HTC One M8 – Daily Blog – Review – Day 6 – Kid and Camera options

April 2, 2014Android, Tech NewsHTC One M8 - Daily Blog - Review - Day 6 - camera options and kid modeGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Another day with the HTC One M8.

The top power button. If you press and hold this you have 4 options. Power Off, Airplane Mode, Kid Mode and Restart. All self explanatory.

I have had a good play with the camera. There several key ways of using it. One is use it in full auto so you can use the post focus editing effects as detailed yesterday.

If you want to change from the rear and front camera you can swipe across the width to switch.

So Camera mode is the simple way to take a photo in full auto. Or you can within that mode adjust the flash mode, ISO, EV, AWB, Camera effects, Camera settings and camera mode. Camera modes are auto, night, HDR, sweep panorama, anti-shake, manual, portrait, landscape, backlight, text and macro. In manual you can also adjust the metering point, shutter duration as well. The camera settings include make up level, image adjustments, crop, grid, geo tag, review duration, self timer, storage, continuous shooting, auto smile capture, touch to capture, shutter sounds, volume button to either be used a volume, capture or zoom, tips and tricks and reset option. The camera effects include normal, distortion, vignette, depth of field, dots, mono, country, vintage, vintage warm, vintage cold, grayscale, sepia, negative, solarize, posterize and aqua. With distortion, vignette, depth of field and dots you can adjust the effect level.

In video mode you have settings from full HD at 1920 x 1080, HD, QVGA and MMS. After recording a video you can trim its down in the editing options.

Selfie mode. Uses the front camera to record photos or even a video. Also has a 3 second countdown.

Dual Capture – a bit pointless but takes a picture uses the front and rear cameras. You can move the front image to wherever you want on the screen.

Manual mode – if you use certain settings on a regular basis you can save your own camera mode that will appear as a new mode in the mode screen.

Zoe – this is slightly improved from the original HTC One. It still takes 1 sec before and you press the shutter, 20 photos but if you press and hold the shutter button for more than 4 secs “locked” appears. You can continue shooting now in video. After recording a Zoe you have additional editing options. These include GIF creator, Sequence Shot, Always Smile and Object Removal.

I will post samples from some of the modes detailed above, but if you have any requests please let me know. Tomorrow I will post my theories on the Ultrapixel.

FaceBook at 1 Billion – unstoppable

April 2, 2014Tech Newsfacebook 1 billion usersGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Zuckerberg revealed Facebook now has 1 billion active users on its mobile apps an increase from December 2013 of 945 million.

Zuckerberg said that 20% of peoples’ time is spent on Facebook via mobile devices.

Has FaceBook reached a size where it is simply unstoppable ?

Twitterific 5.7 goes freemium – will all apps go this way?

April 2, 2014Apple, Tech Newstwitterific goes freemiumGavin Fabiani-Laymond

The Iconfactory has changed their business model for Twitterrific making it a freemium app rather than a paid app at £1.99.

This means anyone can download the app for free as an ad-supported application. There is also a selection of unlockable features available as in-app purchases.

Features such as the today view, translation and removal of ads are now offered as paid upgrades. Most notably, enabling push notifications now requires a paid upgrade.

I just wonder if this is the future of all apps. What do you think?

Typo Keyboard hits stumbling block

April 1, 2014Apple, RIM, Tech Newsblackberry sues typo keyboardGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Via Reuters.

“A U.S. district court judge on Friday granted BlackBerry a preliminary injunction against the Typo iPhone keyboard case for infringing on certain patents, effectively banning sales of the Ryan Seacrest-backed device.

In a ruling handed down by U.S. District Judge William Orrick, BlackBerry was able to establish a “likelihood” of proving that the Typo Bluetooth keyboard infringes on its patents, reports Reuters.

That knowledge, combined with Typo’s inability to challenge BlackBerry’s patents, is enough to slap the company with a preliminary injunction banning sales.

“BlackBerry is pleased that its motion for a preliminary injunction against Typo Products LLC was granted,” BlackBerry said in a statement. “This ruling will help prevent further injury to BlackBerry from Typo’s blatant theft of our patented keyboard technology.”

I must admit when I first saw this accessory I knew BlackBerry would be left with no choice but to sue the company.

Amazon invests in Yodel

April 1, 2014Tech Newsamazon invests in yodelGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Via The Guardian.

“Amazon acquire 4.2 percent of the UK’s least popular parcel delivery service for £8.7 million. While Yodel is now the second biggest service of its kind behind recently-privatized Royal Mail, customers haven’t been so supportive, putting the company at the bottom of the delivery polls for the second year running”

Question is will this investment make it any better?

HTC One M8 – Daily Blog – Day 5 – review – photo editing effects

April 1, 2014Android, Reviews, Tech Newshtc one m8 daily review - photo effectsGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Today I am going to look at the results from the camera and the post editing that is possible. So I took the photo below. This is in full auto using no special photo shooting mode or pre applied effects. It is important to work in this way, otherwise you cannot use any of the fun post editing options. So let’s start.

Now with the HTC One M8 and it’s dual rear camera lenses I have a photo with lots of additional exif data that will enable me to continuously re edit the photo as often as I like. So after taking the photo I jump into the gallery app, and hit edit.

There is one more option for editing peoples faces in the menu.

Anyway, first up we will hit in the effect “UFocus”. This allows for the focus point to be changed after the shot has been taken and as many times as required. So first up, I altered the original photo on the front mug.

And now by tapping on the mug in the middle the focus point is changed and a new photo is created. It is not perfect but it is great fun.

So if we start with the original photo again, effects and select “Foregrounder” we can start to change the effects based on the focus depth point selected. The options within Foregrounder are Sketch, Zoom Blur, Cartoon and Colorize. Using the middle mug as the focus point this is what sketch does. Out of all the effects I was least impressed with this. Maybe over time as HTC tweak the software and the third party developers bring out cool new apps we will see the full potential of this second lens on the rear.

And now with Zoom Blur applied with the focus point the rear mug. I quite like this one.

Next up is the Colorize effect using the front mug as the focus point.

And finally the Cartoon effect.

Another one of the effect that uses the data from the second lens is Dimension Plus. From here you rotate or swivel the phone to adjust how the items move around in the photo. You can then save what you see as a fixed photo or a Dimension Plus photo so you can keep playing around moving the mugs into different angles. Below is fixed photo.

Seasons is another effect. Here you can superimpose snow or leaves onto the photo. You decide when to freeze and save the shot or create a video. Photo below of leaves.

Hopefully, you should be getting the picture that this phone is full of effects. You can adjust peoples faces, add objects like hats or sunglasses to photos, cut and paste people out of one photo and move into another and so on. You also have the normal editing tools like cropping, straighten, auto adjust, exposures, white balance, contrast and so on. There is also a menu for adding frames.

And then there are filters.

A few examples of the original photo with filters applied.

Now you can do all of the above using the original shot, and after the event, and keep editing it to your hearts content. As a mentioned before, if you take a shot using the camera in a different camera mode you cannot use the focus changing type effects.

However, there is still a whole chapter on the camera modes and what can be achieved if you don’t want to use AUTO.

Tune in for more tomorrow.

New details emerge of the new iPhone

April 1, 2014AppleIAF confirms, new iphone sizeGavin Fabiani-Laymond

There has been quite a lot of speculation and rumour concerning the screen size of the next iPhone and whether or not the retina screen will be improved upon.

2 screen sizes keep getting suggested. However, it appears Apple is looking at better one handed use and less bezel. IAF has confirmed reports out of Cupertino that the smaller screen size is in fact 3.5 inches with near bezel less sides. By shrinking the screen and bezels, the retina screen is said to be even more magically retina whilst offering the best one handed experience.

This was an April Fools. IAF = It’s April Fools.

Yahoo aiming at YouTube for a service of its own

March 31, 2014Tech Newsyahoo to take on youtubeGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Via Recode.

Yahoo has had a real change since CEO Marissa Mayer took the over the top job.

Recode reports that the company has been working on a new initiative to lure away prominent YouTube stars and networks with the simplest incentive of all: more money. Yahoo hopes that offering better ad revenue, guaranteed ad rates, and increased marketing will peel some of those content creators away from the current web video giant.

This is good news for everyone.

BlackBerry loses $5.9bn

March 31, 2014RIM, Tech Newsblackberry makes $5.9bn lossGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Via the BBC.

“Troubled smartphone maker Blackberry has reported a net income loss of $5.9bn (£3.5bn) for 2013.

In the fourth quarter the firm made a loss of $423m, compared with a loss of $4.4bn in the previous quarter, and against a year-earlier profit of $98m.

The company said it was pleased with its fourth quarter performance, and that it was on “a path to returning to growth and profitability”.

Boss John Chen said the firm was moving to a “sounder financial footing”.

Blackberry devices have generally lost the high-end smartphone market to Apple’s iPhone and phones powered by Google Android operating system.

As part of its turnaround plan the firm is focusing on its services arm, and is also putting renewed emphasis on its keyboard devices.”

Seems like a huge loss. Maybe too much in the long run.

HTC One M8 Daily Blog – Day 4 – Review

March 31, 2014Android, Reviews, Tech Newsday 4, htc one m8 reviewGavin Fabiani-Laymond

Welcome back everyone. Here I am at day 4. I’ve had the weekend to use the HTC One M8 more as a phone and camera. I’ve also been reading the debate on the internet over the 4.1mp ultrapixel rear camera. And it’s getting boring. HTC take on cameras is most photos never leave the phone or end up getting shared on Facebook, twitter or Instagram. So what you have is a camera that takes photos in all lighting conditions and really fast. It then allows you to worry about the editing effects afterwards with special effects and filters.

So what does that actually mean? Well it equates to me snapping a photo of my 3 dogs so fast I captured the moment all 3 had their heads facing me. It was only a split second. But the M8 captured the memory. It was also a lovely shot and I used some of the editing tricks to make it even better. It was also in low light indoors. I tried to take a similar shot with the Note 3 and every time it missed getting all 3 dogs in the frame or the shot had blurred dogs. I was hoping to upload some more photo samples which use the second camera but man flu and the weather has prevented that.

However, I have had a message pop up in the camera saying it was switching back to using phone storage and not the sd memory card as the memory card was not saving the shots fast enough. And that is with a Class 10 micro sd card. And that gives you an idea as to how fast this HTC camera performs. Fortunately, after shooting photos, I move the saved ones to the memory card, and guess what as the lens is 4.1mp the file sizes are so small using phone storage isn’t a problem.

With previous android phones I normally switch to an alternative launcher like Nova or Apex. If you buy this phone, then it’s important to remember that I recommend you don’t install these. In fact, you need to keep HTC Sense otherwise you will lose too much of the HTC experience. I know some of you will install your favourite launcher immediately. Hold fire for at least a few weeks. What I have found that even after 4 days the user experience keeps improving. The interaction of the software and hardware is phenomenal. It’s better than iOS 7. And that’s a bold statement as iOS 7 is awesome in its own right.

Blinkfeed. For the first time I don’t think I would want anything else as my main home screen. It just keeps impressing me more and more. It combines items of interest I’ve selected from the internet and my chosen social media along with local content on the phone. So on Saturday, at around 6pm when I went to get a pizza from Dominos, Blinkfeed had restaurant recommendations that were within a few miles of my current position. Now I had selected in the options for restaurant recommendations but it was great to see it in action. Information is pulled from Foursquare. I don’t use this service but information was still provided by it. Later my TV reminders were pulled into Blinkfeed. Then yesterday, my calendar entries were showing along with a F1 news item. You can also theme Blinkfeed. Go into settings, personalisation, themes and select one of the current 4 themes.

The themes also change everything throughout the device not just Blinkfeed. Some screenshots below of how the changes look.

And now with a green theme.

The themes change everything throughout the device. Even the highlights on the keyboard. You can still have your own wallpaper if you don’t like the theme wallpaper.

More tomorrow.

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