xseries

Google launches mobile Picasa

MoCoNews has a small piece on Google launching a mobile version of its Picasa photo management software - nice if you're into snapping when you're on the move. If you're interested, check it out here. If you're not, enjoy our totally gratuitous photo (above) and this equally gratuitous plug for our excellent X-Series Flickr Group (join it and you can add your photos to our ever growing pool).

This piece made me think a little about how many more photos I've taken since having a camera in my mobile. Some non-essential data from my bloated iPhoto software: 2004 (1,975 pics), 2005 (3,545 pics), 2006 (4,513 pics) and finally, this year so far 2,977 pics!   

//de

Losing...the most bitter pill

Far be it from us to sound bitter, but the winner of London's Institute of Contemporary Art's All Tomorrow's Pictures competition has been announced and we were SHOCKED to discover it wasn't won by us.

Well, while we're not ones to bear grudges we are of course swinging into immediate action with our own soon to be announced mobile photography competition. While it will only be open to moderators of the X-Series blog and have no prize and very little credibility, it will at the least put us back in the place amongst mobile photographers that we believe we so richly deserve (that's on top, in case you're missing the subtlety).

Until that righteous day, you probably should head over to the ICA's site to check out the winner, the runners up (not a sniff there, either!) and of course all of the entrants. Or, if you are in London you can always drop by in person and look at the exhibition which opens tomorrow (May 31) and runs until June 8.

And, if you want to see what we submitted, well, you could always revisit this post and see for yourself how unfair the world can be. Oh well, there's always next year ;-)

//de

ps: speaking of mobile photography, don't forget to join our ever growing X-Series flickr group and submit your own snaps.

Snap happy (again!)

Over the past week or two I've been putting my new E65 through its paces (after leaving my N73 in the back of a London cab!). So far so good on the calling, texting, chatting, Skyping front, but a strange thing has occured which, given the E65's camera hardly falls into the same class as the one on the N73, I've found myself taking lots more pics these past few weeks.

Strange really. I used to be obsessed, but after taking about 600 or so on a trip to France last year, I slowed down a lot. But since the E65 entered my life, well I've been snapping like crazy. Okay, they're mostly of the inside of aeroplanes and taxis, of food I'm about to eat, and of the endless Swans (owned by the Queen apparently) around Hyde Park, but still it's good to be back.

Not sure why this has happened, but it's probably due to the fact the camera is always there. No lens cover to slide back. Just point and snap. I've uploaded a few images to our much under used Flickr site and am interested to see any that my fellow X-Series snappers have taken.

Join the X-Series Group on Flickr

I've also add them to the X-Series group. If you want to add your own, then this is the place to do it. Come on we'd love to see what you've been snapping. To join, go to http://www.flickr.com/groups/xseries/

//de

Framed

We’ve been enjoying a little springtime culture here, at the X-Series blog.  A visit to the Monet exhibition yesterday, and now onto the Banksy show at the weekend – very enriching. 

Ok, so we’re not exactly in the same league as the above, but every now and again we think that there’s a picture snapped with our mobiles that’s worth displaying.  As luck would have it, via a little Bluetooth technology, we can send it straight to be framed.

As reported via 14U, French Company Parrot introduces a wireless digital photo frame. You can transfer photos straight from your Bluetooth mobile phone onto the picture frame.

We’ll wait for the RA to call us.

//lw

Get ready to snap

London’s The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) and Sony Ericsson are bringing together some famous names from the world of film, design, art, literature and any other field you care to name to launch a new competition with the Velvet Undergroundesque title “All Tomorrow’s Pictures”.

According to Mobile Marketing Magazine, each of a group of famous folk – including Bloc Party, Peter Blake, Alison Goldfrapp and Helena Christensen – are to take pictures on a Sony Ericsson K800i Cybershot phone for a book to be published in May this year.

In addition to the 59 invited photographers, a humble anybody is also in the mix to be the 60th person in the book.

To be that “anybody” you simply have to submit a picture you have taken on any camera phone and you'll be up against some stiff competition, including X-Series' own de (whose picture of a goose you can see at the top of this post).

But hurry, the competition end on March 2!

For more information get along to the ICA’s web site.

Audience participation, please

What did you do last weekend?  Shot a pop video? Crazy.

Wired magazine claims that the video to The Shins 'Phantom Limb' is so far the only Audience Created Concert Film. 

The Shins, with Current TV, recently asked fans via YouTube to record and send in footage of their gig taken on mobile phones and digital cameras, which they then edited into the 'Phantom Limb' video.  Over 200 people did just that, and at least one image from nearly every camera was used in the final cut - taking audience participation to another level.

How'd it go before? Wave your phones in the air like you don't care.  Better take care, now, your work matters.

//lw

Popular lady

A week or so ago we posted a number of N73 wallpapers on our X-Series Flickr site. Since then they have been downloaded dozens of times. Just for a bit of fun we thought we’d include the most popular and the least popular ones here.

Most popular is Helsinki Lady:

Least popular is Wooden Tin Tin:

Come on now, what's wrong with wooden Tin Tin and Snowy? Get downloading!

And, while we’re thinking about it we asked if you could send us  some images that we could offer to other X-Series aficionados. So far the response has been, er, well, um, how do I put this ... pretty poor. So, we think we should offer a little prize for the first 3 people to send us wallpaper to use. The prize? That old chestnut, our undying admiration and a link to your Flickr site.

Send your pieces to blog.xseries@three.com.

//de

Mini Flickr

Flickr for mobile is now available to both new skool and old skool Flickr users (previously it had only been available if you were part of the pre-Yahoo! crowd).

While those with uber browsers on their mobile can opt for the full Flickr experience, the pared down version is fully-featured but easier on lesser-browsers or older mobiles.

On the subject of Flickr, those of us here on the X-Series blog have been busy uploading all manner of images to our personal Flickr sites, but have been pretty darn lazy on the X-Series flickr experience. Expect more fun stuff on that one any day now.

You can find it on: http://m.flickr.com/

//de

Winner

We have a winner of the incredibly difficult Spot the Difference competition we ran a few days ago here on the X-Series blog. You were invited to look at a group of 20 photos from a specially selected set. The first who could tell us which were not taken on a mobile digital camera would win. 

Javi Cárcamo correctly identified "Run cat run", "Communist" and "Helsinki babe".

As promised, Javi has not only won our admiration, but also a link to his flickr page (which contains the photo of the even-toed ungulate we have used to illustrate this post).
//d

Spot the difference

Over the past couple of years I've taken literally thousands of pictures with various mobiles (part of the job, really). It's gotten to the point where I have to make a real effort to pull out the "proper" digital camera to take a snap.

Anyway, I thought it'd be fun to play a little "spot the difference" competition so I've posted 20 of my pics and mixed in 3 that weren't taken with a mobile. First person to email me with the correct 3 pics wins ... our admiration and, if they'd like, a link from our blog to their own Flickr page for a while ;-)

Check out the set "Spot the difference" on the X-Series flickr site now.

//d