design, check out their blog entry for a thorough rundown of what's new and what's still on the way.This beta-worthy version has been a long time coming, and my copy is downloading as I write this. In case you aren't familiar: Flock has Firefox at its core, but includes a ton of features and capabilities built around the concept of using and interacting with the web - not just surfing it. Features like built-in blogging, uploading to/keeping tabs on Flickr and integrated del.icio.us bookmarking are all on the feature list. It's quite a slick browser if you've been looking for a solid, integrated tool for both browsing and participating in the web. Check it out.[via Download Squad]
First Wii development kit photo
There you have it folks, the first picture of a Wii developer's kit. What's odd is how this is going against the current statements where developers are calling the Wii developer's kits extensions of GameCube hardware, even in looks. Could those developers have not received the finalized developer's kit and this is in fact the real deal? [Via Digital Battle; Thanks Erick G!]
Widget Watch: iPhoto mini 1.3 gains a new UI, more
We blogged the iPhoto mini widget back in December, and since then it has received quite the feature update and face lift. The widget is now resize-able and just plain sexier. In addition to being able to browse all your iPhoto albums complete with image counts, you can now set the current image as your desktop wallpaper with a single click. The little gear icon you see offers the ability to open the current image in four apps: Preview, Mail, Safari and a custom app you can define on the back of the widget.The iPhoto mini widget is free and available from DashboardWidgets.
Memorex iMove elbows into the iPod boombox market
In a market already crowded with iBooms, iJams, and Hi-Fis, do we really need yet another iPod boombox to choose from? Memorex thinks so, as evidenced by their recent introduction of a 12-watt 'box -- called, unsurprisingly, the iMove -- which accepts fourth and fifth generation 'Pods along with nanos, the iPod photo, and even the good old Mini, plus anything else you can plug into its auxiliary port. Also sporting a remote, AM/FM tuner, and SRS WOW sound enhancement, the iMove can be powered from your car or boat's cigarette lighter, eight D batteries, or a regular wall outlet -- and by using the latter option, you can simultaneously charge whatever iPod you have docked as well. No word yet on a release date, but as long as its cheaper than the Hi-Fi (it is, at around $100) and more polished than models like the Toolbox Player or iBoom (which it seems to be), it should probably be able to eke out some decent sales when it finally hits Wal-mart shelves.[Via fosfor gadgets, thanks Mikael S.]
