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Monday, May 30, 2011

How much longer can photographic film hold on? (AP) : Technet

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How much longer can photographic film hold on? (AP) : Technet

How much longer can photographic film hold on? (AP)

Posted: 30 May 2011 12:11 PM PDT

By BEN DOBBIN, Associated Press Ben Dobbin, Associated Press – Mon May 30, 3:11 pm ET

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – At Image City Photography Gallery, Gary Thompson delights in pointing out qualities of light, contrast and clarity in one of his best-selling prints — a winter-sunset view of Yosemite National Park's El Capitan peak shot with a hefty Pentax film camera he bought in 1999 for $1,700.

His wife, Phyllis, a latecomer to fine-art photography after they retired from teaching in the 1990s, favors a Hasselblad X-Pan for panoramic landscapes, such as a time-lapse shot of a harbor in Nova Scotia.

Of 11 partners and resident artists at the private gallery in Rochester — the western New York city where George Eastman transformed photography from an arcane hobby into a mass commodity with his $1 Brownie in 1900 — the Thompsons are the only ones left who haven't switched to filmless digital cameras.

But that time may be near.

"I like the color we get in film, the natural light," says Phyllis Thompson, 70, who married her high-school sweetheart 50 years ago. "But digital cameras are getting much better all the time, and there will come a time when we probably won't be able to get film anymore. And then we'll have to change."

At the turn of the 21st century, American shutterbugs were buying close to a billion rolls of film per year. This year, they might buy a mere 20 million, plus 31 million single-use cameras — the beach-resort staple vacationers turn to in a pinch, according to the Photo Marketing Association.

Eastman Kodak Co. marketed the world's first flexible roll film in 1888. By 1999, more than 800 million rolls were sold in the United States alone. The next year marked the apex for combined U.S. sales of rolls of film (upward of 786 million) and single-use cameras (162 million).

Equally startling has been the plunge in film camera sales over the last decade. Domestic purchases have tumbled from 19.7 million cameras in 2000 to 280,000 in 2009 and might dip below 100,000 this year, says Yukihiko Matsumoto, the Jackson, Mich.-based association's chief researcher.

For InfoTrends imaging analyst Ed Lee, film's fade-out is moving sharply into focus: "If I extrapolate the trend for film sales and retirements of film cameras, it looks like film will be mostly gone in the U.S. by the end of the decade."

Just who are the die-hards, holdouts and hangers-on?

Among those who still rely on film — at least part of the time — are advanced amateurs and a smattering of professionals who specialize in nature, travel, scientific, documentary, museum, fine art and forensic photography, market surveys show.

Regular point-and-shoot adherents who haven't made the switch tend be poorer or older — 55 and up.

But there's also a swelling band of new devotees who grew up in the digital age and may have gotten hooked from spending a magical hour in the darkroom during a high school or college class.

Others are simply drawn to its strengths over digital and are even venturing into retro-photo careers.

"In everything from wedding to portrait to commercial photography, young professionals are finding digital so prevalent that they're looking for a sense of differentiation," says Kayce Baker, a marketing director at Fujifilm North America. "That artistic look is something their high-end clients want to see."

Kodak remains the world's biggest film manufacturer, with Japan's Fuji right on its tail. But the consumer and professional films they make have dwindled to a precious few dozen film stocks in a handful of formats, becoming one more factor in the mammoth drop-off in film processing.

Scott's Photo in Rochester finally switched this year stopped daily processing of color print film because fewer than one in 20 customers are dropping off film. A decade ago, "we could process 300 rolls on a good day, and now we see maybe 8 or 10 rolls on the few days we actually process," owner Scott Sims says.

For the hustling masses, there's no turning back the clock.

"There's so many digital images taken every day, especially with mobile media, that never will hit a piece of paper," says Therese Mulligan, administrative chair of the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology.

Even at major photography schools, film is an elective specialty.

"Our entire first two years' curriculum is digital in orientation," Mulligan says. "Those that follow a fine-art option are the first to gravitate toward film. Other genres we teach — photojournalism or advertising or biomedical — have a stronger digital emphasis because of the industry itself."

In a rich irony, film's newest fans — not unlike music aficionados who swear by vinyl records — are being drawn together via the rise of the Internet.

"The technology that enabled the demise of film is actually helping to keep it relevant with specific types of users," says IDC analyst Chris Chute.

But with the film market shrinking by more than 20 percent annually, most other signs point downhill. Analysts foresee Kodak offloading its still-profitable film division sometime in the next half-dozen years as it battles to complete a long and painful digital transformation.

Kodak will churn out a variety of films as long as there's sufficient demand for each of them, says Scott DiSabato, its marketing manager for professional film. It has even launched four new types since 2007.

While digital has largely closed the image-quality gap, DiSabato says a top-line film camera using large-format film "is still unsurpassed" in recording high-resolution images.

"The beauty with film is a lot of wonderful properties are inherent and don't require work afterward" whereas digital can involve heavy computer manipulation to get the same effect, DiSabato says.

"In the extreme, they call it `stomped on,'" he said. "But a lot of photographers want to be photographers, not computer technicians. And some prized film capabilities — grain, color hues, skin-tone reproduction — can't quite be duplicated no matter how much stomping goes on."

Gary Thompson, who's been exhibiting his best photos for 32 years, captured his Yosemite picture on medium-format slide film — which is 4 1/2 times bigger than 35 mm film — during one of many weeks-long photo jaunts with his wife.

In the digitally scanned, 24-by-30-inch print, the shadow from a dipping sun has climbed halfway up El Capitan. The wooded, black-and-white foreground with its lacy snow patterns stands in stark contrast to the golden glow on the granite cliff face under a blue sky.

"I don't know if I could have gotten this print that large with that kind of detail" using a digital camera without "shooting several images and blending them together in Photoshop," he says. "What attracts me to shoot in almost all instances is the quality of light and there's something about film and working with it and the way it records that I just like."

Thompson feels acutely that he's reaching the end of an era.

"As people's film cameras break down, rather than purchasing another one, they move to digital," he says. "Eventually, we'll probably be doing that. There's a certain nostalgia involved, particularly when I'm working with one of my big husky cameras. That will be sad. But hey, when it happens, I'll adjust."

Hackers post phony Tupac story on PBS website (AP)

Posted: 30 May 2011 05:06 PM PDT

By BRETT ZONGKER, Associated Press Brett Zongker, Associated Press – Mon May 30, 8:06 pm ET

WASHINGTON – PBS officials say hackers have cracked the network's website, posting a phony story claiming dead rapper Tupac Shakur was alive in New Zealand, and a group that claimed responsibility for the hacking complained about a recent "Frontline" investigative news program on WikiLeaks.

PBS confirmed Monday that the website had been hacked. The phony story had been taken down as of Monday morning. It had been posted on the site of the "PBS NewsHour" program, which is produced by WETA-TV in Arlington, Va.

Anne Bentley, PBS' vice president of corporate communications, said in an email that erroneous information posted on the website has been corrected. The hackers also posted login information for two internal PBS sites: one that media use to access the PBS press room and an internal communications website for stations, she said. She said all affected parties were being notified.

David Fanning, executive producer of "Frontline," said he learned of the hacking early Monday, nearly a week after the program aired its "WikiSecrets" documentary about the leak of U.S. diplomatic cables to the WikiLeaks website. The documentary, produced by WGBH-TV in Boston, generated criticism and debate on the program's website in recent days from those sympathetic to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and from those who thought the program was fair, Fanning said.

"Frontline" producers hear impassioned responses all the time, Fanning said. Having a group attack the PBS website over a news program was unusual but "probably not unexpected," he said.

"From our point of view, we just see it as a disappointing and irresponsible act, especially since we have been very open to publishing criticism of the film ... and the film included other points of view," Fanning said. "This kind of action is irresponsible and chilling."

A tweet from the "NewsHour" Twitter account said: "If you missed it: our site has been accessed by hackers. Thanks for staying with us."

A group calling itself LulzSec and "The Lulz Boat" on Twitter claimed responsibility and posted links to other hacks, including a video apparently taunting the network. Taunting messages were also posted on the group's Twitter page targeting the PBS program "Frontline." One message said the group recently saw the "WikiSecrets" show and was "less than impressed."

The timing of the hacking was provocative: Sunday marked the one-year anniversary of the detention of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who's accused of passing thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks.

PBS ombudsman Michael Getler wrote about the "WikiSecrets" documentary in his weekly column Thursday, saying it had generated only a handful of complaints, though he had expected more mail from viewers.

"This may be a good thing for Frontline if it suggests that most viewers found the program to be in keeping with Frontline's reputation for fair yet tough reporting," Getler wrote.

Getler raised some questions about the reporting in the program but said he found the questioning by interviewer Martin Smith to be "tough but proper."

___

Online:

http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/

Indy 500 Warmup: World Record-Setting 332-foot Truck Jump [VIDEO] (Mashable)

Posted: 29 May 2011 10:08 AM PDT

Charlie White Charlie White – Sun May 29, 1:08 pm ET

[More from Mashable: Money-Shredding Alarm Clock Is Completely Unforgiving [PICS]]

Sunday was Indy 500 day, and our thoughts turned to fast cars, the latest automotive tech, the 100th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500, and … world-record truck jumping?

[More from Mashable: 13 Instagram Apps For More Photo Fun]

That's what happened at turn 4 of the Indianapolis 500 race track, when stunt driver and Top Gear star Tanner Faust warmed up the crowd by setting a new jumping distance world record for a 4-wheeled vehicle.

Driving down a huge ramp designed look like a Hot Wheels "V-Drop" track as part of a "Fearless at the 500" promotion, Faust picked up enough speed to launch his specially modified "Pro 2" truck a world-record 332 feet. That was more than enough to beat the previous record of 301 feet.

Until the day of the jump, Faust's identity was kept secret. He'd been practicing for months -- he tells his story in this video, revealed for the first time on Sunday:

And the video teaser that led up to the jump:

This story originally published on Mashable here.

China's LinkedIn plots local recipe for growth (Reuters)

Posted: 30 May 2011 03:57 AM PDT

By Melanie Lee Melanie Lee – Mon May 30, 6:57 am ET

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – In a country where being connected is seen as crucial, Ushi, China's answer to LinkedIn, expects explosive growth over the next few years in the world's largest Internet market.

The professional-social networking site plans to have 10 million users in two years from the current 300,000, and aims to raise $5 million by the end of June, Dominic Penaloza, Ushi's chief executive, told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

"We're aiming to ultimately serve a very large portion of China's 40 million Internet users who are white collar or entrepreneurs. Call it 10 million in two years," said Penaloza.

"There's more proportion of Chinese who will only do business with people they have met before and people who have a mutual friend," said the Filipino-Chinese who grew up in Canada.

Venture capitalists and private equity funds have flocked to Chinese Internet firms, with U.S. IPOs of companies such as Youku and Dangdang surging as they market themselves as the YouTube and Amazon of China.

The growth is being fueled by China's Internet industry which has more than 450 million users.

Ushi, which launched in October, is backed by Milestone Capital, U.S.-based Richmond Management, Li & Fung private equity and Simon Murray & Co.

The firm competes with Tianji.com, another social-networking site that caters to professionals. Tianji, which was founded in 2005, is now part of France's Viadeo.

Tianji aims to have 10 million users by the end of the year and to start monetizing the website this year, its founder Derek Ling told Reuters separately.

The user base of Ushi, which means "outstanding professionals" in Chinese, doubled to 300,000 from 160,000 in about 60 days in March and April, Penaloza said.

Professional social-networking-site LinkedIn has a small presence in China and is one of the few foreign social-networking-sites to still have access to Chinese Internet users. Twitter and Facebook are blocked in China over censorship concerns.

LinkedIn shares more than doubled in their public trading debut this month, evoking memories of investors' love affair with Internet stocks during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s.

Like LinkedIn, Ushi's website (www.ushi.cn) has features that allow users to add connections and send messages but it is currently in a by-invitation phase. Penaloza said the firm plans to open the website to the public by the end of the year. Ushi is already monetizing users through the presence of Ushi coins which can be bought with real money.

Ushi's key difference from LinkedIn is that it focuses on offline events as Chinese people greatly value face-to-face meetings and are generally hesitant to do business with people they do not know.

"If you ask them to pay $25 equivalent in Reminbi for a three-hour networking party they would not hesitate to pay, they would line up to pay. Chinese people are like that in general," Penaloza said.

Ushi is banking on the value of "guanxi," which means connections in Mandarin, in doing business in China to make money. The firm charges Ushi coins for introductions outside your immediate circle.

The Shangai-based firm raised 10 million yuan ($1.54 million) in its initial round of fundraising.

About 5 percent of Ushi's current users are chief executives.

Last week, LinkedIn told reporters in Beijing it will seek opportunities in China to capitalize on its massive user base even though it sees the market as complicated.

Being called the LinkedIn of China has its benefits as it offers the general public a quick reference to the type of services the firm offers, Penaloza said.

"It's kind of like LinkedIn and inspired by LinkedIn but it is not the same. Ushi will work better for Chinese people because it is made in China, made by Chinese, made for Chinese and that's a huge difference," said Penaloza.

($1 = 6.493 yuan)

(Editing by Anshuman Daga and Jacqueline Wong)

Council 'gets Twitter data' after court battle (AFP)

Posted: 30 May 2011 03:44 AM PDT

– Mon May 30, 6:44 am ET

LONDON (AFP) – An English local authority said it had forced Twitter to hand over users' details after it took the US microblogging site to court in California, in what is believed the first case of its kind in Britain.

South Tyneside Council, in northeast England, took the legal action in a bid to discover the identity of a blogger, known as "My Monkey", behind allegedly libellous statements against councillors.

"Twitter have released information to our lawyers and this is currently being analysed by technical experts," council spokesman Paul Robinson told AFP.

Details were handed over after the council took Twitter to court in California, where the site is based.

Commentators said the ruling could have implications for the case of footballer Ryan Giggs, whose lawyers have demanded in the British courts that Twitter reveal which users named him over an alleged affair in defiance of a court order.

Ahmed Khan, a South Tyneside councillor, said Twitter had informed him that it was giving his details to the local authority and blasted the situation as "Orwellian."

The website handed over details he had submitted when he signed up for the service, including IP identities, mobile phone numbers and email addresses, he said.

Khan said he believed the council has been given the details of five Twitter accounts, two of which are his.

He denied he was the blogger behind the "Mr Monkey" site: "I'm the kind of person who will tell you face-to-face what I think. I have no need to use an anonymous blog."

Media lawyer Mark Stephens said he believed the case was the first of its kind.

"I am unaware of any other occasion where somebody from this country has actually gone to America and launched proceedings in a Californian court to force Twitter to release the identities of individuals," he told the BBC.

"The implications are that people who have had their name released can actually now go to California and begin proceedings."

MP John Hemming last week outed Giggs as the sportsman who had won an injunction to stop British media reporting his alleged extramarital affair, publicly naming him using a right to freedom of speech in the House of Commons.

Liberal Democrat Hemming argued that the injunction was no longer practical after tens of thousands of people had named the Manchester United star on Twitter.

Samsung to stick with Google for its tablets (AFP)

Posted: 30 May 2011 08:55 PM PDT

– 18 mins ago

SEOUL (AFP) – Samsung Electronics will depend on Google's Android mobile-device software to run future versions of its tablet computers, a senior Samsung official said in an interview published Tuesday.

"We'll continue to work with Android on future tablets," J.K. Shin, head of the South Korean giant's mobile division, told The Wall Street Journal.

Samsung Electronics is the world's second-largest cellphone maker after Finland's Nokia but trails Apple's iPhone and iPad in smartphones and tablets.

However, the Android system has boosted its smartphone business and Samsung hopes to do the same with tablets.

The iPad surprised competitors with the success of its launch early last year. Samsung responded by choosing Android for its tablets and introduced the seven-inch (17.8 centimetre) Galaxy Tab in October 2010 to take on Apple.

Samsung will launch new versions of the Galaxy Tab this summer in an 8.9-inch and 10.1-inch model. Both will run the latest version of Android, known as Honeycomb.

Despite Apple's status as a major customer for Samsung components, the two companies are embroiled in lawsuits.

The US firm sued its South Korean rival, claiming it copied the look and feel of the iPhone and iPad. Samsung launched its own suits, alleging that Apple violated patents covering Samsung's cellphone transmission technologies.

"We didn't copy Apple's design," Shin told The Wall Street Journal. "We have used many similar designs over the past years and it (Apple's allegation) will not be legally problematic."

Samsung expects its tablet shipments to rise about fivefold this year to 7.5 million. Market data provider IHS iSuppli forecast in April that Apple's iPad shipments would reach 39.7 million this year.

"Android is the fastest-growing platform and the market direction is headed toward Android so we're riding the wave," said Younghee Lee, senior vice president of sales and marketing.

Jenga tops Android Games of the Week (Appolicious)

Posted: 30 May 2011 08:30 AM PDT

Rumor: Twitter to launch photo-sharing service (Digital Trends)

Posted: 30 May 2011 07:16 PM PDT

Trevor Mogg Trevor Mogg – 1 hr 42 mins ago

twitter Twitter is about to unveil its own photo-sharing service, according to a TechCrunch report. Citing "multiple sources," the report says the service could be up and running as early as Tuesday.

Since TechCrunch published its claim, All Things D has reported that an announcement will be made by Twitter at the D9 conference (organized, incidentally, by All Things D) in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, with Twitter CEO Dick Costolo lined-up to speak on Wednesday.

At the moment, when Twitter users want to attach photos to their tweets, they turn to third-party services such as TwitPic and yfrog. Links to images appear in the tweets, and presumably Twitter's own service would work in much the same way. As pointed out by All Things D, the likes of TwitPic and yfrog make money through ads displayed on the same page as the image. Up to now Twitter has been pretty good at not making money, and so this could be one way to bring in some cash. Last month there was talk of the company adding branded pages to its site as a way of creating a revenue stream.

The launch of a photo-sharing service would also be another signal of Twitter's intent to take control of its ecosystem. In March, the company announced that app developers who create new Twitter clients that replicate Twitter functionality would be wasting their time – though this evidently didn't stop everyone.

Last week Twitter announced on its blog that it had acquired desktop client TweetDeck for a sum thought to be in the region of $40 million. "This acquisition is an important step forward for us," the post said. "TweetDeck provides brands, publishers, marketers and others with a powerful platform to track all the real-time conversations they care about. In order to support this important constituency, we will continue to invest in the TweetDeck that users know and love."

As for the photo-sharing service – it looks like we'll be hearing something about it in the next day or two.

Sony: Japan must await PlayStation network restoration (Reuters)

Posted: 30 May 2011 08:25 PM PDT

– 33 mins ago

TOKYO (Reuters) – Sony Corp said on Tuesday it would restore all PlayStation Network videogame services by the end of the week except in Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea, weeks after a massive security breach leaked details on 77 million user accounts.

The company had said earlier it was aiming to restore all services by the end of May.

A spokesman for Sony Computer Entertainment, the company's games unit, said the delay in Japan was due to the need to comply with government instructions on information security, but he declined to specify reasons for the delay in other parts of Asia.

About 90 percent of the network's users are in North America and Europe.

PlayStation Network users in Japan have already had online play services restored but do not yet have access to other services, such as the PlayStation Store, where they can buy games.

Sony said in a statement it would announce details for Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea as they became available.

The Japanese electronics and entertainment company also said last week its officials will testify before U.S. lawmakers at a hearing on data security in Washington on June 2 about what is thought to be the biggest ever Internet security breach.

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds; Editing by Michael Watson)

KAMI RETRO HD tops iPad Games of the Week (Appolicious)

Posted: 30 May 2011 03:00 PM PDT

Nvidia Kal-El promises quad-core mobile graphics (Digital Trends)

Posted: 30 May 2011 09:35 AM PDT

Geoff Duncan Geoff Duncan – Mon May 30, 12:35 pm ET

Nvidia's Tegra graphics processor might be the current top-dog for graphics in the universe of Android devices, but Nvidia has already outlined its plans to dominate the mobile graphics arena for years to come. Last February, the company announced its forthcoming Kal-El quad-core mobile graphics chip, and now the company has provided an update on its progress, releasing a demo video of Kal-El's real-time lighting and physics capabilities on a HoneyComb Android tablet—and all the lighting and physics are calculated in real time, rather than merely playing back canned video animations. The video is called "GlowBall," and features a glowing ball lighting up and moving through a 3D "creepy funhouse" environment.

Nvidia Kal-El demo (GlowBall)

"This shows off the power of true dynamic lighting, rendered in real-time with physics (no canned animations here, folks)," Nvidia's Matt Wuebbling wrote in the company blog. " This marks the first time this type of lighting is feasible on a mobile device."

Nvidia claims Kal-El boats five times the graphics performance of the Tegra 2 processors currently powering graphics in devices like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Motorola Xoom. Unlike the Tegra 2, however, Kal-El boasts a quad-core processor powering the Android device, supplemented by a 12-core graphics processor. Nvidia's video shows that the GlowBall demo is leveraging all that computing power for its real-time effects: shutting down two of the device's main processor cores has a dramatic impact on Glowball's overall performance.

Graphics developers like Nvidia face a conundrum with mobile graphics capabilities; on one hand, they have technology from their PC businesses to put major computing and graphic processing capabilities into a wide range of devices; on the other hand, the power and heat-dissipation requirements for mobile devices impose some severe constraints: nobody is going to want to use a tablet device with fabulous graphics that's too hot to hold and burns through is battery in half an hour. For now, graphics developers are focussing on spreading graphics duties across a number of lower-power processing cores, hoping to get more work done in each clock cycle while retaining lower power requirements.

Nvidia hasn't announced when Kal-El chips will be available for device manufacturers—emphasizing the demo was produced using a pre-production device—although industry reports have Kal-El devices hitting the market in time for the end-of-year holiday buying season. Nvidia also promises production versions of Kal-El will be significantly faster than the current demo.

Kal-El is, of course, the Kryptonian name for Superman. Following on the superhero theme for its mobile processors, Nvidia has outlined mobile processors codenamed Wayne, Logan, and Stark for 2012, 2013, and 2014, respectively.

Samsung asks court for next-gen iPhone and iPad (Reuters)

Posted: 30 May 2011 04:21 PM PDT

– Mon May 30, 7:21 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics has asked a U.S. court to force Apple Inc to hand over its next-generation models of the iPhone and iPad in the latest volley in a series of patent infringement suits between the two technology companies.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh ordered Samsung to give Apple copies of several models of its Galaxy mobile phones and tablets, as well as other products.

"It would put Samsung at a significant disadvantage in this litigation if the Court allowed Apple access to Samsung's future products ... but prevented Samsung from gaining access to Apple's future products so that it could prepare its defense," Samsung argued in a motion filed on Friday with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Apple sued Samsung last month, claiming Samsung's Galaxy line of mobile phones and tablets "slavishly" copies the iPhone and iPad. Samsung followed with its own lawsuit, alleging that Apple was the company doing the copying. [nN28231826]

Apple was Samsung's second-biggest customer last year, mostly for semiconductors. The iPhone maker's claims against Samsung focus on Galaxy's design features, such as the look of its screen icons.

Samsung declined to comment, and Apple could not be immediately reached for comment on Monday.

Apple and Samsung are part of a wider web of litigation among phone makers and software firms over who owns the patents used in smartphones and tablets as rivals aggressively rush into a market jump-started by Apple with its iPhone and iPad.

Samsung is one of the fastest-growing smartphone makers and has emerged as Apple's strongest competitor in the booming tablet market with models in three sizes. But it remains a distant second in the space.

Samsung's Galaxy products use Google's Android operating system, which directly competes with Apple's mobile software.

(Reporting by Michael Erman; Editing by Dan Grebler)
at 9:32 PM

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