Listen Here!
37 incredible drone photos from across the globe that would be totally illegal today
Photographer, Amos Chapple was an early adopter of drone photography and used his DJI Phantom drone to capture some of the world’s most amazing landmarks before most countries had legislation in place to make the use of these drones illegal. You absolutely have got to check out the photography that this guy has captured and read some of the stories of how he got the images he got.
What?! The new 512GB SD Card
Microdia is saying that the memory card will cost upwards of $1,000 when it hits store shelves in July. The exact final retail price has yet to be announced. Microdia is trying to target professional photographers who need massive storage and fast transfer speeds of up to 300MBps.
GoPro unveils a new Hero+ LCD
Features 1080/60p and 720/60p capture with 8PM photos. Built in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Key feature is the touchscreen LCD on the back, allowing you to view what will be recorded and trim/share directly from the camera. No HDMI port on this version (stick with the HERO 4). Sells for $299, starting on June 7th. Check this thing out on the GoPro website!
Everyone thinks Fallout 4 is out this year
4th major release for the Fallout series, developed by Bethesda. Post-apocalyptic video game, very deep story line, no multi-player. Bethesda teased the trailer last week, causing the Internet to explode. Having not played any of the previous games, I’m not overly excited, and looking at the graphics in the trailer, they don’t match what we’re seeing from over ‘next-gen’ games like The Witcher 3 (WOW!)
GameFly’s new streaming game service
GameFly is launching what some are calling “the Netflix for video games”. Previously, GameFly let you rent games via mail, but will now let you rent bundles of games for $7/month. There will be 6 bundles to choose from, each with 7 games around a certain theme.
Currently it’s only available on Amazon’s Fire TV (which I don’t know of anyone who uses). May come to other platforms in the future.
Steve McCurry’s Assistant Busted in $654,358 ‘Afghan Girl’ Art Theft
Possibly the most famous cover of any National Geographic magazine is the “Afghan Girl” shot by the incredible photojournalist, Steve McCurry. This week one of his assistants was arrested in connection with the theft of prints, books, and various items from his studio valued in excess of $650,000. The Chester County district attorney, Tom Hogan has called the crime “Art Theft” and is holding 32 year-old, Bree DeStephano on $250,000 bail pending trial.
DeStephano, who managed McCurry’s sales of fine art, has been accused of “abusing her position of trust” to the tune of of stealing 50 limited edition photo prints worth $628,000 between May 2012 and November 2013 as well as stealing and selling online 233 books valued at a little more than $23,000.
District Attorney Hogan stated, “The theft of intellectual property, like photographs, is an ever-growing problem. In order to take photographs like the Afghan Girl, Steve McCurry was exposed to extraordinary risks, tremendous costs, and spent years of his career. Then the defendant casually abused her position of trust to make some easy money, without a thought to the damage to Mr. McCurry.”
As mentioned, DeStephano was employed as the Manager of Fine Art Print Sales at Steve McCurry Studios, LLC. She was terminated from her position as soon as these criminal allegations arose.
Rare Apple I computer put into recycling
A San Francisco recycling center is trying to find a woman who may have handed over a rare Apple I computer without realizing what it was or how much it was worth. After her husband died a local woman brought her husband’s old Apple I to the recycling yard to dispose of it.
The recycling company recognized the computer and the value it had and sold it to a private collector for about $200,000. They have launched an online video campaign to track the woman down. They say they will give her half of the money that the machine was sold for.
The Apple I was the computer company’s first computer and only about 200 Apple I computers were ever manufactured. Only 63 are known to have survived. Each computer was designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak. It went on sale in July 1976 for $666.66. The machine had about 4kB of memory.
Vice president of the recycling center, Victor Gichun, says that he remembers the woman and to prove who she is, she would just need to show up. He’d know exactly who she is just by looking at her.
Analyst: Apple Has Sold 7 Million Apple Watches, Shipped 2.5 Million
Many bloggers predicted that the Apple Watch would completely flop, and even though it’s very much a ‘first gen’ device, it’s still selling like hotcakes. As of this podcast, it’s still only being sold online, but slated to start appearing in stores within a few weeks.
Seems like everyone is jumping on the wearable bandwagon:
Web portal Lycos is releasing a smart band and smart ring
Lycos. They’re still a thing?! They just announced two new wearables – a band and a ring, which are called, Band and Ring. They’re being pitched as devices that can replace your password using NFC to unlock your phone. The band goes a step further with an integrated fitness monitor, sleep tracker, and alarm.
The Band sells for $124.99 and the Ring sells for $59.99.
4 will be sold.
Man Attacked by Bison After Taking Up-Close Photo with His iPad
You shouldn’t be using that iPad for photography. You really shouldn’t be photographing bison from 3-5 feet away either. A 62-year-old Australian was tossed several times into the air by a rather angry bison the other day when he got a little overzealous with the iPad and started snapping away with reckless disregard for his life. I admire the spirit, but he had this coming when he thought the iPad was a tool for travel photos. Stop it! Read the full story here.
Man Crashes Motorbike and then Plays With Phone While Laying in Road
In this week’s “At-least-I’m-not-that-stupid” segment, we have a story that came out last Tuesday of a man in the Hunan Province, China who crashed his motorbike into another car in an intersection and as he lay on the ground, with people and vehicles all around, he continued playing-presumably- the game he was playing when he crashed into the car. The story reports that it is unclear how injured he was, but apparently he was conscious enough to play a video game on his smartphone. Are smartphones making us more stupid?
US Finds and Flattens a ISIS HQ Building After ‘Moron’ Shares a Selfie
Title says it all. Moron took a selfie revealing the location of an ISIS headquarters. US Air Force acted quickly after the photo was discovered by a surveillance and reconnaissance team in Florida. Kaboom.
Moral of the story: If you’re a terrorist, don’t be posting selfies. (NOTE: this is also a security risk for non-terrorists).
WWDC 2015 Predictions
Apple Pay is coming to Canada! However, many retailers remain skeptical of whether it is worthwhile or a working model they should adopt. We also discuss: iOS 9, Google Now competitor, Multi-user mode/split screen for iPad, OS X update potential, iOS/OS X to focus on quality control, Smart home devices with Home Kit, Nest conference June 17th, No Apple TV news?, Music streaming service. Not too much sizzle. Does this mean Apple has a trick up their sleeve, or are we in for a rather lackluster WWDC?
JoeyL’s Kurdistan fighters series
Leave a Reply