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Google picks up 360° photography startup Digisfera to bolster Street View

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Digisfera, a startup that prides itself in “photography, design, and development services for projects involving 360° images,” has been acquired by Google. Financial details of the deal haven’t been revealed, but Digisfera’s website has been updated to reflect the acquisition and states that the group is joining the Street View team at Google to “continue building great experiences using 360° photography.”

Here’s the full statement from the team:

We’re excited to share that Digisfera is joining Google. We started Digisfera almost five years ago and have had the opportunity to work in many interesting projects involving 360º photography over the years. We’re excited to join the Street View team at Google to continue building great experiences using 360° photography.

As we move on to our next adventure, it will no longer be possible for us to keep developing PanoTag, so it is being discontinued. We are planning to open-source our Marzipano viewer in the coming weeks and hope this will benefit the panoramic photography community.

The Portugal-based startup, according to reports, has been part of capturing many significant moments in panoramic photography, including Barack Obama’s inauguration, landmarks in Rio de Janeiro during the 2014 World Cup, and parts of the 2014 Winter Olympics. These skills are going to hopefully translate to making Street View a better product and it wouldn’t be far-fetched to think that Digisfera could contribute to Cardboard technology as well.

The company says it plans to open-source its Marzipano panorama viewing software.

 

 

Google Camera app gets remote shutter for Android Wear & more in latest update

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Google has just updated its Camera app to version 2.3 and with it comes the ability for users to snap pictures remotely using only their Android Wear smartwatch.

As first noted by AndroidPolice, once users open the updated app on their Android device, a connected Android Wear smartwatch will automatically present them with a shutter button that includes a countdown. Android Wear users will also be able to preview the shot they take on their wrist after snapping the photo. 
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Google Camera for Android updated w/ new cropping options, picture timer

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Google has just released an update to its Camera app on Android, as part of its “Update Wednesday” regiment. The update bumps the app to version 2.2 and adds several new features. One of the biggest new features is the ability to shoot photos in either 4:3 or 16:9 cropped resolutions. Although, it’s important to note that the cropping affects the total resolution of the image. So if you were to shoot in 16:9 on a Nexus 5, the resolution maxes out a 6MP. This changes depending on the phone you’re using, of course.

Google has also added the timer feature back to its Camera app with this update. The company removed it earlier this year, for some odd reason. The picture timer allows you to choose either 3 and 10 second timings for taking an image.

The update also adds new modes for shooting panoramas, including a fisheye setting. There’s also now a small settings icon on the first launch.

Google’s Camera update is available on the Play Store now.


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Google posts Galaxy Nexus panorama commercial

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbUZLbFMXo8&feature=youtu.be&hd=1]

Google just released a new commercial showing off Android 4.0’s panorama camera mode on the Galaxy Nexus.