Scout Camera Lets You Focus on Taking Great Pictures

There is no dearth of camera apps in the App Store with apps that can let you do almost anything from making your photos look like vintage comics to letting you add a virtual mustache to any face. But finding a straightforward, uncluttered camera app that lets you apply filters in real-time can be a bit harder and this is where Crush Apps comes to the rescue with Scout Camera.

Scout Camera hit the App Store last month and just got an update a few days ago to let it take full advantage of the iPhone 5′s larger screen. Here’s a walk-through of how it works on an iPhone 4S (thanks to Apple’s switch to the new Lightning connector in the iPhone 5, my app video capture system needs a new adapter before I can use it with my iPhone 5):



Scout lets you apply filters and change the aspect ratio of your photos as you capture them so you can frame them up exactly the way you want and know what you’re getting before you tap that shutter button. Comparatively Instagram, the wildly popular photo sharing social networking app, used to let you apply filters in real-time but actually lost this capability in a recent update when it got iPhone 5 and iOS 6 compatibility.
With other excellent photo editing apps like Camera+, Snapseed, and many others in the App Store, I was a bit curious to know why Crush Apps decided to release a camera app into what is already a crowded market. So, I asked the man behind Crush Apps, Jim Rhoades, why he created it and here’s an excerpt from what he told me:

I really enjoy the process of taking photos – and being able to frame a picture to a particular aspect ratio while taking it is, to me at least, a better experience than taking a photo and cropping it later on. I also really like the 16:9 aspect ratio. I find that particular shape of photo visually interesting, and wanted a camera app capable of that. I also wanted a camera app that didn’t have controls (like the front/back camera switch and flash buttons) blocking the view of the photo I was taking. In other camera apps, I find those controls distracting and think they get in the way of composing the picture.
…I also wanted to be able to offer something that allowed you to take photos in black and white, or that had a little extra color saturation (like the Vivian filter) – or a number of other visual looks… and I wanted to be able to see what those effects looked like as I was taking the photo.

I think Rhoades has succeeded in creating a camera app that lets you focus on taking great pictures first and foremost in Scout Camera. Rhoades told me he has plans to add more filters and possibly filter controls, so Scout Camera will get even better in the future. If you’re looking for a no-nonsense camera app that does more than the iPhone’s built-in Camera app and has controls that don’t get in your way, Scout Camera is a great choice.
Scout Camera is available for $.99 as a special introductory price. It requires iOS 5.1 or higher and works on the iPhone 3GS and later, the 4th-generation and later iPod touches, and second-generation and later iPads.

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Microsoft Rilis Harga pada Tablet Surface, Oktober 26

Dengan rasa waktu yang disayangkan, Microsoft telah merilis harga dan informasi ketersediaan tablet baru 'Surface' yang pada awalnya diumumkan kembali pada bulan Juni. Terjadi pelepasan hanya beberapa jam sebelum Apple mengirimkan undangan untuk acara peluncuran iPad Mini pekan depan.

Surface ini akan mulai dikirimkan di AS, Inggris, Kanada, Australia, Perancis, Jerman dan Hong Kong pada Jumat, Oktober 26. Windows RT yang didukung Surface dimulai pada $ 499 untuk model 32GB, $ 100 lebih murah daripada iPad dengan penyimpanan sebanding. Cover Touch, salah satu inovasi yang lebih menarik dalam usaha tablet Microsoft, tidak termasuk untuk harga, itu hanya tersedia sebagai bagian dari bundel $ 599 dengan tablet 32GB yang sama.

Ada juga model 64GB yang mencakup Cover Touch untuk $ 699. Secara terpisah, Cover Touch adalah $ 119 dan Type Cover adalah $ 129.

Surface ini tersedia untuk preorder dari website Microsoft.

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Ice Cream Hanya Awal untuk Android

Pada tanggal 1 September 2011, Google ketua Eric Schmidt mengungkapkan bahwa perbaikan di samping sistem operasi Android 4.0 mobile, Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), sebuah versi yang seharusnya bekerja pada smartphone dan tablet, akan dijadwalkan untuk beberapa waktu pada musim gugur ini.

Berbicara pada Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff pada konferensi Dreamforce, Schmidt menyatakan, "Kami memiliki sistem operasi baru, secara internal dikenal sebagai Ice Cream Sandwich untuk beberapa alasan, yang dirilis pada bulan Oktober, November."

Google yang tetap agak bungkam tentang mengumumkan tanggal rilis, sampai sekarang, yang datang pada tumit laporan tidak dapat dipertahankan Verizon meluncurkan perangkat Android pertama 4.0, Droid Prime, yang barangkali dapat menjadi Google Nexus smartphone ketiga Oktober ini.

Menurut statistik resmi pekan lalu, fragmentasi Android masih berkembang, dengan lebih dari setengah dari semua pengguna Android masih berjalan pada sistem Froyo, 2010, lebih dikenal sebagai Android 2.2.

Beberapa perubahan Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) diakui akan membawa termasuk drawer UI aplikasi baru, sebuah peluncur diperbarui, Kamera Operator Virtual pusat-tracking API, aplikasi homescreen stackable, dan juga akan mengimpor beberapa fitur Honeycomb ke ponsel. Seperti sebelumnya non-Honeycomb versi Android, ICS harus benar-benar open-source.

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