SOMEWHAT FRANK

Watermark Your iPhone Photos With Photomarkr

via youtube.com

I recently had brunch with Natalia Luckyanova and Keith Shepherd the co-founders of Washington, D.C. based iPhone development startup Imangi Studios. If you are new to Imangi Studios has also created the popular iPhone apps Harbor Master, Little Red Sled and Word Squares.

At this particular brunch they shared their photography application called Photomarkr. The Photomarkr application offers users the ability to put a custom watermark on any photo on the iPhone. The video above shares a quick demo that I shot with my iPhone (so bear with the less than perfect audio and video quality). The application is available for $2.99 in the apps store. Happy watermarking.

i-Gala: Wireless Digital Photo Frame

i-Gala Wireless Digital Photo Frame from Frank Gruber on Vimeo.

I take lots of photos. I post many of them to Flickr and sometimes even email them my friends and family directly. I recently got a chance to check out the latest version of the i-Gala Wireless Digital Photo Frame by Aequitas Technologies that features an 8 inch 800×600 touchscreen display, 1GB internal memory, Wi-Fi and connections with Gmail, Microsoft Windows Live FrameIt and Flickr. This means the frame can connect directly to these services to retreive and display photos. The frame is $240 and can be purchased directly from the i-Gala/Aequitas site.

Check out episode 58 on SOMEWHAT FRANK in the HD video (above) as I recently got a chance to sit down and talk with the founder of Aequitas Technologies, Heikwan Cheng as he explained the new frame in detail. This new frame is just in time for the holidays and should make a super holiday gift for anyone who likes photos.

Make Money Selling Your Photos With Photrade

When design firms are looking for images for projects, they typically go to Getty or other more traditional stock photo sites. When bloggers need an image, they use their own  or likely go straight to Google or Flickr.  If all goes well, they find an image they can use legally.  In other cases.... well, let's just say there are a lot of pictures being used today that violate the owner's copyright. Photrade, a new site still in private beta, is set on protecting photographer's rights while changing the way bloggers and online publishers find images in hopes of creating a win-win environment for the publishers and photographers alike.

Dumpr.net Turns Photos Into Art

Have you been noticing all your Flickr friends showing off their rubiks cube photos? I have. So I decided to figure out how they were doing it and I was quickly lead to Dumpr. Yes, that is its real name. Dumpr.net offers a tool set for turning your exisiting photos into works of art. Dumpr offers some unique online photo manipulations options for your photo uploads, links to photos and photos directly from your Flickr account. It enabled me to create my own rubiks cube photo just like my friends - don't worry I did not actually get trapped inside the cube to take the photo (below).

PicLens Offers 3D Browsing Now For YouTube

Now here is an interesting and innovative way to explore videos! Leveraging the CoolIris 3D browsing technology, PicLens is able to explore videos and photos via a wall of videos. PicLens allows users to search Flickr, Photobucket, Facebook and recently added the ability to search YouTube in this same 3D fashion - among others.

So next time you get bored with traditional search metaphors for videos or images you might want to install PicLens and search in 3D.

Flickr Now Takes Videos (or "Long Photos")

Flickr, the photo community which we have all grown to love, after months of rumors and specutation has launched Flickr Video today. With almost six thousand photos on Flickr I was interested to see just how video was integrated. I was concerned adding videos might mess with the simplicity of the lovable photo sharing site that I have grown so accustom to. Flickr implemented short videos based on the  idea of “long photos” setting the limit to 90 seconds maximum time limit on videos. This makes it clear Flickr is not the platform for video podcasts or other stuff but more for short photo-like blurbs of life.

Aviary: Powerful Online Tools For Artists

There are a number of desktop tools for designers and artists but it seems an online version of those tools is something that is lacking. From a photo editing perspective picnik and Adobe Photoshop Express offer easy to use tools for editing images. But they are fairly simple tools and do not offer vector image creation or editing. Aviary is looking to change this by offering a number of tools for  the creative to do everything including image editing, typography, music and video. Aviary is a website for artists of all genres to create, edit and share their works directly in their favorite browser. This collaboration is something that similar desktop applications do not offer.

Picnik Premium Photo Editing Tools Now Free

Picnik, the Seattle-based online photo editing application, has announced that their suite of premium features are now available to everyone for free and will be supported by online advertising. Picnik wants everyone to have access to their fabulous features and will offer a premium service for people that would rather not see ads and are looking for a little more support.

I recently reviewed flauntR which offers a totally free online photo editing option which could give Picnik some competition. I am happy to see Picnik go free since it will mean I will now be able to leverage all their features for free via the Picnik Flickr integration. TechCrunch offers additional perspective and speculation on the Picnik move.

flauntR: An Online Photo Editing Alternative

I use Flickr just about everyday to store and manage my photos. I was happy to see Flickr add photo editing tools by integrating with online photo editing software, Picnik. On thing irks me about the integration though is the fact that as a Flickr premium user I still DO NOT have full access to all of Picnik's offerings from within Flickr itself. I really feel that as part of the partnership and integration Flickr should have reconciled which users are premium Flickr users and done a revenue share to enable them full access to Picnik. That said, I have been on the lookout for an comparable alternative to Picnik for more sophisticated photo edits and updates to save me the hassle of firing up Adobe Photoshop. I recently found flauntR, a free online photo editing site create by India-based DeviceDriven, which offers a number of similar photo editing features.

Picnik Launches Development API

Picnik, the solid suite of photo editing tools, has just announced the release of "Picnik-in-a-Box," its  development API. Now any web site can integrate with Picnik free for charge. According to Picnik, the new Picnik-in-a-Box API should enable anyone with knowledge of HTML or server-side scripting to quickly integrate photo editing int0 their website with some custom design aspects.

Personally, I find myself leveraging Picnik more and more these days as its tools have been integrated into Flickr. Picnik has also integrated with Box.net and Webs (formerly Freewebs). If you are interested obtain a software key which gives them instant, free access to the Picnik API.

Rememble For Social Digital Timelines

Are you interested in plotting your life on a digital timeline? If so, Rememble might be a good option. Taking a page out of the circaVie playbook, Rememble makes it easy to tell the story in a memory timeline and share it with your friends in a number of ways. However, Rememble appears to take digital timelines a step further by integrating social sharing features.

Polar Rose Puts A Name With A Face

Putting a name with a face can sometimes be a rather taunting task in public. However, online Polar Rose is looking to help solve this problem by leveraging facial recognition technology and the power of people online.

BeFunky To Cartoonize Yourself

BeFunky, a startup which was founded as a spin off of the more manually artist driven IamCartoon project, offers a few fun little applications to allow users to easily create and customize photos as cartoons and create personal avatars. BeFunky recently showed its stuff at TechCrunch40.

BlueString Media Aggregator Launches

Imagine if you wanted to pull in photos, videos and music from both your desktop and multiple photo services on the Web into one place - with BlueString, now you can. BlueString, a new AOL product, has just launched at TechCrunch40 to offer a rich media aggregator for storing and sharing your memories.

SplashCast's Shiny New Player

SplashCast Media, a Portland-based media player startup, has launched an update to its exisiting SplashCast media player. SplashCast has added a number of features to the player as it continues to improve the product that launched earlier this year.