Not a bad idea Marta!! John
On Jun 23, 2011, at 9:19 AM, Marta Edie wrote: > I only use my iphone to take pictures anymore. My conclusion to manage > anything in life : "Less is more." > Marta > > > > > > > On Jun 23, 2011, at 9:06 AM, John Stone wrote: > >> I wouldn't hold your breathe waiting for this.... >> >> On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 8:58 AM, John Robinson <[email protected]> wrote: >> This article isn't about Mac's but I bet we use it on our Mac. Enough of us >> in the group seem to be into this topic I though you might like to see what >> is soon to be available. >> >> John >> >> >> >> >> >> A Start-Up’s Camera Lets You Take Shots First and Focus Later >> <nyt_logo_106x27.gif> >> >> >> >> STEVE LOHR, On Wednesday June 22, 2011, 12:35 am EDT >> With an innovative camera due out later this year from a company called >> Lytro, photographers will have one less excuse for having missed that >> perfect shot. >> >> The company’s technology allows a picture’s focus to be adjusted after it is >> taken. While viewing a picture taken with a Lytro camera on a computer >> screen, you can, for example, click to bring people in the foreground into >> sharp relief, or switch the focus to the mountains behind them. >> >> But is Lytro’s technology just a neat feature, or is it the next big thing >> in cameras? >> >> The founding team of the Silicon Valley start-up and investors who have put >> in $50 million are betting on the latter. The technology has won praise from >> computer scientists and raves from early users of its prototype camera. >> >> “We see technology companies all the time, but it’s rare that someone comes >> along with something that is this much of a breakthrough,” said Ben >> Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, a major investor in Lytro. >> “It’s superexciting.” >> >> Lytro’s founder and chief executive is Ren Ng, 31. His achievement, experts >> say, has been to take research projects of recent years — requiring perhaps >> 100 digital cameras lashed to a supercomputer — and squeeze that technology >> into a camera headed for the consumer market later this year. >> >> Mr. Ng explained the concept in 2006 in his Ph.D. thesis at Stanford >> University, which won the worldwide competition for the best doctoral >> dissertation in computer science that year from the Association for >> Computing Machinery. Since then Mr. Ng has been trying to translate the idea >> into a product that can be brought to market — and building a team of people >> to do it. >> >> The Lytro camera captures far more light data, from many angles, than is >> possible with a conventional camera. It accomplishes that with a special >> sensor called a microlens array, which puts the equivalent of many lenses >> into a small space. “That is the heart of the breakthrough,” said Pat >> Hanrahan, a Stanford professor, who was Mr. Ng’s thesis adviser but is not >> involved in Lytro. >> >> But the wealth of raw light data comes to life only with sophisticated >> software that lets a viewer switch points of focus. This allows still >> photographs to be explored as never before. “They become interactive, living >> pictures,” Mr. Ng said. He thinks a popular use may be families and friends >> roaming through different perspectives on pictures of, say, vacations and >> parties posted on Facebook (Lytro will have a Facebook app). >> >> For a photographer, whether amateur or professional, the Lytro technology >> means that the headaches of focusing a shot go away. Richard Koci Hernandez, >> a photojournalist, said that when he tried out a prototype earlier this >> year, he immediately recognized the potential impact. >> >> “You just concentrate on the image and composition, but there’s no need to >> worry about focus anymore,” Mr. Hernandez said. “That’s something you do >> later.” >> >> “That was the aha! moment for me,” said Mr. Hernandez, an assistant >> professor of new media at the graduate school of journalism at the >> University of California, Berkeley. “This is game-changing.” >> >> Mr. Hernandez, who is not affiliated with Lytro, was one of several >> photographers who tested prototypes. His model, he said, was sheathed in a >> black plastic shell, so he did not see its design. But he said it was the >> size of a standard point-and-shoot camera. The picture resolution, he added, >> was indistinguishable from that of his other point-and-shoots, a Canon and a >> Nikon. >> >> Eliminating any loss of resolution in a camera like Lytro’s, which is >> capturing light data from many angles, is a real advance, said Shree Nayar, >> a professor at Columbia University and an expert in computer vision. Mr. >> Nayar is familiar with Mr. Ng’s work, but he said he had not seen anything >> Lytro has done in more than a year. >> >> “If they have been able to recover most of the lost resolution, then their >> image refocusing application is a very cool feature,” Mr. Nayar said. “But >> it is an open question how popular it becomes.” >> >> At Lytro, the view is that the technology, once it gets into people’s hands, >> opens the door to many possible new features and uses. Among its other >> advantages, the new camera is much faster than conventional ones because >> there is no “shutter lag” — waiting for the autofocus device to work and the >> shot to be taken. Those fractions of a second, of course, are often when the >> dog darts off or the child’s smile becomes a frown. >> >> Lytro cameras can also capture plenty of data for 3-D images, which can be >> viewed on a computer screen with 3-D glasses. >> >> Lytro is not saying what the price of its first camera will be, but insists >> it will be for the consumer market, which suggests a price of a few hundred >> dollars. The company is also not being more precise about when the camera >> will ship. It will initially be sold through online retailers like >> Amazon.com and Lytro’s Web site. >> >> But to gear up, the company is rapidly adding to its 45-person staff in >> Mountain View, Calif. Its recruits include veterans of Microsoft, Google, >> Apple, Intel and Sun Microsystems. >> >> One Lytro convert who caught the attention of the Valley digerati was Kurt >> Akeley, who joined the company last September from Microsoft Research. Mr. >> Akeley, 53, was one of the early engineers at Silicon Graphics, a pioneer in >> computer graphics, and is one of the lead developers of OpenGL, a popular >> set of graphics programming tools. >> >> Mr. Akeley, a consulting professor at Stanford, was familiar with Mr. Ng’s >> work and said he was lured by the challenge and technical opportunity. >> Lytro, Mr. Akeley said, has “a powerful technology with legs — great things >> can happen.” >> >> Lytro chose to design and market a camera itself, instead of licensing its >> technology to a camera giant like Canon or Nikon. It will farm out the >> manufacturing to a company in Taiwan, but it wanted to control the details >> of the camera itself — much as Apple does. >> >> “We can just make a better product this way, and really show what we can >> do,” Mr. Ng said. “The big camera makers are mostly polishing existing >> technology, and we didn’t want to do this in an incremental way.” >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> MacGroup mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup >> >> >> >> >> -- >> U-2 & SR-71 web page >> >> http://www.blackbirds.net >> >> Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary >> safety deserve neither liberty nor safety -Benjamin Franklin >> >> Read the Constitution - It's Interesting! >> http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html >> >> Blog: http://johnsstone.tumblr.com/ >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> MacGroup mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup > > > _______________________________________________ > MacGroup mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
_______________________________________________ MacGroup mailing list [email protected] http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
