According to a FAQ on Picasa's support site, the photo-sharing service provides up to 1 GB of free storage for photos and videos to its users. But since Google+ actively encourages storing and sharing photos - its Android app even offers an "instant upload" option - there may have been some concern about storage limits among Picasa users.
As it turns out, there's nothing to worry about. If you're signed up for Google+, photos up to 2048x2048 pixels and videos up to 15 minutes long won't count towards this free storage limit. And Google will automatically resize photos for you when you upload them to Google+, so they stay under the free size limit.
That means only photos uploaded directly to Picasa Web Albums over the 2048x2048 size will count towards the 1 GB of free storage, explains Google. And when that limit is reached, photos will be automatically resized.
Meanwhile, for non-Google+ users, there are slightly stricter rules: photos up to 800x800 and videos up to 15 minutes won't count towards free storage. Again, when the 1 GB limit is reached, larger photos will be resized down.
Simply put, this means that whether you're on Google+ or not, Picasa offers unlimited free storage for photos and videos (under 15 minutes). The difference is that Google+ users can upload higher resolution photos to Plus/Picasa without being penalized.
Just heard this from a friend and verified with the above article: "Signing up for Google+ has its perks, all your Picasa Web Album photos smaller than 2048 x 2048 pixels will not count towards the 1GB limit placed on your account, up from the 800 x 800 pixels if you do not have G+. My storage usage just went from 1 GB down to 0 MB LOL
Hurray for Google+!"
Well,
that was quick. Right after yesterday's surprising announcement,
Sony flew its yet-to-be-released NEX-VG10 camcorder into London just in time for
today's showcase event. Naturally, we had to get our hands on this shiny baby,
and boy we were impressed. In case you missed the news, this snazzy device is
the world's first consumer HandyCam with interchangeable lens, meaning you can
share E-mount lenses with your young NEX DSLRs, or take advantage of
the abundant A-mount lenses with the help of an adapter (which will cost you
extra, mind you). Likewise, there are also hot and cold shoe mounts on the mic
shaft to cater your current camera accessories. Read on for our thoughts on the
rest of the camcorder -- we've put together a little sample clip for you at the
end as well.
There
isn't much to complain about with this $2,000 (and, sadly, possibly £2,000 for
the Brits) piece of kit in terms of appearance and ergonomics. We like being
able to hold it by either the seemingly solid body (using the strap) or the mic
shaft, and both ways provided comfortable grip without much fatigue due to the
light weight (even with the bundled lens). We were also able to quickly master
the jog-dial control next to the 3-inch screen, but for this price, we expected
a touchscreen interface as well to make life easier. As for the bundled F3.5-6.3
18-200mm lens, we found that zooming required a bit more effort than we liked,
so thankfully there's auto focus mode -- just like any ordinary camcorder -- to
save us from further wrist work with the focus ring. We must also point out that
unlike the Olympus PEN,
this Sony camcorder didn't pick up any mechanical noise from its lens auto
focussing; otherwise, this kit totally wouldn't deserve such price tag.
Of
course, what we really care about is the picture and sound quality. All is
revealed in our sample reel below (remember to enable HD playback mode), but in
brief: stunningly accurate colors, sharp 1080/60i picture, and impressive audio
sensitivity (notice how the mic was able to pick up conversations from afar; you
can also enable just the front mics to minimise background noise). You may
notice some shakiness while we were adjusting the lens -- we'll blame it on our
lack of practice from the little hands-on time we had. Regardless, the NEX-VG10
certainly lived up to our expectation, and we look forward to hear what the
filming hobbyists think of this prosumer-level camcorder when it comes out in
September.
Update: commenter
aim120 dropped us a link to Sony's own sample clip. Enjoy!
Facebook has a great deal of content you are creating, uploading, posting, and sharing. Why not license that as well so that your Flickr photos and your Facebook photos are both included. So that your blog posts and your status messages are both licensed.
Wired.com photographers have the enviable job of shooting the coolest stuff and most intriguing people in the technology world. Now we’re giving away many of those photos to you, the public, for free.
Beginning today, we’re releasing all Wired.com staff-produced photos under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC) license and making them available in high-res format on a newly launched public Flickr stream.
Named Apple's iPad App of the Year and one of TIME's top 50 innovations of 2010, Flipboard is a fast, beautiful way to flip through the news, photos, videos, and updates your friends are sharing on Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, Flickr, and Instagram. See your social media in a magazine layout that is easy to scan and fun to read.
Share articles and photos, comment on posts, and like or favorite anything. Customize your Flipboard with sections created from your favorite news, people, blogs, and topics.
Reviews:- "Flipboard is a fantastic iPad app that makes everything you read on the Web better than it is by itself. I can't recommend it highly enough." Macworld- "Flipboard offers iPad users an entirely original alternative to browsing the Web for news; its magazine-style layouts and breathtaking use of photos and white space show the way forward for digital media." PCMag.com- "Flipping for Flipboard: The brilliant iPad app that has changed the way I read the news." SLATE- "Flipboard begins to imagine an entirely new way of accessing the social Web." New York Times- "Stop. Put down this computer, go pick up your iPad and come back here. Now go get this app: Flipboard. Why? It's pretty awesome." Wired.com- "I am thoroughly impressed from our first run with Flipboard. It is simply gorgeous and a pleasure to browse." Mashable - "Flipboard turns Facebook updates, tweets into digital magazine" USA Today
What if I could link my e-portfolio to Flipboard? And even view others' e-portfolios for a given topic on my Flipboard - all automagically arranged to look like a glossy magazine? How would that inspire our teachers to update their e-portfolios accordingly?
A wonderful gamification example that makes use of Google Maps by getting you to guess the place where a randomly displayed photo (from Google Maps' StreetView) is displayed.
Really funny! Perhaps we could play on this idea for e-Fiesta... maybe have a camera where we invite people to look into the camera and find their faces suddenly popping up in a poster of themselves - complete with the #efiesta tag, or something like that.
What strikes me is the use of humour and fun in marketing and publicity, especially when it comes to social media.
E.g. I esp like how the burly man was very amused at a Hulk'd version of himself standing over a burning city. People do like to see positive photos of themselves - especially when done by others.
(But wonder how the MDs would feel having to photoshop in real-time haha. :D)
This article was written 5 years ago. Now, we have the benefit of ubiqutious mobile chat platforms e.g. Whatsapp, which can create small focus groups to talk about a particular topic. Not only so, besides the usual text, Whatsapp also allows participants to share mobile videos taken on the spot, share their geolocations with one another, share audio recordings and of course, images.
A personal example of how I use Whatsapp for personal learning: I use Whatsapp regularly to practice reading and writing my Japanese with a few other friends, and when I make mistakes, they can quickly give me feedback in real-time. We also exchange photos of Japanese culture, food items and even on-the-spot videos from those who are in Japan. Some of us go for Japanese classes, some don't. But those who go for the classes share what they have learnt with those who haven't.
I'm not sure if this can be classified as a type of "flipped learning", but I realized that mobile chat makes an excellent real-time, yet highly personalized tool for e-learning in small group discussions. Perhaps this is one area we can consider next time as a way to do mobile learning that harnesses the social nature of us learners.
TweetDeck:
Easily one of the most popular tools for Twitter, period, TweetDeck will help you organize feeds, find focus, even schedule tweets and manage multiple accounts.
For the app developers in CeL. This is not the prettiest app but it has some interesting ideas on creating rubric-based evaluations.
I like the sliding Likert-type scale and the way other artefacts like photos and videos can be added to an evaluation.
Just heard this from a friend and verified with the above article: "Signing up for Google+ has its perks, all your Picasa Web Album photos smaller than 2048 x 2048 pixels will not count towards the 1GB limit placed on your account, up from the 800 x 800 pixels if you do not have G+. My storage usage just went from 1 GB down to 0 MB LOL Hurray for Google+!"
