Tag: videos

Instagram’s New Boomerang App Lets You Create 1-second GIF-Like Videos

Over the past few months, Instagram has been playing around with some new features to bring the app out of a stale mode. A couple of months ago, the photo-sharing app introduced a landscape feature that helped Instagram break free from its traditional square photos. Last night, Instagram brought a new feature that allows users to make GIF-like videos that go forward and backwards in a loop.

The standalone app is called ‘Boomerang’ and it is available for iOS and Android users. The app is very easy to use. It takes a burst of 10 photos and turns it into a 1-second video loop. So if you find something moving and feel it would make for a fun, interesting loop, just point and shoot and the app will do the rest. Once your GIF-like video is ready, you can share it on Instagram or Facebook.

Photos can be taken in portrait or landscape mode and the final video will be saved to your camera roll. The app is fast and simple to use and doesn’t require users to have Instagram accounts.

Facebook-owned Instagram introduced the new app last night in a blog post. “Transform an ordinary selfie with your friends into a funny video. Get that exact moment when your friend blows out his birthday candles, then watch them come back to life again and again.” Watch the video below to get a better idea of how Boomerang works.

https://vimeo.com/143161189

Boomerang is the third standalone app introduced by Instagram. Last August, it introduced ‘Hyperlapse’ for time lapse videos using stabilization technology, and earlier this year it came out with ‘Layout’ that lets you create photo collages.

The app is kind of like Apple’s new Live Photos feature on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus that takes Harry Potter-esque moving images. Instagram is looking to make its five year old photo sharing app vibrant again with Boomerang. The idea is to bring something new that will especially attract the teen demographic. At only 12.1 MB, the app is super light and a delight to use. Download the app now and look for moments around you worth capturing and repeating.

October 23, 2015
Facebook’s Plans to Take Over the Online Streaming Domain

Today is a new day and one more day when Facebook attempts to take over all of the social networking universe. How? Well this time it has revealed plans to take on the online video dominion, currently ruled by YouTube.

So, before we get into that, let’s have a short look at what Facebook has been doing in order to create a more stable video viewing audience. It has added support for interactive 360 degree videos and has also begun testing a feature called “suggested videos”. Here is what Facebook has to say about it’s new features –

“While we’re still in the early days of testing, we’re pleased with initial results, which show that people who have suggested videos are discovering and watching more new videos.”

You know how you can peruse through YouTube videos while watching a video? Facebook is trying to do the same thing. They are currently working on a feature that will allow users to watch videos in a floating window. So, instead of waiting for the entire video to end before moving on to the next newsfeed, you’ll be able to do both at the same time soon.

Next, Facebook says –

“We also know that sometimes people want to watch a video, but they don’t have time or aren’t in a place where they can turn on sound,”

Therefore, the social networking site has the solution to your problem. They are currently testing a bookmark feature, that will allow users to watch their videos later. But, the most radical feature of them all, is that gives Facebook away their plan to create a site for users especially and solely for viewing videos. Kind of like YouTube. Here’s is their statement –

“Lastly, we’ll be testing a dedicated place on Facebook for people to go when they exclusively want to watch videos … It can be accessed by tapping a “Videos” icon at the bottom of the Facebook app on iPhone or in the “Favorites” section on the left-hand side of News Feed on the web.”

https://youtu.be/pH5yl92JYDk

YouTube has just enough time until Facebook launches this feature permanently. As for us, we can all just hope that either one doesn’t die out. Right?

October 15, 2015
Amazing Videos Shot On a GoPro That You Ought To See

Since 2005, GoPro has been one of the leading names in producing high-definition action cameras that are used in extreme-action videography. Extreme sport atheletes love to record videos of themselves in action. From flying through a 2 meter cave to jumping off a helium balloon, 127,852 feet above earth (yes, we’re talking about Felix Baumgartner), there is no extreme sport too dangerous to be shot on the GoPro camera.

Obviously there are tons of wondrous GoPro videos but, here are some of our favourites:

This guy makes flying through a 2 meter cave ridiculously easy.

This video of a fireman saving a kitten will melt the toughest hearts

Here’s a compilation that includes the famous Baumgartner jump.

This one is shot by the GoPro Hero3 that was launched in 2012 will make you question whether you’ve lived at all

And finally we have a dance-off that could only be captured by GoPro

Last year GoPro released its first ever GoPro HERO+LCD, which provides video recording at 1080p at 60 fps and 8 megapixel photos. As of June 2015, GoPro announced that the company is working on creating six cameras on the sides of a cube that can shoot 360°-panoramic videos, as well as a quadrocopter drone with cam.

September 11, 2015
The New Timelapse App by Instagram is Awesome and Dead Simple

Facebook’s picture sharing and recently video sharing social network, Instagram, launched a new standalone iOS app called Hyperlapse. It is an unique and extremely easy way to create time lapse videos using Instagram’s stabilization technology and the mobile device’s camera app.

Timelapse photography is a technique that has been used by photographers for years. Pictures are taken at set interims over a long period and after that accelerated in a video to make it look like time is passing rapidly. However, the traditional method of making a time lapse video includes holding the camera still while you film. Hyperlapse from Instagram features built-in stabilization technology that lets you create moving, handheld time lapses.

Instagram’s video stabilization technology is the result of acquisition of Luma in August 2013. The original Luma app enabled users to edit the stabilization, brightness, contrast and saturation of videos recorded on mobile devices. However, Hyperlapse is a little different from traditional time lapse videos. Time lapse images are taken at designated intervals over long periods and is sped up in the final video, as mentioned above. Whereas, Hyperlapse involves moving a camera across a distance as the images are being shot.

This standalone app was the idea of Thomas Dimson and Alex Karpenko, Instagram engineers. The app became so popular among the the Instagram employees that Facebook decided to launch it as a standalone app rather than as an in-app feature.

Hyperlapse app can record up to a total of 45 minutes per video. Once you are done shooting the video, the app has an option of controlling how fast the video will play with options ranging from 1x speed up to a rapid 12x. Videos are saved to the Camera Roll after it is finalized. The app also has an option to share the video on Facebook and Instagram.

Anyhow, the app is at its nascent stage. There is no option of creating hyper lapse of old videos. Also it doesn’t record the sound or have any option of adding background music to the final cut.

Apple, at WWDC event in June, also announced that the camera app in iOS 8 will have a built-in time lapse feature. The Hyperlapse app is now available for Apple devices that are on iOS 7.0 and higher updates. Instagram plans to build an Android version, but there is no launch date yet. It is being said that Google needs to make some adjustment in the camera APIs before the app can be launched for the Android market.

This is the second standalone app that Instagram launched since it was acquired by Facebook for $1 billion in 2012. Last month, Instagram launched an ephemeral Snapchat-like photo sharing app called Bolt.

August 27, 2014
5 Ways Music Woven With Technology Sounds Incredible

The power of technology has been shaping our lives for generations. It touches everything we do, experience or listen, YES LISTEN! With the push of technology we now have a recent trend of innovative interactive music videos, apps and so much more.

We are listing 5 of our favorite music videos and albums that are inspired by mighty technology:

1. Reflektor- Arcade Fire (Interactive Geo-tagging Video)

Indie-Rock chart toppers, Arcade Fire put their video skills of HTML5 on use with the The Wilderness Downtown, directed by Chris Milk. An interactive music video which takes you to a run in your hometown. Type in the address of the place you grew up, and the stabbing piano of Arcade Fire’s We Used to Wait starts. A hooded figure begins to run down the streets you knew so well, taking you almost literally for a trip down memory lane. Sinister birds swoop over the Google Map showing your home, and dive-bomb to the ground in climax as trees explode from the familiar road.

2. House of Cards- Radiohead (Lidar Technology)

Radiohead is one of the most prolific band in the music industry.They have been known for their creativity and innovation in music. Staying true to their part, they created a video of a song ‘House of Cards’ using Lidar Technology. Without using any camera, this video was made by building data maps of Thom Yorke and lasers rotating 360 degrees to capture the scene. Beautiful blues, greens and yellows slip away as lines and pixels sketch waveforms into human shapes.

3. Biophilia- Bjork (Interactive App/Album)

Some call Bjork’s app a promotional tool, which of course it is. You have to buy the damn thing though, to use it. But it’s also a thing of beauty that it could return us to the days of heady listening sessions spent thumbing and re-thumbing through liner notes, without threat of Wikipedia, Twitter, or any of the other million new points of focus that make music an easy background character these days. This one of a kind app, first in business and a creative use of one of the most popular technology in the world right now: Smartphones.

4. Double Bubble Trouble- MIA (3-D printing and Drones)

You won’t find this video, a tech-savvy one in the first look. The lyrics of “Double Bubble Trouble” reference immigrant struggles and the outsider status of refugees; the high-rise apartments seen in the video could very well be the modest homes of refugees, now filled with technology unimaginable generations ago. Usually, talk about technological revolutions tends to emphasize the tech itself. In the video for “Double Bubble Trouble,” M.I.A. sets her sights firmly on the revolution. Some of the highly political items that appear in the video includes Quadcopters, 3-D printed guns and Anti-surveillance masks and scarves.

5. Somebody I Use To Know : Gotye (Old School Computer Remix)

Gotye – Somebody That I Used to Know – Old School Computer Remix” was created by a person in Canada who knows a thing or two about technology. A HP Scanjet 3C somehow sits in for the vocals. Two hard drives pull off drums and a cymbal and a xylophone is controlled by a PIC16F84A microcontroller. This tech wizard has hand full of videos in his youtube channel and altogether has more than 6 million views for them.

July 14, 2014
Scroogled: Do You Hate Google Chromebooks ? May Be Not, But Microsoft Does

Microsoft’s Scroogled(anti-Google) campaign might not be loved by everyone, but that does not stop the company to do even more. After the launch of Anti-Google merchandise the company is now targeting the Google Chromebook.

Microsoft, has something new for viewers in its Scroogled campaign. Microsoft hates Google Chromebooks and wants you to feel the same. We all know the merits and demerits of a Chromebook, it does not work on most of things when offline, cannot run Microsoft Office and few more applications. Microsoft released a video highlighting these facts, but is it worth the hate ?

Check out the video below:

[youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wAgB5J1gSQ”]

What do you think ? Windows 8 or Chromebook ? it is your choice completely, as these videos can not change the mind of a person who wishes to buy a Chromebook. Somehow, this video is another attempt from Microsoft which is not liked by people.

Just few days back, the Scroogled campaign got famous with a video featuring the famous Pawn Star Rick Harrison. The video shows a lady trying to sell her Chromebook in the Pawn shop in order to get a ticket to Hollywood. Rick Harrison says, ‘When you are not connected(to the internet), it pretty much is a brick’. You might want to watch the video below:

[youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y2mqoDjQXI”]

These kind of advertisements are not new for Microsoft, remember the less talking, more doing? Microsoft targeted iPad in its Windows 8 advertisement. What do you think of these ads from Microsoft ?

December 9, 2013
YouTube Testing Chromecast support

Anyone wanting to stream YouTube videos through a Chromecast currently has to visit YouTube’s website or run one of its mobile apps. However, YouTube has started to add support for Chromecast to its embedded web player, allowing Chromecast users to beam videos displayed on third-party websites straight from their browser to their TV.

Google has confirmed to GigaOM that it is publicly testing Chromecast support for embedded YouTube clips on third-party web pages. Currently, the access to stream YouTube videos is random, as the (send to) button shows up some times, and may not be available for everyone.

The company says it is monitoring feedback from these experiments and it could offer embedded video support to more Chromecast owners if all goes well. As said by a YouTube spokesperson:

With more videos coming to YouTube every minute we’re always experimenting with ways to help people more easily find, watch and share the videos that matter most to them. As always, we’ll consider rolling changes out more broadly based on feedback on these experiments.”

September 17, 2013
5 Million Instagram Videos Uploaded On First Day

Instagram’s new video feature isn’t going over well for everyone. GigaOm’s Matthew Ingram says he’ll never click on your videos, and others have followed suit, blaming the addition for disrupting the service’s simplicity and, proportionally, its charm.

But that didn’t stop hundreds of thousands of users from uploading millions of videos in its first day — 5 million videos to be exact. According to an Instagram spokesperson, video uploads peaked during the Heat-Spurs game last night but remained steady throughout the day.

While five million videos may not seem like a lot when you consider Instagram has 130 million active users, there are a few things to consider: there is a slight learning curve to this feature, and it takes a fair amount more effort to complete an Instagram video than a photo; and over half of Android users do not yet have access to video creation, as the feature is limited to phones running Jelly Bean and above. At last count, that was around 35% of total users — still hundreds of millions, mind you — but certainly enough to have an effect.

Another thing to consider is that Vine, with its six-second-video focus, is likely better suited to be the “Instagram of video” than Instagram itself. There has always been a tense but friendly rivalry between Twitter and Facebook, each company borrowing features from one another, but adding video to Instagram seems to be largely reactionary and may be viewed in the long run as diluting its brand. Then again, 15 seconds, which is the maximum length of an Instagram video, is the perfect length for a pre-roll ad. So there’s that.

June 22, 2013