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Best photo apps for iPhone

Camera+ (99 cents) Camera+ is a solid image-editing tool that makes creating cool-looking shots easy, and all the upgrades since its release mean it has tons of useful tweaks. You can use digital-camera-like scenes to apply common camera effects in specific situations like simulated flash, sunset, backlit images, and portraits. You also can crop your images to your specs or select from several standard sizes.

When you want to add filters and effects, Camera+ makes it easy with a gridlike layout you can touch to see nuanced or drastic changes to your original image. The filters are organized by category … Read more

Artists use real-time MRI footage to create music video

Some see, not to mention make, art in unusual places. And so it is with U.K.-based musician Sivu, who is letting viewers peer inside his mind while he sings -- literally.

Reportedly inspired by the work being done on children born with cleft lips and palates at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London, Sivu lay in an MRI scanner for almost three hours and sang his new single, "Better Man Than He," repeatedly. The resulting music video is an edit of that footage, relying on nothing but the relatively new real-time medical imaging technique often used … Read more

ImageChef offers tons of fun templates

There are tons of photo-editing apps out there and ImageChef is another contender in a saturated market. However, its large variety of fun templates and user-friendly design make it stand out above the rest.

To get started with ImageChef, you have to either sign in with your Facebook username and password, or you can choose to register by entering your e-mail address, a password, and your name. A lined column on the left side has a button at the bottom labeled Find Friends. A blank screen sits just to the right and has three menu options: Create, User Made, and … Read more

Google updates image search to be faster, more reliable

Google announced today that it is revamping its image search to make it speedier and more reliable. Soon, people will be able to simultaneously see images and image information while searching for photos, illustrations, and graphics.

"Based on feedback from both users and webmasters, we redesigned Google Images to provide a better search experience," Google Images Associate Product Manager Hongyi Li wrote in a blog post today. "In the next few days, you'll see image results displayed in an inline panel so it's faster, more beautiful, and more reliable."

When users look up images … Read more

Active ISO Burner packs a lot into a simple interface

To burn discs with your PC, you need two things. The first is a CD burner, or (better) a DVD burner, or (better still) a Blu-Ray burner. The second is disc-burning software. For the first, you're probably limited by the burner you already own, and your burner's capabilities will determine what kinds of disc you can burn, how much and what kind of data they can hold, and how long it takes to burn them. But for the second requirement, the burning tool, you have a lot more choices, and a lot of them are free. Active Data … Read more

Clouds ruin GeoEye's satellite image of inauguration

Aw, shucks: imaging company GeoEye could not capture a super high-resolution image of Obama's inauguration today from space.

Using its GeoEye-1 and IKONOS satellites positioned 423 miles above the Earth, the company tried and failed -- due to clouds -- on two separate attempts to capture the image of the inauguration, a GeoEye representative told CNET. GeoEye planned to release an interactive map of the ceremony with a built-in zoom and a slider that would have let the user compare this year's image to the one captured four years ago. Feel free to zoom around in the 2009 Inauguration image embedded below.… Read more

Why Adobe (and other vendors) should give away older software

No doubt you heard earlier this week that Adobe is giving away Creative Suite 2, an older version of its popular (and pricey) image-editing and design bundle.

Then it turned out that, no, the software wasn't free; Adobe's Don Isaacs wrote that the company was merely "terminating the activation servers for CS2," and that the download page was only for those who already owned licenses for the product.

Ah, but it was too late: the story had gone viral (big time), and it appears Adobe has decided not to try stuffing the genie back into the … Read more

Instagram rolls back terms of service after ownership dustup

Instagram has backpedaled on changes to its terms of service that appeared to let the maker of the photo-sharing app sell users' images, with founder and CEO Kevin Systrom announcing today that the terms will revert to the version in place since the service launched in 2010.

Facebook-owned Instagram ignited a storm of protest with the announcement earlier this week that it was claiming perpetual rights to sell users' photographs without notifying or compensating the photographer. Under that new policy, Facebook claimed the right to license all public Instagram photos to companies or any other organization, including for advertising purposes, … Read more

Kodak sells its imaging patents for $525M

Eastman Kodak has a buyer -- or better said, buyers -- for its coveted treasure trove of digital imaging patents.

Under the agreements announced today, Kodak is selling the bundle for approximately $525 million, part of which will be paid by 12 intellectual property licensees organized by Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corp. Each licensee will receive rights to the patent portfolio and certain other Kodak patents. Another portion of the money will be paid by Intellectual Ventures, which is acquiring the digital imaging patent portfolio subject to these new licenses, as well as previously existing licenses, Kodak said.

The deal … Read more