iPhone augmented reality translator

Word Lens — http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/word-lens/id383463868 download now on the App Store, and purchase language packs when you need them!

Languages currently available using in-app purchase:
- Spanish to English
- English to Spanish

Try the demo modes first to get a sense of the technology in action — reverse or erase Spanish and English words!

Check us out at: http://questvisual.com/
Now available for iPhone 4, iPhone 3gs, and iPod Touch 4.

Word Lens can instantly translates printed words from one language to another using the video camera on your iPhone. No network delay, no roaming fees, and no reception problems.

Word Lens is a dictionary — evolved. It looks up words for you, and shows them in context. You can use Word Lens on your vacations to translate restaurant menus, street signs, and other things that have clearly printed words.

Word Lens has its limits. Sometimes the translation will have mistakes, and may be hard to understand, but it usually gets the point across. If a translation fails, there is a way to manually look up words by typing them in. Word Lens does not read very stylized fonts, handwriting, or cursive. Try it, and tell us what you think!

Blogging from an iPad

Do you use wordpress for your blog?
Do you have an iPad?

Then you have probably have tried the wordpress free app.
Well, there is another app (not free) which works even better. It allows you to connect to flickr, youtube, picasaweb, and create rich text posts with photos and a much more flexible editing environment.

You can find more information at blogsy’s website

today’s front pages of most newspapers

Newseum is a cool website that will allow you to see the front page of most of the newspapers published on paper.

10 Essential Websites for iPhone Photographers

iPhone photography is a growing medium, akin to Lomography in its cult status and the way it champions light-hearted, lo-fi, everyday shooting and off-beat effects.

Like any good burgeoning artistic movement there are already a bunch of brilliant online resources aimed at iPhone photographers offering great galleries, talent showcases, app reviews, exhibition news and more.

Read on for 10 great sites from around the web that we’ve bookmarked for iPhone Photographers and photo-lovers alike. Your favorite not on this list? Please share any other great iPhotography sites you like in the comments below.

1. Pixels at an Exhibition

This site describes itself as a “gallery of the most beautiful and ground-breaking iPhone art on the web and home to an ever-increasing number of visionary pioneers in the exploration and development of this nascent and vibrant new medium.” With a daily pic to inspire you, easy browsing by category or a tag word cloud, featured artists and exhibition news, iPhotographers will find lots to like on this site.

2. iPhoneogenic

Run by Edgar Cuevas, an iPhotographer in his own right, iPhoneogenic is a lovely site to visit. Described as “a place for highlighting the iPhoneographer,” it offers enlightening interviews with iPhotographers from all over the world that sometimes include interesting how-tos on certain techniques. It’s always a fascinating read.

3. EYE’EM

EYE’EM is about more than just iPhotography — it’s a hub dedicated to mobile photography as a whole, where “creative minds from all over the world unite to share their images and create a unique stream of mutual inspiration and creative expression.” You can browse through pics, follow photographers you like, search by location and tag words, comment on photos, and share images. You can also jump into the fray by creating your own stream.

4. iPhoneography

Glyn Evans’ great iPhoneography blog covers iPhone photography and videography with app news and reviews (including great info on app updates), photographer showcases, news from the iPhotography community around the world and more. There’s also a user forum for discussions on the topic where you can post questions and help others with answers.

5. The Best Camera

Chase “the-best-camera-is-the-one-that’s-with-you” Jarvis’ worldwide hub for mobile photography is the sister site to the app of the same name, with photos from iPhotographers globally uploaded via the app. Viewing a real-time stream of these images is great fun but you’ll get the most out of this site if you post your own content thanks to the great management and sharing options that are available.

6. Life in LoFi

Life in Lo-Fi is the iPhoneography blog of Marty Yawnick, a freelance graphic designer and iPhotographer. Yawnick offers his readers app news and reviews, links to relevant articles of interest he spots around the web, curated Flickr showcases, some of his personal photography and regular promo code giveaways.

7. iPhoneArt

A relative newcomer, iPhoneArt’s aim is “to build a grassroots mobile art community where professionals, beginners, and developers alike can share and discuss all forms of mobile art.” Despite being in its early days, user-generated content has helped create a huge gallery of more than 6,000 photos. The site includes a “Studio Talk” forum, a robust app review section and the option to sign up to create you own online gallery with a unique username-based URL.

8. The Big Hipstamatic Show

Fans of the titular app should definitely look up its sister-site: The Big Hipstamatic Show. The guys behind Hipstamatic run regular contests for best photos under certain titles. The current contest, for example, is “Fields.” You can view the leaderboard to see the hot contenders or view past entries for a wonderful showcase of iPhotography.

9. iPhone Photo

“Gently” curated by Caleb Kimbrough, iPhone Photo is a very simple site offering an online showcase of what Caleb considers “the best user submitted iPhone photography.” Dating back to July 2009, it’s an eclectic collection with some strong photography.

10. Flickr

No, we haven’t gone mad. We know everyone (and their dog) is well aware of the world’s largest photography site, but besides being a place to upload your own pics, it’s a really good resource for iPhotography inspiration, artist discovery and app research.

Many iPhotographers will name the apps they’ve used for specific photos, giving you an idea of what the different photographic options can produce. Did you know there are more than 30 million iPhone photographs on Flickr? You can browse pics by camera model or head for one of the iPhoto groups — there are tons of them and some amazing photography to enjoy.

(from mashable)

International Taxi Fare Calculator

Do you travel often? I do, and I always wonder how much is going to cost me the taxi from the airport to the hotel, always afraid if I would have the right amount or if the taxi is going to try to charge more.

Well take a look at world taxi meter website. It is not for everywhere but might be of help:

Build Project Management Gantt charts with Gantto

Anybody who’s ever managed a project, whether online or off, knows how invaluable a Gantt chart can be.

For project managers looking for a Web-based alternative to the industry standard Microsoft Project for creating Gantt charts, one option might be Gantto, a Y Combinator-funded startup that recently went into private beta.

Gantto offers an intuitive UI for building out and editing Gantt charts, from the most basic to the rather complex. To make things easy for those who have historically used Microsoft Project, Gantto allows you to import project files in XML format.

For those who aren’t familiar with them, Gannt charts are bar-based charts that break down a project’s timeline. They’ve been around for about a century, but it was only with the invention of the personal computer that it became easy to rapidly produce complex Gantt charts. Today, they’re an indispensable part of any project.

Project managers looking to take Gantto for a spin can sign up here.

Is this where advertising is going?

Many times you have wondered who the hell reads the adds in websites and other places. You just skip them or close them, so you wonder how can the companies pay to advertise…

Nowadays mass advertising is transforming into custom advertising. Google does so in its add sense and gmail. I would say it might work better as you can be interested in what it is being offered as it fits in the context of your search, emails, etc…

Is mass advertising dead then?

I guess no. Walmart or Carrefour, Coca-Cola and so need to continue with mass advertising as well as customizing their campaigns into this new era.

As you know I listen constantly to podcasts audiobooks and so. At first I was surprised that one of my favorite podcaster (or netcaster as he likes to call himself) started adding 2 to 3 adds in each show. The difference is that he would talk about the products and looks like he really likes it.

I think that it is not the same to listen to a commercial in a traditional way, than to hear someone you trust recommending a product. For the person you trust doing this could cost him the fact that you don’t trust him anymore as you might think that if he does reviews and some of them are ads, he is not being transparent and objective…. unless…. if he really likes a service he can choose to be paid by them to advertise.

Well this is where we are going and this website is some of it. Take a look: open candy

Others could be services like trialpay where if you are normaly buying something, you can get a discount on a product you want to try. For instance you are going to buy something from gap anyway and you would like to try 3 free months of evernote. Voila.

Remindo: personalized company intranet

With remindo you can create your company branded intranet in minutes and access it from anywhere on the web. Use it free for up to 3 GB of storage. Share information, collaborate and project manage with your team and clients.

Read more

Helicopter? there is an iPhone app for that

Ardone has released a quadricopter that can be controlled with an iPhone or iPod touch. Take a look at the video, it is a super cool gadget… it works with wi-fi and has two cameras…

Phanfare: Photo and Video hosting

I just wanted to introduce a new player in the photo hosting. I have talked in the past about flickr, picasa web, smugmug (one of my favourites) and now a small company from New Jersey, phanfare offers you options of unlimited photos from $49.99, and the pro $99.99 with Raw support.

The galleries do not look as cool as with smugmug but you have a ton of cool features such as HD video (up to 2Gb per file) support or a desktop client.

Give it a try!

I still have not decided how to back up all my photos (around 50.000 with raw and jpgs…) may be just a backup service of S3 in amazon… as I have my own galleries at http://norai.net with a selection of good photos and http://norai.net/gallery with the rest.

I still need an offsite backup though even if they are all in raid mirror and external HD… but looking at the prices of backing up at amazon S3, dreamhost or others, I rather buy an external HD and put it is a friend’s house.