512 Pixels

App Recommendation: 1-Bit Camera

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Most iOS photo apps are all about applying rich, heavy-handed filters.

1-Bit Camera is an exception. The 99¢ app shoots in 1-bit mode, leaving just black and white dithered images. There are options to select high or low contrast, and to use either Atkinson and Bayer dithering algorithms. You an share via Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr.

The best part? The UI is set in Chicago. The retro look and feel is outstanding, and really adds to the experience of using the app.

On iPhoto for iPad

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Abdel Ibrahim:

All in all, I’m impressed with iPhoto on the iPad. It’s a great mobile solution for editing pictures, and I have no doubt that any photographer worth his salt could churn out quality images without running to his computer. But as big of a leap forward as iPhoto for iOS is, and as enticing as its portability can be, it doesn’t make a good enough argument for ditching that desktop altogether. Not yet.

On Android Tablets

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As pointed out by John Gruber, TechCrunch is reporting that Asus has only sold 2,000 or so of its Transformer Prime tablet..

2,000. Since December.

As Gruber remarked, Android isn’t winning in the tablet space.

(While the Kindle Fire has surely sold better, Amazon’s custom stuff on top of Android really puts the Fire in its own class, next to the Nook tablet.)

That said, dozens of Android tablets have come out since December, when the Prime shipped, and dozens more will ship this year.

I don’t understand why OEMs keep making these things. Do they each think that their tablet will be the one to make it, breaking the streak? Google might be ready to “double down” on the tablet front, but it really seems like whatever the company can do, it will be too little too late. The iPad is nearly uncatchable, if that.

Furthermore, why do sites like the Verge and others keep spending so much time reviewing these things?

Amazon CEO Plans to Recover Apollo 11 Rockets From Sea Floor

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Adam Mann at Wired:

Billionaire Jeff Bezos announced plans to recover from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean at least one of the F–1 engines that carried the Apollo 11 rocket into space.

Founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Bezos already has his hands in several extreme undertakings, such as the private spaceflight company Blue Origin.

Bezos reported March 28 on his blog that a team of engineers has recently used state-of-the-art deep-sea sonar and found the Apollo 11 engines lying 14,000 feet below the ocean’s surface. He wrote that he is currently making plans to raise them.

The space nerd in me is excited. I hope Bezos is successful.

On That New iPad Screen

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Vivek Gowri & Anand Lal Shimpi:

The new iPad is externally very similar to the iPad 2, but my feeling is that there’s a much larger step in usability from the iPad 2 to the new iPad than there was from the original to the iPad 2. It’s a difference that has nothing to do with form factor and everything to do with the Retina Display. The iPad 2 took the original iPad and made it better or more refined in every way - thinner, lighter, faster - but the experience didn’t change radically. The Retina Display represents a fundamental change in how you visually interact with the device. The display is really the center of a tablet’s experience, and with a display that drastically improved, the experience is correspondingly better.

This is why Sam Biddle was wrong.

On That New iPad

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Sam Biddle at Gizmodo:

The new Apple iPad is kind of a paradox: At the same time it’s both the best possible tablet you can buy, and yet, it’s a disappointment. It retained the crown with an incremental performance bump.

[…]

Apple needs something that fundamentally changes the iPad. It needs something that makes the iPad a different, better sort of object, rather than just a refined one. Look, everyone’s a critic. We’re trying some constructive criticism—a wish list of ideas for a new iPad that actually feels new.

Head.

Into.

Desk.