Photo Sharing

Photos courtesy of Fujifilm

If you've watched a few of the Star Trek The Next Generation TV show episodes, you know that one of its writers' favorite plot devices was to use the Enterprise's holodeck to let the crew dress up in period costumes without having to use time travel or other dimensions as a plot vehicle. While a 3D virtual world with physical properties is probably not in our near future, according to this Time magazine article...

Fujifilm's New Dimension

...easy to create and see 3D digital photos will be available in retail stores in the next few months. The FinePix Real 3D System was actually announced way back in last fall at Photokina 2008. You can find a lot of detailed information about Fujifilm's 3D photo technology with lots of informative diagrams in this press release from that event...

FUJIFILM FinePix Real 3D System

This technology comes with a cost though. The camera will be a slightly high but affordable $600. The real cost (as with razors and razor blades) will probably be the cost of the special 3D prints. Still, I think a lot of people will want to capture 3D images of their children, pets, friends, and family and this may be a hot product this holiday season.

Photo- and video-sharing site Photobucket and T-Mobile have launched a service that lets T-Mobile customers send photos directly from their handsets to a Photobucket album, a PC hard drive or an e-mail address.

The companies are offering a free three-week trial on select handsets, including the BlackBerry Curve and Pearl and a few Windows Mobile devices, including the Sidekick. Subscribers first need to create a Photobucket account and then link their phone to their online photo album.

Following the free trial, users continue on with the free version, which only provides access from the phone to Photobucket, or upgrade to the premium version. For a one-time fee of $19.99, the premium version is the one that lets users send photos from their phones to their PC or any e-mail address as well as to their Photobucket album.

Tiny Pictures, a mobile photo- and video-sharing service, has added Flickr integration to its flagship Radar service.

Now, Radar users can follow the path Flickr photos take and keep up with the comment stream as the photos are shared, all from within their Radar account, WirelessWeek reports. Users can access Radar through its mobile app or Web site.

Once users have connected their Radar and Flickr accounts, they just need to choose which Flickr friends to follow and their photos and comments will show up integrated with the Radar content. Conversely, comments for Flickr photos made in Radar will automatically show up on Flickr as well.

Avanquest has come out with a new photo-sharing application that works across mobile phones, PCs and the Internet.

A subscription to the SendPhotos service includes a mobile phone client, a PC client and free online access to 1GB of storage, all for free during the beta period. Avanquest SendPhotos is certified to work with more than 140 cell phone models, including the T-Mobile G1, iPhone 3G and the BlackBerry Bold and Pearl.

The mobile client automates the uploading of pictures to the SendPhotos.com portal. The iPhone version includes a photo editor for cropping, coloring and adding fun features and text to the images.

SendPhotos PC allows for easily organizing, editing and sharing photos online or offline. SendPhotos Web provides a private online portal for uploading, archiving, synching and sharing digital images. Users can set it up so only authorized friends, family or colleagues can access the site. The service also includes remote printing capabilities and the ability to embed a photo album created in SendPhotos in a Web site or blog.

NewBay Software has come out with a new version of its LifeCache Photo & Video Album (PVA), a white-label solution for operators wanting to offer an online multimedia album service.

LifeCache version 4 adds advanced video editing, geotagging and third-party developer features such as mash-up services and multi-screen interfaces. End users can create and manage their video and photo albums directly from their phone or via a Web browser, the company says.

Consumers can also now add music overlays, special effects and create photo movies using the service's drag-and-drop interface.

The new third-party developer platform allows operators to pull user content into other services, create mash-ups and develop customized user interfaces "using almost any technology on any platform," according to NewBay. This includes the ability for users to share and view content not only on the Web or a cell phone, but TV, set-top boxes, game consoles, media servers and other devices hooked up to a home network, creating lots of potential for new revenue streams.

JuiceCaster, the mobile social networking company, announced an agreement with Photobucket to enable users to post mobile videos and photos from their handsets to their Photobucket account, according to FierceMobileContent.

Photobucket, which currently has more than 44 million unique users worldwide, handles more than 10 million uploads of personal photos, graphics and videos each day. Meanwhile, JuiceCaster lets users post and share mobile video and images in real-time across different social networking sites and blogs.

The report said that according to JuiceCaster, Photobucket will be a featured channel on its online Flash player, which in turn could be embedded within Blogger, LiveJournal, and WordPress-based sites.

Alltel customers who want to do more with the pictures on their camera phone than just upload them to a social network now have the option to turn them into a slideshow. With the user-generated mobile slideshow app, developed by FunMobility, users pick the photos they want to include and then let MyShow automatically turn them into a slideshow that can be personalized with text and background music.

The first mobile customers in North America to have access to MyShow, Alltel subs can upload their slideshows to the MyShow Web site as well as embed the MyShow widget on their personal Web pages. MyShow subscribers can view, rate and comment on the slideshows created by other users.

The idea is intriguing, but the execution can get a bit pricey. Rather than make it a free, ad-supported service or charge a one-time download fee, Alltel is charging a $3.99-a-month fee for MyShow.

Telecom Italia Mobile and ShoZu have hooked up to give TIM customers access to ShoZu's photo- and video-share services. ShoZu lets users transfer pictures and videos shot with their phones to PC-based social networks, blogs, other community sites and e-mail.

Under the deal, TIM will pre-install ShoZu on 10 handsets and offer them with a flat-rate data package that includes the use of ShoZu and some other services.

ShoZu will also sell and serve ads on its TIM service and share the revenue with the operator. The app will be pre-loaded on phones from Samsung, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Onda. Folks with other handsets can download the ShoZu client from the TIM WAP portal.

Slideshow widget maker Fliptrack has raised $5.7 million in funding and changed its name and company focus.

Along with adopting the new moniker, Moblyng, the company is shifting to the mobile market. Its service will let users take content they previously uploaded to their online social network profiles and convert it for viewing on mobile phones, MocoNews reports.

The VC infusion came from Mohr Davidow Ventures and Deep Fork Capital.

ShoZu, a company that lets users post pictures and video taken with a camera phone to a selection of Web sites, has added eight new partner destinations. ShoZu users can now easily post their photos to Cellfish, Dailymotion, Friendster, Ipernity, Photobucket, Seesmic, Twitter and Twitpic.

According to ZDNet's Mobile Gadgeteer, the new additions bring ShoZu's destination partners up to 36 sites including Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, Picasa and WordPress. You can also reportedly add your own custom destinations if there's a particular site you favor for photo sharing.