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Journalists Cover Microsoft, Using Macs

It’s not an easy time for Microsoft — with Steve Ballmer having to field questions about being “buffoons” and an “evil empire”  at the shareholder’s meeting (.doc) — so when they get together “the world’s most influential technology pundits and online writers” (nb: we weren’t invited) for Mobius to discuss super-secret mobile tech you’d think [...]

Guide To Black Friday Apple Bargains: Cheap MacBooks, iPods and Accessories Galore

Here’s a guide for finding the best bargains on Apple-related gear during the infamous Black Friday sales on November 27. We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of gear from leaked photos of sales flyers and descriptions of sales.
The bargains include a 2.26 GHz MacBook + $150 gift card at Best Buy for $999.99 ; a 32GB [...]

Review: Voices Is Today’s Best Thing Ever, Grab It Now While It’s Cheap

New on the App Store is Voices from the clever folk at Tap Tap Tap. You can guess what it does.

Open it up, pick a silly voice. Helium is pretty silly. A microphone appears and the app even clears your throat for you (try it, you’ll see what I mean). Now speak your brains, and [...]

Review: Sony Walkman S540 Series Video MP3 Player

Press releases, you will hardly be surprised to hear, are rarely very interesting. But one arrived in my inbox a couple of weeks ago that made me double-take.
“Sony’s S Series Walkman,” it chattered, “is a serious challenger to the iPod Nano.” Gosh, really? Perhaps the Cult had better have a look at one, then, despite [...]

Strange slant effects with iPhone camera

The iPhone’s diddy little camera wins no photography awards, and rarely even a positive remark from fellow iPhone owners in the pub.

But that doesn’t mean it can’t come up with some interesting images when it tries hard. Or even when it doesn’t try hard at all, and just acts weird. We’ve seen iPhone cubism covered before, but how about iPhone slants?

slanted-20080922.jpg

Slanted by taiyofj.

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iPhone can take a strange photo by kenic.

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Llandudno beach by Fr Peter Weatherby.

All photos used with permission of their owners. Thanks to all.

About the author

gilest

Giles Turnbull is a freelance writer in England. He is a columnist for PA, and has written for the BBC, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, MacUser, Macworld, and The Morning News. He has a blog you can ignore and a Twitter account you needn't follow.

Email the author | Read more posts by Giles Turnbull.

9 comments

    I took some low-light, action shots this past weekend and the iPhone split the photo, where one half is shifted up about 100 pixels from the other half…interesting…

    That’s due to the iPhone camera’s rolling shutter. It takes a picture by scanning one line of pixels at a time. It’s the same thing that causes the Nikon D90’s weird video artifacts.

    Nothing particular to the iPhone… most camera phones I’ve had did this when moving… Like foresmac above said, rolling shutter…

    The very same kind of artifact may be seen in a photo of the first (1911) Indy 500 winner. The car was moving too fast for the moving focal plane shutter and the entire car seems to be leaning forward relative to the grandstands.

    Obviously the iPhone needs a faster shutter or a faster something else.

    A picture is worth a thousand words.

    I’m realy admiring Apple products but I have to confess since they one I had mixed feeling toward iphone.not that I dont like it,I believe in many respects it’s 10+ years ahead of other phones.but really when you buying a product like that it should at least have a decent camera.2MP camera is realy weak,considering other “phone” manufactureres are supplying 5 and even 8 mega pixel cams in their phones.
    some might argue this is a phone not a camera but realisticly you need at least 3mp on a phone camera to call it camera phone.
    I believe a camera in a phone is a very very important addition,everyone will need that in daily occasions when they just want to snap an event,so why just 2mp??iphons are way more expensive in UK (where I live) than US so this poor camera is a real let down when othet phone makers are doing 8MP.it’s just sad for an Apple lover like me to be limited so much.

    It’s not that the iPhone needs a faster shutter, its that the people holding them need to hold them steady..

    So it’s not just me! Half my photos turn out weirdly slanted. I had one I took of marching Beefeaters in London that was hilarious. In any case, the iPhone camera leaves a lot to be desired.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/coljac/sets/72157607479274735/

    I took this picture on the beach of the island Schiermonnikoog, The Netherlands. Now I know the world is not flat, but this is too much: http://flickr.com/photos/pvantees/2904693509/

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