July 2nd, 2009
OK, this may not be the greatest photograph, but it’s not so much the picture that is important here, it is the technology that created it. This panorama was shot and stitched together entirely with an iPhone. At no point did it ever hit a laptop or desktop computer. It is so easy to take all of this for granted, I do have to stop and remind myself how great all this stuff is. The photograph is 4 images taken on the iPhone at “The Garden of the Gods” in Colorado Springs. Once I had the pictures I opened Autostitch on the iPhone, dragged the images in the order they were taken into the work area and hit a the “stitch” button. In less than a couple of minutes it had analysed the images stitched them together and rendered a nice panorama.
A few years ago this would not even have been possible as simply as this, even with a high end workstation. Now I can do it with a device that lives in my pocket. This not the latest iPhone 3Gs either, it’s the first generation job. The newly rendered panorama appeared in my iPhone photo album, from there I emailed it to my Flickr account which instantly sent a tweet to my followers, letting them know the image was there.
To my teenage niece and nephew this might all seem a little ho-hum, to those of us that saw Luke Skywalker and Han Solo destroy the Death Star at around the same age it is game changing. I really don’t see the the iPhone as a phone anymore. It’s a little pocket computer that happens to have a phone application I can use. As for the applications, amazing ! Like all other users of the App Store I’m collecting a bigger and bigger library of little software applications, none of which I can live without. Autostitch is one of a number of photo apps I use which make the less than average camera on the 1st generation iphone a great little toy and even (under the right conditions) a superb image taking device. I can only hope that with devices like the Palm Pre competing in the smartphone arena, things get better and better.
Tags: Gadgets, iPhone, Photography, Tech
Posted in Geeky Stuff, Photography |
June 19th, 2009
Despite an internet connection that was so slow I was sure I’d slipped back in time and could hear the squeal and chirp of modems going through their handshake routine I managed to download the latest OS for iPhone. I’m not sure how long the process took, I left my iPhone 2g hooked up to the macbook and after starting the upgrade went to bed. Next morning I ran upstairs to find that………. All was well and my 2 year old second-hand iPhone 2g was now running version 3.0. A couple of my applications already had updates waiting and all was good with the world.
I have been using the phone a lot since the upgrade and although it’s the original version of the iPhone it seems to be doing very well with the latest OS. I’m not sure it is any quicker, it certainly does not seem any slower, which is good. The long awaited cut and paste work well and appear to work in all of the applications I have loaded. The search function is amazing, in fact it’s almost like having a new device. I don’t have to zip around several screens trying to find the application I want , I just start typing the name and it appears in a list. Similarly I don’t need to open contacts to find a person. Start typing their name and up pops a list of possible matches, quick, slick. Pity we had to wait two years, but it’s here now and all is forgiven. I’ve set up MobileMe to find my iPhone in case I lose it and have tested it several times. It works very well and is great for annoying the girlfriend, when I leave the phone in the kitchen and tea is brewing.
The downside is I now want the 3Gs (like I never did !) so that I can use that upgraded hardware, new camera and video. In the meantime I’ll just have to carry on with my trusty old sidekick. If you have the 2g and were holding off on the OS upgrade, don’t wait any longer. Upgrade and enjoy all the things that 3.0 has to offer. It’s a lot cheaper than a new iPhone !
Tags: Gadgets, iPhone, Mac, Photography, Tech
Posted in Geeky Stuff, Photography |
June 19th, 2009
Access All Areas
Originally uploaded by buzzthediver
Finally got off our butts and made the drive from West Virginia into Washington DC. It was a 90 minute drive and took us through some very English looking scenery. We left around 10:30 in the morning hoping to miss the rush hour traffic. It worked quite well, and we really had a pretty easy drive into the Capital City, I certainly thought it was way easier than driving in London. We found parking under a bank / apartment building downtown and after lunch at a great little Indian restaurant we headed to the International Spy Museum. It is located on F street on the corner of the block and from the outside appears to be quite small. After browsing through one of the best museum shops I’ve seem in a long while we paid our $18.00 each and were ushered into an elevator. As the we ascended the lights in the elevator did a crazy spooky scanning effect and you really did get the impression you were in a movie. We were then invited to pick out a “cover” basically an alter ego, as we were in fact real spies. You don’t need this for the journey around the museum, but it certainly adds to the experience by getting you to think like an undercover agent. After a short “briefing” film about what espionage is we were let loose in the museum itself. They have done a great job of collecting real life gadgets and equipment used by resistance fighters, downed-pilots and espionage agents. A lot of the collection is from the second world war and after. Some of the equipment and the thinking behind it is amazing. Remember, the microchip was not around during the 1st and 2nd world wars so the engineering and ingenuity of what they used has to be seen to be believed. There are some early spy cameras on display and the photographer in me really wanted to play with these and see what results I could get out of them.
The museum has some great section on the history of espionage and of course a lot of space is given over to the Cold War and the “Red Devil” of Communism. As a Brit it was eye-opening to see some of this stuff, you could almost feel the hysteria that was built up in the USA about the former Soviet Union and the threat of Communism. Makes you wonder what all of the agents and operators are doing now that The Wall is down and the Iron Curtain has been neatly folded away and tucked in the attic. I guess they have found something to do 
The tour ends with a couple of short films and exhibits on some recent spies that have caused a lot of damage to the West, people like Aldrich Ames.
The International Spy Museum is not a huge venue, but it packs a lot of great information into the space it has. I’d have preferred to be in there without the hordes of kids, many of whom really had no idea what this was all about. If you want Q and James Bond then you might be disappointed. If you want a brief history espionage and the reality of life as an agent then you’ll enjoy a few hours here.
I spent 3 1/2 in the Museum and loved every minute. It’s worth the entrance fee and I’d even be tempted to make a return visit if I’m in Washington DC again.
Tags: Gadgets, Photography, Tech, Travel
Posted in Geeky Stuff, Photography, Travel |