Filed Under: Laptop Landmark Tour of the World

No time to travel the world? No worries, with Google’s new Photo Tours feature in Google Maps, you can explore immersive 3D photo scenes at landmarks around the world—over 15,000 of them. The tours are created using public, user-contributed Picasa and Panaromio photos. Google explains the process:

We start by finding clusters of overlapping photos around major landmarks. From the photos, our system derives the 3D shape of each landmark and computes the location and orientation of each photo. Google Maps then selects a path through the best images, and adds 3D transitions to seamlessly guide you from photo to photo as if you’re literally flying around the landmark and viewing it from different perspectives.

We’ll be taking a Trevi Fountain lunch break!

Filed Under: Cereal Code

Don’t know much about UX and UI, but this photographic infographic by Ed Lea visually shows how a web application works in a language we all understand—cereal! 

Filed Under: On The Dot—360° Panoramic Video From Your iPhone

There are plenty of fun little iPhone camera add-ons that give a fish-eye look or a color filter, but the Kogeto Dot is far from a petty extra. The Kogeto Dot Panoramic iPhone Lens is a game-changer for those who love to capture and share the world around them. The easy snap-on lens enables users to take full 360° photos and video using just an iPhone. With the dedicated app, simply hold an iPhone face-down, let the iConic lens capture your awesome surroundings, then upload for viewing on Kogeto’s website or the Looker app. Users can swipe the screen to “spin” around and experience that concert/mountain peak/road-trip all over again. You’ve got to see it to believe it; check out this Coachella video to (re)live the madness, or experience this snowboarding run from all angles. 

When I think of “Terry Richardson” and “photo shoot,” I don’t typically associate those with “socks.” But the edgiest sock brand of all (and one of our favorite holiday gifts), Happy Socks, has pulled off arguably the highest budget sock shoot ever for their 2011 holiday campaign, in which their brightly patterned socks sub for bras and capes. It wouldn’t be Terry Richardson without with some tongue-in-cheek sock sex appeal. 

Filed Under: I Will Buy All Of This

I can’t wait. Really. It’s perfect.

stamos:

kimberlypesch:

@JCrew_Insider presentation, pattern play love (via eat.sleep.wear.)

I have been waiting for the J. Crew pics to surface from NYFW11. LOVE LOVE LOVE.

The Sartorialist has set the golden standard for the fashion blog world, so I was a little more than surprised to see that he had snapped a shot of the same stylish woman that I had over a year earlier—in a similar bold floral print, and the exact same shoes?! She must be getting tired of being so beautiful and fabulous that everyone wants to take her charming picture. Same here, girlfrand. I snapped the decidedly less artful photo in the Alexis Bittar shop while trendspotting in SoHo last June. I’m just soooo ahead of Mr. Sartorialist. Ha!

PS Dear Mr. Sartorialist man, I love your website redesign; now it’s in sync with the sleek & simple content. 

PPS This is the weirdest coincidence! Whoever you are, pretty lady, your style and smile are beautiful! 

Dear Photograph

Brings the past into the present. 

Concept Camera: The WVIL from Artefact on Vimeo.

WVIL OMG!! Just a picture of this concept camera with a wireless lens that detaches and works wirelessly got me excited. (Disclaimer: I’m a serious camera nerd. I have more than four in rotation, and if my occupation wasn’t “student” I would probably have more.) Augmenting the trend that Grace has seen in tech-retrofitting (techtrofitting?) and that we’ve also seen in the Oona, add-ons  for your gadgets are improving the functionality, scope of utility, and overall awesomeness for the world’s seemingly absolute gadget—the smartphone. With add-ons, we can make it even smarter-er!

Getting back to that sexy and smart Wireless Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens (WVIL) camera by Artefact—apart from its gorgeous design that alone would enchant consumers, the lens is interchangeable and wirelessly detatchable, meaning that it can operate separately, a lens to a wireless viewfinder. So you could have the screen in one hand, lens in the other, or be in another room looking at your subject from five different lenses. Although I prefer the buttons and knobs of my clunky manual cameras, the simple, elegant design of a touchscreen for controlling manual camera functions is quite appealing, especially as we move away from norm of “click” to “swipe.”

The big idea around this beautiful contraption: “the patent-pending WVIL system takes the connectivity and application platform capabilities of today’s smart phones and wirelessly connects them with interchangeable full SLR-quality optics” (from the Artefact WVIL website).

Buzz-kill: The WVIL is still a concept. The demonstration at the 2011 Consumer Electronic Show was, tragically, faked (result: angry bloggers). The demonstration may have been a simulation, but the design and intentions for production are all real. The uber-high-tech specifications are on still in development; a three-year timeline is realistic. But what matters here is that Artefact’s award-winning design team came up with a brilliant answer to: What’s next in camera design?

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I am not photogenic. I love being behind the camera, but not in front of it. And as my friends take their customary, corny commencement pictures, I can’t help but cringe. I’d rather go full-cheeseball, because aren’t portraits inherently cheesy anyway? And I tend to do that in every photo, much to said friends’ dismay.

Not surprisingly, these throwback glam shots caught my eye—ironic, tongue-in-cheek, perfect in that not-too-perfect way. Right now, humor > trying too hard. So, is it a high school senior picture from Ohio in the ’70s? A Sears shoot in Nowheresville? Nope, it’s the totally awesome (dude) portraiture of Robbie Augspurger. This creative but pragmatic photographer recently scored client Wieden + Kennedy for a corporate shoot, and his first book is due this year. And in case you haven’t already guessed, yes, he is based in Portland.