China’s Sneaki Design has a new smartphone camera technology called SwitchLens that makes it possible to use professional-quality interchangeable lenses with existing Android and iOS phones. It does this via a phone-mounting external camera unit that has its own one-inch CMOS sensor and coupling device for lenses built to the Micro Four Thirds (M43) open standard. The pro-sized sensor captures still images as 21MP in either the RAW or JPEG formats, and 60p MOV video at up to 4K. Existing M43 compatible lenses from manufacturers including Panasonic and Olympus work with SwitchLens, according to Sneaki Design. Continue reading SwitchLens Adds 1-Inch Sensor, M43 Lenses to Smartphones

Google is attacking slow-loading web pages with the new JPEG image encoder/decoder Jpegli, which offers a 35 percent compression ratio improvement using high quality compression settings, the Alphabet company says. The Jpegli JPEG coding library offers backward compatibility via “a fully interoperable encoder and decoder complying with the original JPEG standard and its most conventional 8-bit formalism, and API/ABI compatibility with libjpeg-turbo and MozJPEG,” Google says. The resulting images compressed using Jpegli are “more precise and psychovisually effective” as a result of computations that make images “look clearer” with “fewer observable artifacts.” Continue reading Google Introduces Faster, More Efficient JPEG Coding Library

Facebook unveiled Spectrum, an open-source image processing library to help improve the quality and reliability of images uploaded through its own apps. Spectrum, which Facebook first showed publicly and launched in beta in November, is now on GitHub, available to the developer community. As higher quality cameras on smartphones have become a key selling point, consumers are dealing with larger image files, which can be a stumbling block since they eat up more device memory and more network bandwidth. Continue reading Facebook Introduces Open-Source Image Processing Library

Huawei’s new P20 Pro, which features an AI-powered Leica triple camera system, has been ranked as one of 2018’s best Android phones. The new smartphone is also stylish, with the option of a Twilight glossy blue/purple finish. The 6.1-inch OLED screen offers an aspect ratio of 18.7:9 (it’s a little more than twice as tall as it is wide) and 2240×1080 resolution. But nobody in the U.S. will be able to buy the P20 Pro anytime soon, since AT&T pulled out of the partnership due to FCC concerns over potential spyware. Continue reading Huawei P20 Pro: Triple Camera System Gets Strong Reviews

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group), known for its photo standard, released a new video compression standard, JPEG XS, designed to work on next-gen 5G cellular or Wi-Fi networks. The new standard, says JPEG, will work on current computers via a software upgrade and is aimed at streaming lossless video, VR content and games over wireless networks, with lower latency and better energy efficiency. Devices smaller than computers, however, will require a hardware upgrade to support JPEG XS. Continue reading JPEG Debuts Streaming Video Format for 5G, Wi-Fi Networks

Amazon has designed a Windows program that allows users to convert traditional print books to digital files (for personal, non-commercial use), which can then be read using Amazon’s Kindle software. Once converted, the digital version of these print books will function as any other Kindle e-book with adjustable font features, free cloud storage and Whispersync capabilities. However, Kindle Convert may prove to be too tedious for some readers, since it requires that users physically scan the pages of the book. Continue reading Amazon Lets Users Convert Print Books into Kindle E-Books

The first Saturday morning session of SMPTE’s Technology Summit On Cinema at NAB focused on factors that could impact the UHD TV rollout, including research on what humans are able to see and observe. During a panel titled “Understanding the Human Vision System,” Dr. Jenny Read of Newcastle University Institute of Neuroscience set the stage by discussing four parameters of vision: spatial resolution, temporal resolution, dynamic range, and color perception. Related studies from Dolby, EBU and EPFL were presented. Continue reading SMPTE Tech Summit: Understanding the Human Vision System

Image-sharing site Imgur wants to create a more TV-like experience. Creator Alan Schaaf believes the site can step in where TV leaves off to provide mindless (in a good way), easy-to-consume entertainment. The site’s biggest appeal is its ease of image uploading, sharing and commenting. Consuming is just as easy to do, and Schaaf thinks it’s equally as enjoyable as TV. Imgur launched a chat feature last month and is shifting from image host to a social community and public destination. Continue reading Image-Sharing Imgur Wants to Provide a TV-Like Experience

JPEGmini is a photo optimization app and service that offers advanced compression capabilities for standard JPEG images. Developed by ICVT, an Israeli media technology company, JPEGmini will decrease an image file’s size without affecting its quality. It is cross platform and fully compatible with current JPEG standards. JPEGmini is an addition to other JPEG optimizers such as JPEG2000 and Google’s WebP, which are not yet fully adopted. Continue reading JPEGmini Shrinks Image Sizes, But Maintains Their Quality

The Android version of the Google Drive mobile app has been updated to include a number of new features, including the ability to scan receipts, business cards and other documents with your camera phone and save them in the cloud via Drive. In addition to the ability to scan documents, the update uses an optical technology in order to search the stored images. And according to Google, a new grid view makes it easier to find files. Continue reading Google Drive Update: Mobile Android App Features Scanning