Instagram seems to be having a hard time gaining traction against TikTok, whose users collectively spend 197.8 million hours daily on the platform, compared to the 17.6 million hours a day Instagram users spend viewing Reels, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal sourcing Meta Platforms internal research. The August report, “Creators x Reels State of the Union 2022,” indicates that Reels engagement was down 13.6 percent “over the previous four weeks — and that ‘most Reels users have no engagement whatsoever.’” Of about 11 million U.S. creators on Instagram, only 2.3 million, or 20.7 percent, post Reels monthly. Continue reading Internal Meta Study Shows Reels Struggling Against TikToks

Instagram users have embedded images in their posts, believing that they were protected against copyright claims. Facebook now explains that, “while our terms allow us to grant a sub-license, we do not grant one for our embeds API.” In other words, a user who embeds someone’s Instagram post on her website has to ask the poster in advance for a separate license to the post’s images. Those who don’t could be subject to a lawsuit. Professional photographers will be able to better negotiate with publishers based on these terms. Continue reading Instagram Users Can Be Sued for Embedding Images in Posts

Sony’s Alpha a7R III camera features a mirrorless design that allows photographers to take beautifully focused images of fast-moving objects. That’s a big contrast from the mirror-and-prism systems that have dominated cameras such as DSLRs (digital single-lens reflex). Mirrorless systems grab light much faster and use software to keep the images in focus. Professional photographers such as Kenneth Jarecke, who shot images during the Gulf War, are quickly becoming early adopters of the new camera. Continue reading Sony Mirrorless Camera Lays Down Gauntlet for Canon, Nikon

Pioneering online photo-sharing community Flickr, created in 2004 and sold to Yahoo in 2005, has now been sold again. As first reported by USA Today, Verizon’s Oath, Flickr’s owner since 2017, just sold the company to SmugMug, a Silicon Valley photo-sharing and image-hosting service. Chief executive Don MacAskill, who founded the company with Chris MacAskill in 2002, has vowed to “move heaven and earth to thrill … photographers everywhere.” Flickr reportedly has more than 100 million unique users. Continue reading SmugMug Acquires Photo Service Flickr From Verizon’s Oath

The marriage of cameras and artificial intelligence opens the doors to all kinds of interesting capabilities. For now, however, Google is introducing its Clips wireless smart camera with the pitch that AI will enable it to take better pictures than a dumb camera. While the $249 Clips uses machine learning to automatically capture short clips (motion photos without audio) of people and pets, Apple’s latest iPhone relies on face recognition to unlock, and now startup Lighthouse AI plans to add intelligence to a security camera to analyze the results. Continue reading Google Clips Camera Relies on AI to Capture Familiar Faces

Startup camera company Light just debuted the L16, which weighs less than a pound, has a form factor small enough to fit in a back pocket and replaces one large lens with 16 smaller lenses and sensors that produce a 52-megapixel image. That image compares to the typical smartphone’s 12-megapixel image or 30-megapixel image from a DSLR camera. The L16 — intended for photography, not video, and priced at $1,950 — also offers an adjustable optical zoom that allows the user to change the level of background blur and focus. Continue reading Unique Compact Still Camera Captures 52-Megapixel Images

SanDisk’s new high-capacity microSD card, first announced this spring, is now available from a number of retailers for $240. Touted by SanDisk as the “world’s first 200GB microSD card,” it was originally estimated to run in the $400 range. And while the current price may still surprise some consumers, the card provides transfer speeds up to 90MB per second, which is nearly double the speed of its 128GB counterpart. According to SanDisk, the read speed will allow users to transfer up to 1,200 photos between devices in a single minute. And the card can store up to 20 hours of HD video. Continue reading SanDisk’s 200GB microSD Card Holds 20 Hours of HD Video

A debate was sparked recently when a photographer sued BuzzFeed over the use of unlicensed images and BuzzFeed’s claims of fair use. A problematic issue is that in many instances, there are no actual human artists, writers, or editors creating what is seen online. When a search, automated process, or algorithm collects images, it falls under a copyright loophole. But fair use tools can be made in order to allow free content or maintain exclusivity. Continue reading Algorithms: New Content Creators are Redefining Fair Use