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'World of Warcraft' is getting a selfie camera -- don't tell Leeroy Jenkins
Okay, so at last count World of Warcraft had a Pokémon clone built into it, an in-game web browser of sorts and even a tribute to the late Robin Williams. Now it has another way to distract you as the epic battle between the Horde and Alliance rages on in the background: selfies. Naturally. As our sister site WoW Insider reports, the camera is part of a rare late-game quest in the forthcoming update (6.1 if you're keeping track at home), and there's a follow-up mission that rewards virtual narcissists with a trio of camera filters for the self-aggrandizing new feature. Your toon'll even mug for the camera with duckface or perhaps something a little more charming and less 2009 as you show off that sweet new bit of armor.
Patch 6.1: Finally, you can take a S.E.L.F.I.E.
I honestly didn't know how much I needed this particular item until I finally managed to snag one on the PTR. Behold, patch 6.1 is bringing us the S.E.L.F.I.E. Camera, a marvelous device that finally lets us egomaniacs turn our cameras on the one person in game we care about the most -- ourselves. The camera is a reward from a new, rare level 100 garrison mission called Field Photography -- a four hour mission that requires no special traits to complete. Simply get the mission to show up on your list and the camera is pretty much yours. The interface for the camera is really easy to use -- simply click the item to use it, and your camera will automatically turn around to face you. You can swivel the angle to whatever you feel is most pleasing, and press 1 to snap a photo. No need to alt-z the frame out of the picture first, the camera automatically does it for you, snapping the screenshot and putting it in your screenshots folder. As the camera faces your character, they'll make a host of suitably emotive faces, so you don't have to worry about smiling for the camera.
Panasonic's mirrorless GF7 gets classic looks, trendy selfie features
If you just can't get enough of you, Panasonic has joined the recent parade mirrorless cameras marketed at selfie photographers. The Lumix GF7's Micro Four Thirds, 16-megapixel sensor will give you much nicer shots than your smartphone ever could without being a burden to haul around. Panasonic transformed the GF7 into a more classic-looking camera than the GF6 and managed to shave a few millimeters from the already-small form factor, too. The 3-inch, 1.04 million-dot screen switches to selfie mode as soon as it's flipped around, and built-in WiFi lets you activate the shutter via a smartphone. It's also nicely specced with 1920/60p video, 25,600 ISO and a 5.8 fps shooting speed. You'll be able to get one February 20th for $600, with a 12-32mm f/3.5-5.6 lens that's wide enough to capture you and at least several pals.
Sling TV's success, selfie brushes and other stories you might've missed this week
This week has been a doozy: We got an update on Google's Project Ara, learned about the possible future of television from our Best of CES winner, watched a Beachbot draw Disney characters on the shoreline, oh, and did we mention our hands-on with a selfie brush? (C'mon, you know you're at least a little intrigued.) Details on all these things and more could be yours -- simply read on past the break.
The Big Picture: NASA's first high-res picture of the 48 states
It's not quite a selfie in the traditional sense, but this composite image from 1974 was the first complete shot of the 48 states. It was stitched together from snaps taken by NASA's Earth Resources Technology Satellite, with each picture taken at the same altitude, 560 miles, using only the red portion of the spectrum. In the real world, the shot measures 16 x 10 feet and was originally used by map makers, geologists and environmental researchers to better know their homeland. So, if you're ever hassled about your incessant selfie-taking, just point out that NASA was doing it well before anyone else, and with public money, too.
Premier League football clubs are banning selfie sticks from stadiums
Selfie sticks, whether you love them or hate them, are now officially a thing. Their numbers appear to have exploded over the Christmas period, allowing new owners to begin working on their very best self portraits. The increase of these telescopic rods hasn't gone unnoticed, though, as some Premier League football clubs have began outlawing their use inside stadiums. The Mirror reports that North London clubs Arsenal and Tottenham have now banned selfie sticks from the Emirates and White Hart Lane over fears they could be used inappropriately on matchdays.
HTC Desire 826 gets an UltraPixel front camera for better selfies
While CES isn't usually the kind of show that HTC would make a big deal out of, the company somehow decided to use this opportunity to throw out a new mid-range flagship device: the Desire 826. While it's positioned as a follow-up to the Desire 820 (which is only four months old, by the way), the new model has clearly taken a design cue from the Desire Eye: You get the same hidden BoomSound front-facing stereo speakers (now with Dolby Audio), the same anti-slip soft sides and the same overall look. But rather than using a 13-megapixel front-facing camera, the Desire 826 touts HTC's famed UltraPixel imager on the front, meaning you can take faster and brighter selfies even in poorly lit environments. Great idea, though we wish HTC had come up with this before someone else did it.
10 things you have to watch over the holidays
So you've got a few days off, and you're probably trapped with family to boot -- this calls for some serious binge-watching. Now is the perfect time to catch up on all of those movies and shows you couldn't make time for during the year. To help guide you through the plethora of options, we've compiled a list of the best stuff with a geeky bent you just have to watch. We've avoided some of the more well-known choices (but seriously, Interstellar is worth a shot while it's in theaters), and have instead focused on bringing to light some more obscure choices. They're not all family-friendly, but they're all worth your time.
Selfit takes selfies to a new level with mixed reality
Selfit takes selfies to the next levels, incorporating mixed reality to give the effects of various backgrounds, animations and wearable accessories among other things. It's similar in nature to Photo Booth but has a wider array of customization options and uses slightly different technology. Plus, Selfit allows for multiple effects to be on at once to create unique combinations of playful photos and videos. The app is free for iPhone and iPad. The app requires that it detect your face before you move forward with any of the effects. These aren't the typical effects you see in fun photo editing apps that just alter the colors or distort the pixels. Selfit's effects revolve around the location of your face and facial features. The face detection was very good at detecting my face in standard lighting. It offers up some tips beforehand as well suggesting that you stand in a well-lit environment and ditch the glasses if you have them. Selfit has various types of effects but I'm going to attempt to categorize all of them down to three: backdrops, facial effects and face replacements. Backdrops are the most generic of the three but they work pretty well and Selfit gets creative with the options. In giving the effect that your face is in front, it fairs just okay. Keeping in mind that the app is free, though, it's pretty good - better than Photo Booth on my Mac, that's for sure. It doesn't require you to step out of frame as it samples the background and applies the backdrop. Instead, the app seems to determine the border around your face and body and then feather it while applying the effect around all sides. This means it's not exactly picture perfect, but certainly adequate. Facial effects are where Selfit shows off its capabilities best. These are the effects that track specific aspects of your face. As a result, the mixed reality allows you to "wear" funny sunglasses, masks, facial hair, face paint and a remarkable amount of additional items. The face paint especially is eerily realistic and even accurately adjusts if you move your eyes or lips. Face replacements make up the smallest category but they're too hilarious to ignore. These cover your face entirely with some odd character and effect like an ogre and a skull, but they follow your movements. On top of being able to mix and match all of these effects, Selfit bundles a few together for you in Scenes. The underwater scene puts goggles around your eyes and has fish swimming around in the background. When you take a photo or video, it's up to you to save it within the app, to your camera roll, or share it elsewhere. You may notice that not all of the effects are readily available for use. Some have locks on them. To unlock them, you need to "buy" them with sharing points. It's an in-app currency, but it never requires spending real money. Instead, you earn sharing points every time you share a photo or video using Selfit. Major props to Selfit for not taking the conventional give-me-your-money route. Selfit is a terrific amount of fun and works well to spice up those selfies with some imaginative decorations and mixed reality effects. The design is simple enough to navigate and with loads of customization options, anyone can find at least something to get a chuckle out of. Get Selfit in the App Store for iPhone or iPad.
Casio's 'Kawaii Selfie by Mirror Cam' is exactly what it says it is
Casio's camera division isn't afraid to admit that it's cashing in on the selfie hype big time, but for those who aren't willing to shell out over $1,200 for the EX-TR50, there's now a much more affordable option. The "Kawaii Selfie by Mirror Cam" aka Exilim MR1 costs about $330 in Hong Kong and is rather self-explanatory: Its 14-megapixel module is hidden right behind a curved mirror for the convenience of taking selfies, with the trade-off being you get a hilariously slow f/5 aperture due to the light reflection (and that little LED flash really won't help much in the dark). As for the "kawaii" part, you can use the software to enhance your skin tone plus smoothness, and you can even see a live preview on the screen (which obviously isn't so useful when taking those selfies).
Viral Vine video reveals the celebrity torment of never-ending selfies
First known selfie, taken by Robert Cornelius in 1839 There is little doubt that 2010 was a pivotal year for the selfie -- Apple introduced the iPhone 4 with its stellar front-facing camera and popular filter photography app Instagram made its grand debut. The collision of these two forces in that year led to the explosive online growth of this self-portrait-style of photography. Fast forward four years and the selfie remains a big hit, with even celebrities contributing to the trend. It's not always a bed of roses, though, as shown in this viral vine of Liam Payne, singer and songwriter for British-Irish boy band One Direction. Check out the look he gives in between each lovely selfie smile. It's amusing and sad at the same time. Via Petapixel
Pinhole camera selfies are way cooler than whatever the hell you're doing
Sure, you can do a regular digital selfie, add an old-timey Instagram filter and call it a day. But photographer Ignas Kutavicius was having none of that, and decided to create a head-mountable pinhole camera -- where a small opening acts as a lens to create an inverted image. He told PetaPixel that he fabricated it from an old energy drink can, with the images captured on on black & white photo paper. The long exposure (typically several seconds) results in a blurred background, while the fixed head perspective keeps the subject's face sharp. Kutavicius said the images present "a fun reflection on what selfies could have looked like" during the early days of photography. Though according to the actual first known selfie, not really.
Oppo N3's motorized swivel camera takes selfies to the next level
If you thought Oppo was done with making eccentric selfie phones, you're wrong; the Chinese company is back with a new model dubbed the N3 to replace the N1 from last September. The iconic swivel camera at the top is here to stay, but this time we have a 16-megapixel f/2.2 module with Schneider optics, and it's motorised! It's actually much cooler than it sounds: You can quickly flip the camera with a flick gesture on the screen or on the fingerprint sensor on the back -- more on that later. In addition to that, the N3 comes with a new O-Click Bluetooth remote that not only acts as a remote trigger, but it also lets you adjust the camera's angle using the extra buttons.
Nokia Lumia 735 review: more than just a selfie phone
Last year's Lumia 720 was an awkward middle child. It was more powerful than its 620 cousin, but not so much so that you'd consider it over the 820 unless you just had to have the first budget Lumia with LTE. If you're going to pay a lot more, why not get a lot more? Flash forward to 2014, and the Lumia 735 follow-up (along with the dual-SIM 730) appears to have more of a reason for being -- namely, catering to a selfie-loving public. With a 5-megapixel front-facing camera, more powerful internals and a €219 ($279) price, the 735 promises great self-portraits without decimating your bank account. But is it necessarily your best choice for those "I was there" photos? And more importantly, is it worth buying over both other Windows Phones and the other devices in its price class? You're about to find out.
Old Navy's machine turns your selfies into giant balloon art
Want to do more with your selfies than post them on Instagram for the umpteenth time? Old Navy might have a way to make them stand out... if just for a brief, glorious moment. The clothing shop is kicking off its 20th birthday by creating the Selfiebration machine, a 15 foot tall behemoth that converts Twitter photos into balloon art. All you do is tweet a photo to Old Navy with the #selfiebration hashtag -- after that, the device (co-designed by Deeplocal) rasterizes your self-portrait and displays it on a grid of nearly 1,000 balloons that inflate to different sizes.
HTC's next Desire phone reportedly captures 13-megapixel selfies
If you've wanted to shoot 13-megapixel selfies with your phone, you've usually had to get either a knock-off or a one-of-a-kind device like Oppo's N1. You might not have to look very hard if a handful of leaks are correct, however. Both HTCFamily.ru and @upleaks have posted pictures of what's reportedly the HTC Desire Eye, a relatively conventional upper mid-range Android phone that would pack 13-megapixel cameras on both the front and back. They'd even have flashes to help with those dimly-lit dance club snapshots.
Nixie is a wearable drone that captures your activities on the fly
Remember the dronie? If not, it's a self-taken photograph (sigh, selfie) from a UAV like the Parrot AR Drone 2.0 that provides a bit more creativity than your arm reach allows. Imagine that you can attach that drone to your wrist and launch it instantly, and you have some idea about how the Nixie works. Once aloft, it's designed to detect your presence and fly around you, pointing its camera to film your exploits -- ranging from tourism to mountain climbing, as the video below shows. The project is part of Intel's Make it Wearable contest, and uses an Edison chip to track you and avoid obstacles. For now, it's just a delicate prototype that can fly off your wrist and not do much else. But it's scored a $50,000 finalist prize from Intel, meaning our dream of having aerial footage of all our hum-drum activities could finally come true -- yes, we are that vain.
Instagram's Hyperlapse app gets a sped-up selfie mode
Regular selfie vids just won't cut it anymore. We live in the age of Hyperlapse after all, and now Instagram is offering the high-speed option for that front-facing cam. With a new update to its standalone iOS app, the filter-driven outfit allows you to employ its time-lapse tool to document those vacation selfie moments and more. All you have to do is tap the appropriate icon on the app's home screen to toggle between cameras before capturing the footage and beaming it to Instagram, Facebook or your phone's library. The new version is live in the iTunes App Store now, so have at it.
Samsung's next big budget phone is made for selfies
Companies like Microsoft and Sony know that you don't necessarily want to buy a high-end smartphone just to take selfies, and it now appears that Samsung knows this, too. In the wake of store listings and government filings, Thegioididong has managed to get its hands on the unannounced Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime (aka G530), a 5-inch budget Android phone that's seemingly tailor-made for self-portraits. Its centerpiece is undoubtedly its 5-megapixel front-facing camera; while that's certainly not the highest resolution we've seen, it's unusually powerful for a device that's likely to be cheap off-contract.
Engadget Daily: Sony's dwindling empire, Acer's selfie sombrero and more!
It's Friday, folks. You made it. But before you checkout for the weekend (i.e. Destiny-filled all-nighters), take a look at all our news highlights from the last 24 hours.
