General – Page 58 – MeisterPlanet

Panoramic Photos on the iPhone

I found a great little app called AutoStitch for the iPhone that came in very handy this week when I wanted to create panoramic views of the displays at the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio.

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The program works by allowing you to take a series of overlapping photos using the iPhone camera and “stitching” them together in one long, panoramic image. While you can find software to accomplish the same effect with more features for your desktop or laptop, I love the fact that you can create and save the panorama directly on the phone.

The only thing holding this $1.99 program back is the limited image quality available to my iPhone 3G camera. However, as you can see from the above examples, impressive results are still available despite the hardware issue.

How Twitter Could Manage “Pro” Accounts

Two themes I see in a number of recent Twitter stories talk about how the company needs to find a way to generate revenue, as well as how businesses can use Twitter to reach out to their customers. There’s already talk of Twitter creating “professional” accounts, but critics wonder what features they could offer for business clients.

After thinking about it, one of the first suggestion I have would be the creation of a Twitter account infrastructure to allow multiple sub-accounts. Often, the marketing teams of companies will have multiple employees all using the same account, which can create security and tracking issues. Twitter should allow the creation of sub-accounts, all with their own login requirements for each employee, that could post on behalf of the main account.

Another feature Twitter could offer would be extra security for professional accounts that tracks posting behaviors in order to detect and prevent hacks and hijacks. High-profile Twitter accounts are a prime target for bad guys to try and take over for their own use, so having a system that could detect logins and password changes from suspect sources would be a great benefit for the credibility of that account.

I’m sure there will be plenty of other features available, such as increased data tracking features (like number of views from non-follower sources), but the above are two that I could see to be key for the growing professional Twitter market.

Talking Tech with WITF

I had a chance to answer technology questions on WITF FM 89.5’s Smart Talk program on Monday morning.

You can listen to the hour-long show here.

Augmented Reality on the Apple iPhone

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This video, showing the use of the new Nearest Tube app for the Apple iPhone 3GS, really brings home the point that augmented reality applications are starting to make their way into every day life.

“Augmented reality” is a term you’ll hear for technology that adds extra information into your view of an area around you. In the example above, the app uses the GPS and magnetic compass in the iPhone 3GS to determine where you’re at and what you’re looking at to lookup useful information about the London subway system, then takes the current image from the camera and adds the relevant information on top of it.

Yet again, a little bit of “science fiction” that has become “science now”.

A Magnificent Ride

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This video showing the view of a shuttle launch from the perspective of the solid rocket boosters is pretty spectacular. The shot of the shuttle Atlantis from behind as it soars upwards at around 2:30 in is jaw dropping.