GOOGLE MAKES PHOTOVINE OFFICIAL; LAUNCHING LATER THIS MONTH

Were you all jazzed up and ready to plant your first Photovine, only to have those gardening dreams crushed by a barren three page teaser? El Goog's Slide team isn't quite ready for you to grab that spade, but it is willing to transcribe your digits for the service's soft launch later this month. Judging by the brief demo, vines begin like a game of photo-sharing telephone: what starts as an innocent photograph of a "warm and fuzzy" pup, can easily transcend into friends sharing an equally snug and furry man. Sound like a party? See the video below.

LEAK: GOOGLE TO RENAME PICASA AND BLOGGER

Google's reportedly trying to put all of its product eggs into one self-branded basket. According to Mashable, two of its most popular services -- Picasa and Blogger -- may go under the branding knife and come out the other side looking like 'Google Photos' and 'Google Blogs.' With the exception of the latter's planned UI overhaul, both services should function exactly the same. The move -- alleged to take place within the next six weeks -- would unify the search king's user offerings ahead of the public launch of Google+. And if that social service's rumored July 31st launch date pans out, we could be seeing this overhaul very soon. But don't expect crown jewel YouTube to receive similar treatment, that site's brand equity already sent its ugly step-sister -- Google Video -- to the grave.

HIGHER RESOLUTION PHOTOS COMING TO FACEBOOK

Facebook photos have been notoriously poor quality.  Between the extremely high compression and very low resolution, that cute baby picture you upload is reduced to a blurry postage stamp.  Over the next few weeks Facebook will begin rolling out support for high resolution pictures.  According to Facebook

We’re increasing the size of the photos stored from 720 pixels to 2048 pixels on the largest edge, for an 8 times increase overall. I’m really excited to be launching this feature. To see the quality of these pictures, you can view National Geographic’s “Top-Rated Your Shot Photos (September)” album or Sports Illustrated’s “Football Across America” album. Download high-resolution photos by clicking the “Download” link.


While this won't apply to any pictures already on Facebook, any pictures you upload after the new system is in place will have the new specs.  But Facebook isn't done with just that announcement.  They will also be launching a light-box interface similar to Flickr.

APPLE ROUNDUP

Apple made some pretty big announcements today at their annual fall event, centered around media.  Some of the items have been leaked and/or rumored to appear at the event while others were surprises.  A full list of the announced items is below.

Apple TV

Apple TV:
The new Apple TV will be streaming only.  At a quarter of the size of the original it will pack a built-in power supply, HDMI, ethernet and 802.11n.  Pricing will be just$99.  It will stream movies from iTunes (more on that later) or from your own computer, bypassing local storage.  Not much change in the interface, however there is an inclusion of Rotten Tomatoes ratings.

iTunes:

iTunes Logo

iTunes 10 has a new logo and some nice new features.  There is a new social network called Ping.  Ping is built into the iTunes store and you can see the recent activity of your friends and artists you may be following.  Some of the new features in iTunes 10 include album art appearing if you have 5+ songs listed, streaming content to your Apple TV, $1 TV and $5 movie rentals.

iPod Nano:

iPod Nano

The Nano has had a major facelift.  The wheel has disappeared and it has a new touch interface.  The unit is 46% smaller and 42% lighter than its predecessor.  It has buttons for volume, a FM radio, Voiceover, Nike+ support, and a pedometer all with a 24 hour battery.  The new OS allows the user to poke around with their fingers and there is a home screen which you can populate with your most used items, which can be rearranged, just like on iOS devices. $149 for 8GB and $179 for 16GB.

iPod Shuffle

iPod Shuffle:
Despite the iPod Shuffles small form factor, it's buttons have returned and it boasts 15 hour battery life.  $49 for 2GB.

iOS 4.1:

iOS 4.1

Apple will be releasing an update to the iOS 4, used in their iOS devices like iPhone, iPod and iPad.  Some of the highlights in the 4.1 are HDR photos, proximity sensor fix and Game Center support.

iPod Touch:

The new iPod Touch is an iPhone 4 without the phone part.  It will have the 326ppi Retina display, Apple A4 processor, gyroscope and digital cameras on the back and front for FaceTime.  It can record video in 720p, edit them with iMovie app and take photos with the back camera.  The playback time has been increased to 40 minutes and will come with iOS 4.1.

HDR Photos:
What are HDR photos that iOS 4.1 will allow?  HDR stands for High Dynamic Range - the range between the lightest and darkest ranges of an image.  They look more similiar to what your eyes see than regular photos.  HDR photos are made of several photos, by blending photos with different exposures to make more dynamic scenes.  Steve Jobs states the iPhone and iPod Touch will shoot real HDR photos vs. ones manipulated with software, ie the device will take a number of photos when the user clicks the button to create the HDR photo.