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One of the more straightforward acquisitions Google’s made in a while, they’ve just bought the online image editor Picnick. Given Google’s past acquisition strategy—turning Grand Central into Google Voice, Writely into Google Docs—the logical expectation is that it’ll get merged into its already excellent Picasa photo managing app. [ Picnick ]

Apple quickly put out a patch for Aperture 3 to improve stability and resolve issues for a great many things including: • Upgrading libraries from earlier versions of Aperture • Importing libraries from iPhoto • Importing photos directly from a camera • Memory usage when processing heavily-retouched photos • Face recognition processing I myself had repeated troubles on an iPhoto import, so fingers crossed on my current attempt, with newly patched software. It’s clear that everyone with Aperture 3 should absolutely download this update . However, support documents still warn that the thing could eat up your drive (albeit temporarily): Aperture temporarily uses extra space on your hard drive during the upgrade process. This is for the purpose of backing up critical library info and insuring the integrity of your data during upgrade. If you don’t have adequate space on your hard drive to accommodate the upgrade, Aperture will display a warning dialog. You may need to move your library to a different hard drive with more space in order to upgrade it, and then move it back to the original drive when the upgrade is complete. Any space used by Aperture during the upgrade is released and made available to you again once the upgrade has finished. So there’s that. Anyway, kudos to Apple for speedy reaction to a known issue. We definitely love to see that! [ Patch download ; release notes ]

Lady Gaga, possibly in a bid to end those tiresome rumours about her being a chap in disguise, has posed for a topless shoot in Q, the music magazine. You can see a slideshow of the photos here. (Go on. Don’t be shy. You know perfectly well this sort of thing is what the internet

Godspeed, friend. And on another note, the use of dated clipart in what’s essentially a gadget obit seems particularly fitting. [ ScaryIdeas ]

Announced at CES, the GPS-enabled EX-10HG from Casio has been a bit of a mystery so far, but has just been given full launch details, with the price expected to be in the region of $400 when it hits in October. That’s a good 10-month long wait, and it’s not like the EX-10HG is the first camera with geotagging—though Casio uses three-axis accelerometers and an orientation sensor for gauging the correct GPS position, which can sometimes become unclear when indoor. This 12.1-megapixel model has a 10x zoom lens and records video at 720p, so it’s not like it’s just a basic point and shoot with a GPS sensor rammed in as an afterthought. Alternatively, the Eye-Fi Geo SD card adds geotagging to your photos, and doesn’t have a 10-month wait. [ Photography Bay via Gadget Venue via Geeky-Gadgets Image Credit: DC Watch

Joan Jett sat down with Interview magazine to talk about the upcoming movie “The Runaways” , which is based on the legendary girl group she was in with Cherie Currie, Lita Ford, Sandy West and Jackie Fox. Joan shared that she wasn’t too keen on having this movie made at first. On wanting The Runaways’ story to be told: Well, not me so much-I think that’s true more so for the other girls. I was always pretty resistant to both a Runaways reunion or just any sort of movie situation. I guess I was afraid that the only thing that could happen is that things could go wrong. Maybe it was a way to protect it for myself because The Runaways was so special to me and meant so much, beyond just girls playing rock ‘n’ roll. I think it represented a lot to me about following your dreams, about not being dictated to about what your life is going to be. Girls see these defined roles they’re supposed to follow in life, but when I was a young child, my parents told me I could be anything. Before I settled on music, I wanted to be an archaeologist, an astronaut, all sorts of really diverse things. On working with Kristen Stewart , who plays Joan in the film: Well, I found Kristen to be through and through totally professional and just great to be around. I found us to be really, scarily similar, just in our physicality, the way we move through space. She came to see us do a concert. We hung out for the whole day, and I just dumped on her about everything I could think about The Runaways-I mean, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I told her all that stuff and how much it meant to me. Then she went off to do New Moon, and I didn’t see her again until about two weeks before The Runaways thing started. But she is so authentic. The thing that came through to me was that it was important to her to capture it. She really wanted to nail it. So I gave her all The Runaways music that I could find; I gave her tapes of me talking. . . . When we were together prior to the start of filming, she was staring at me the whole time. And I was fine with it because I knew she was watching my posture, my mannerisms, everything I did, the way I hold my hands, just everything. And she really soaked it in. When we were hanging out together on set, it was like I had a mirror image. Even just sitting around, we’d do the same thing at the same time. It was just great-and it wasn’t creepy. It was wonderfully special. I’m sure Kristen appreciates the praise from Joan. From the photos and clips released so far, Kristen really is a dead-ringer for Joan. Are you planning to see the movie? Are you anxious to hear Kristen singing as Joan Jett ? Photos by INF & WENN

Just a few weeks after new rumors of their split surfaced , Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie sent a clear message to the public without even saying a word. Last week, the couple and their children were photographed as a happy clan in Venice (Ang was also photographed with her estranged dad , Jon Voight , over the weekend). Color us cynical, but one glance at the recent photos and we thought “set-up.” But maybe a steady diet of celebrity tabloids screaming “Brangelina Break Up!” on their covers and a healthy dose of New York City skepticism has colored our view of the world. So we went to an expert. Celeb publicist Howard Bragman , chairman of Fifteen Minutes Public Relations, agreed that the photos looked staged, but scolded us for our cynicism. “I think they’ve done a very good job of making them look casual, but looking casual is something that takes a lot of time and planning,” Bragman told us. “I don’t believe that they’re the sort of couple that this sort of thing that just happens to. I think that there is a lot of planning that goes into it, as there should be. They are so good at it — it’s not too overly slick. And it’s always a balancing act between slickness and control.” Angelina has always been the puppet master of her own image — case in point: photos of her and Brad and Maddox on the beach in Kenya showing them as a happy family in 2005, coming at a convenient time during the Brad- Jennifer Aniston blow out. These new photos, combined with Ang’s pics with her dad, send a very clear message: We’re Fine. Bragman was inclined to believe Angelina’s message. “I think they’re just fine,” he said, setting our skeptical mind straight. “I think they’re a very busy couple who travels a lot and they have a lot of work and a lot of houses. People try to make a great deal out of it, but unless I hear otherwise, or someone files the papers, I’m sure they are fine.” What do you think? Do these photos scream “We’re Fine!” desperation or “We’re Happy So Leave Us Alone”? (Photo by News Pictures/WENN.com) Post from: Crushable

So you’re fed up with Google, and you’ve got a litany of reasons. You don’t even have to explain—I’m just here to help you crawl out from under the shadow of the big G, step by step. You don’t have to be ready to commit to a full overhaul of your online lifestyle to understand why someone might want to yank their data from Google’s servers, and hand it off to someone else: You’ve got Google’s CEO deafly rehashing fallacious arguments about privacy—”If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place”—and hesitating on a drawback; you’ve got contextual advertising that seems just a little too closely tuned to that sexxxy love letter your girlfriend sent you while you were on that business trip; you’ve got that violently insane ex husband who now knows where you are because of Google’s clumsy Buzz rollout. Most of all, you’ve got reasons, and you’re ready for change. The decision to close your Google account has to be carefully considered—after all, this is the place that stores your email, your documents, your contacts, your photos, your news, and even your health records. But this level of investment to one service is as good a reason to leave as it is to stay: If looking at your Google Dashboard , which lists all the services you use, and the amount and type of information you store on them, doesn’t make you feel a little uneasy, then hell, what would? Anyway, I’m not here to make the case for you to drop Google altogether—it’s not something I’m prepared to do, for a start—I’m just here to tell you how to do it. Here’s everything you need to know about life after Google. Search It’s easy to forget that there are other search engines in the world, because Google has been so plainly dominant over the last few years. But they’re there , and they’re actually pretty good. The best alternative to Google, by a long shot, is Microsoft’s Bing. It’s an evolution of the Live search engine, and it’s offers a distinctly different experience than Google: it’s far from minimalist, with a colorful interface, content-tailored results pages, and and emphasis on reducing clicks, rather than reducing clutter. Coming from Google it can be visually jarring, and the fact that the results for common searches are different —if not better or worse—means that at first, you’ll get the feeling that it isn’t working right. Give it some time and some patience, and you’ll realize that it’s pretty damn good. And even if search isn’t perceived as the biggest threat to your privacy, it’s important to make the switch anyway—after all, it was Google search that was the gateway to all the other Google services, which you’re now trying untangle yourself from. Honorable Mentions: • Yahoo • Wolfram Alpha • Collecta • Mahalo Email Back when it launched in 2005, Gmail lured users with insane amounts of free storage space: One gigabyte. Impossible . This caught the dominant services of the day completely off guard, and made their free webmail seem utterly ancient. Today, that one gigabyte has grown to nearly seven, and on the surface not much has changed about ol’ Gmail. Meanwhile, the companies that were blindsided back in 2005 have had plenty of time to catch up to, and in some cases, exceed Google’s offering. Here’s how to make the full switch: Backing up your Gmail : There are a number of ways to do this, but one stands out as the easiest: The email client method. 1.) Download Thunderbird, a free email client from the same people who make Firefox ( Download for Windows, OS X ) 2.) Enable IMAP access on your Gmail account, by clicking the Setting link in the top right of your inbox, navigating to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab, and selecting the “Enable IMAP” radio button 3.) File > New Mail Account 4.) Enter your name and Gmail address, after which Thunderbird should find your mail settings automatically, and set itself up as an IMAP client: (If this doesn’t happen, consult Google’s guide for a manual setup. 5.) Once the account is set up, open Thunderbird’s Account Settings panel, and navigate to the Synchronization and Storage tab. Make sure “Keep messages for this account on this computer” and “Synchronize all messages regardless of age” are both selected. 6.) Wait for your messages to sync to your computer—this could take hours, especially if you’re near your Gmail storage limit. What you’ve done here is imported all of your Gmail messages into a local client—Thunderbird—which lets you browse them, search them, or back them up to an external hard drive for posterity. And if you switch to another IMAP-based service, you can import these old messages into your new account simply by dragging them from your Gmail inbox folder in Thunderbird to your new account’s inbox folder. Contacts are a trickier question, but at the very least you can use Gmail’s contact exporting tool (under your Gmail inbox folder list) to create a CSV file or or VCard, for importing into a client like Thunderbird. The best alternative service : As long as it’s been since Gmail showed up on the scene, the webmail scene hasn’t seen many exciting new players—Google has a knack of preempting new competition when it moves into a product category. So, for the best remaining alternative is a veritable oldie: Yahoo mail. Consider the facts: • It’s still free • It offers unlimited storage • POP access is available in the free version, and with a little fiddling , so is IMAP access • Free text messages in certain countries • The interface doesn’t look like it was designed in 1999, like certain other webmail clients. The matter of Buzz : Now, when you ditch Gmail, you’ll also be losing Google Buzz , which is a sort of location-aware status update system that nobody has really had the time to get into yet. Don’t worry: Buzz was a response to other services, not a trailblazer, so you’ll be served just fine sticking with Twitter (which lets you update you status with geolocation), FourSquare (which lets you alert your friends as to which particular establishments you visit, and see what other people think of said establishments), and Facebook (for posting media and accepting comments on it). Buzz didn’t have time to become vital, so switching away from it should be easy. Calendar Exporting your Google calendars: This one’s easy. Just: 1.) Navigate to your GCal settings page, and click on the Calendars tag. 2.) Export calendars to an ICS file, like so: 3.) That’s it! The best alternative: Yahoo calendar is fine, but in the spirit of spreading your vital info around, let’s go with Windows Live Calendar . One you’ve created a Live ID—you pretty much need one of these nowadays—you’re automatically given a Live Calendar account. To import your Google Calendars, just do the following: 1.) Open Live Calendar 2.) Click “Subscribe” 3.) Import the ICS file you exported from Gmail, like this: Photos Not that many people use Picasa, so this one should be easy. Plus, there are some obviously superior alternatives. • Flickr doesn’t stop at being a great photo sharing site, it’s also an amazing resource for photographers, both expert and amateur. Storage is limited with a monthly upload cap. • Photobucket is a simple gallery service, with an emphasis on sharing over archiving. Storage is limited to 1GB. • Shutterfly is another super-simple service, with unlimited storage (Google doesn’t even offer that for free) • Facebook shouldn’t be counted out—its photo compression may be aggressive, but it does allow you to upload and tag a virtually unlimited number of photos. Documents A lot of people find themselves using Google Docs because it’s just so damn convenient—you receive a document in your Gmail account, and suddenly, hey, it’s in the Google Docs service! That’s how they get you. And interestingly enough, despite Google’s acquisition of Writely and subsequent improvements on in the Docs service, there’s still an objectively superior online document editing service out there. ZoHo Docs is a full online office suit (among other things) which does virtually everything Google Docs can do, and often more. It offers deep document editing, offline editing (!), and collaborative editing. Document compatibility on ZoHo is absolutely tops, and the formatting and editing options far exceed Google Docs. There’s a text editor, a spreadsheet editor and a presentation editor, to name a few. Pulling the Plug So, you’ve migrated what you can, and settled into you new services nicely. Now, it’s time to close your Google account out, once and for all? Are you ready? Are you sure? Ok. For any grievances you may have about Google’s privacy practices, you have to give them credit for making the process stupidly easy. 1.) From any Google page, click the Settings link in the top right, then Account Settings from the submenu. 2.) Next to “My Products”, click the “Edit” link 3.) From here, choose to delete individual services, or close your Google Account altogether. 4.) Confirm that you want all of your data deleted. 5.) DO IT. Feels strange, doesn’t it? For anyone with enough spite and motivation to follow this guide, though, I suspect “strange” could be replaced with any number of more gracious adjectives. So, ex-Googlers: Do you feel better now? We couldn’t cover ever last Google service and piece of software, so if you have more tips and alternatives to share, please drop some links in the comments-your feedback is hugely important to our Saturday How To guides. And if you have any topics you’d like to see covered here, please let me know . Happy diversifying, folks!

Want to take the challenge we presented to Shari Goldhagen and dress in pink for a week? Here’s some inspiration: we found this New York girl dressed head to toe in pink right outside our office! Do you love pink? Even if you don’t we’re extending the challenge to you. You don’t have to dress up in bubblegum from stem to stern, but throw on a brightly colored sweater and wear it for the day. Break up your routine and send us your photos. We’ll post them here. Post from: Crushable

Welcome to the rugged camera game, Sony. Your TX5 impresses me with its deck-of-cards size Zeiss lens, and 14-degree rating, but at 10 feet of waterproofness and 5 feet of shock resistance, you’re a little fragile. Other cameras, like the just released Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS2 , are rated to around 30 feet of depth with respectable image quality. And the Casio EX-G1 is practically as small, although not nearly as capable of a camera. Still, I respect Sony point and shoots, and this one could be one of the most street friendly because of its sensor and some neat software. The camera has a 10.2 megapixel “Exmor R” CMOS low light sensor, has optical stabilization (handy in a rugged camera) and 10 fps burst modes. (We suspect it has similar guts to the WX1 .) Another neat trick is the Intelligent Sweep Panorama, which can stitch together up to 100 separate captures by face matching and judging motion, adjusting them for lens warp to make a huge single image. There’s also built in high dynamic range processing which combined bracketed photos. Ideal for capturing detail in sunny or snowy scenes. And smile capture which triggers the shutter when the camera detects a toothy grin or a timer mode that snaps the shot when heads show up in frame. The camera also captures 720p video at 30 frames per second with a special mode that’ll allow for 10 times the lens movement to adjust for shake. Without having used this camera, I’d say it’s ideal as a good solid slim point and shoot that can occasionally hit the outdoors. It’ll go for $350 this April. SONY INTRODUCES WATERPROOF DIGITAL STILL CAMERA WITH PERFORMANCE AND STYLE Model Offers Outstanding Low-Light Performance, High Speed, Intelligent Sweep Panorama and More SAN DIEGO, Feb. 17, 2010 – Leading the industry in innovation and design, Sony today unveiled two new Cyber-shot® digital still cameras (models DSC-TX5 and DSC-H55). Slim enough to fit in your pocket or purse at less than an inch thin — about the size of a deck of cards — the TX5 is the world’s thinnest and smallest certified waterproof (up to 10 feet deep) digital still camera with Optical SteadyShot™ image stabilization and touch operation. Additionally, the 10.2 megapixel model is Sony’s first digital still camera with an “Exmor R” CMOS sensor that is also certified to be freeze proof down to 14 degrees Fahrenheit, shockproof up to about a 5-foot drop and dust proof. “Only Sony can deliver a technology-packed, ultra slim, fashionable T-series camera that is also durable. Until now, you couldn’t have it all in one camera” said Kelly Davis, director of the Digital Imaging business at Sony Electronics. “It is so versatile because it’s a great camera for both indoor and outdoor usage. You can easily take it from a day at the beach with the kids to a cocktail party with friends. This camera is also great for activities such as snorkeling, snowboarding or boating.” Waterproof, Freeze Proof, Shockproof and Dust Proof Waterproof in up to 10 feet of water for an hour, the TX5 lets you take high-quality photos, including panoramic pictures, and 720p high definition videos of your friends, family or pets underwater. From the tropics to the top of the mountain, the camera is also freeze proof down to 14 degrees Fahrenheit, so you can take pictures of the kids sledding or snowboarding. Not only is it ready for cold weather, but the TX5 is durable enough to withstand an accidental drop from up to approximately 5 feet. Additionally, it is dust proof, so you can take it with you on a camping trip or a mountain bike ride. The camera features an “Exmor R” sensor and offers 10fps continuous burst shooting for capturing action shots, so you can get great photos of the perfect moment such as when your kids are in mid air while jumping into the pool. Additionally, the sensor provides outstanding low-light performance so you can take high-quality photos even after the sun sets. In one easy press-and-sweep motion, take panoramic photos of the underwater landscape or breathtaking views from the top of the mountain using the Intelligent Sweep Panorama™ feature. Another benefit of the “Exmor R” sensor, this innovative feature combines separate captures, detects faces and subject motion and intelligently adjusts the width while stitching the images together, resulting in natural looking panoramic photos. The camera features a three-inch (measured diagonally) Clear Photo LCD Plus™ (230,400 pixel) wide touch screen display that functions-even underwater. You can focus on your subject, operate the menu and share photos and videos with a touch of the screen-wet or dry. Additionally, you can decorate your photos using the paint feature or scroll through images by simply sweeping your finger across the screen. Shadows and Details Made Easy In addition to making it easy to capture entire landscapes or tall buildings, the TX5 camera also helps to manage difficult lighting situations. The “Exmor R” CMOS sensor lets you take high-quality photos in low light without a flash. Additionally, the TX5 has a solution for backlight situations. With in-camera multi-shot Backlight Correction High Dynamic Range (HDR), the camera combines highlight and shadow detail of two separate captures into one remarkably natural looking image-even without a tripod. HDR offers a solution for strong backlight situations which typically result in either dark shadows in the foreground or a washed out background. Sony’s “Exmor R” sensor and BIONZ® processor help to correct these issues.

Not only is HTC’s Legend their best-looking Android phone to date, I’m going to throw my hat in the ring and say it’s the best-looking Android phone period. Created from a single piece of aluminum, it’s more than MacBook-esque. Running Android 2.1 with HTC Sense, it’s got a 3.2-inch AMOLED screen with 320 x 480 pixels, capacitive but of course. The camera is 5.0-megapixels with autofocus and flash; there’s a 600 MHz processor and 512MB ROM (with microSD card slot), 384MB of RAM. The battery is 1300 mAh, so a bit less than the Hero, and the usual Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS are included. Here’s a video from Recombu , who called it their favorite Android phone to date: And here’s what our friends at TechRadar had to say: The aluminium body replaces the Hero’s Teflon coating, and while it might be susceptible to scratching from keys or loose change, it certainly adds a premium look to the device. When we first used the Hero earlier in 2009, it was apparent that the phone had some serious firmware issues – we’re happy to report that the Legend doesn’t suffer this way, at least not from the outset. The capacitive 3.2-inch HVGA screen might look a little bigger, but that’s because the phone is actually slimmer and thinner than before – HTC tells us this is because it’s been able to save space by making it all out of one solid block, thus removing the need for a frame. Another upgrade to the screen is the fact it’s now an OLED rather than your conventional LCD – this means vivid colours and drop dead gorgeous contrast ratios like those seen on the Samsung Jet. We can’t wait to try watching an extended video session on this device. Photos courtesy of TechRadar . One interesting thing to note about the Legend is that it’s got a few new tricks up its Android sleeve. A “helicopter view” which is almost like Mac OS X’s exposé means you can pinch the screen to view all the five Android homescreens, switching between the widgets easily. A new FriendStream scrobbles all status updates. photos and links from your various social networking sites (currently, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr are supported), but you can still use the individual widgets and apps if you prefer. It’s out in Europe late March/early April in Europe, with worldwide availability to be confirmed. I’ve got to say, after getting hands-on with it recently this will definitely be my next Android handset.