Cameras and photo quality are the new proving ground for flagship smartphones

The sincerest form of flattery: Motorola 'borrows' Apple's Shot on iPhone 6 campaign to show its new Moto X is a worthy competitor to Apple's camera phone

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Over 1.5bn new photos are shared every day on Facebook, WhatsApp and Snapchat alone, which equates to about 550bn a year

Forget processor speeds, performance or screen resolution. The battleground for flagship smartphones today is camera and picture quality. We're taking an insane amount of pictures on our devices, everything from baby and pet shots, to selfies and food shots and our smartphones are the best devices for this sort of manic snap-happy photography fest.

Most smartphone users don't even take calls anymore, they may message or text and even play games and use apps and social media services, but you can be certain almost everyone takes pictures and video. Smartphone makers have responded by packing in the megapixels and improving the aperture for better low-light photography.

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Latest Google acquisition might make it easier to share photos privately

Google has long been rumoured to be separating its photo service from its social network Google+. And they seem to be taking a step closer to making that a reality. Google just purchased Odysee, a mobile app designed to share photos privately. The app also lets you send your phone photos directly to your home PC. Nimbuz, the team behind the app, didn’t say what their plans are but they are joining the Google+ group. The purchase makes a lot of sense, especially if Google wants to develop a standalone platform for photos. We just have to wait and see then. Odysee has already been pulled from app stores and the service will be shut down on February 23.

Source: TechCrunch

Night-time shots of Eiffel Tower are considered copyright violations

Heading over to Paris for a quick vacation soon? You might want to keep night-time photos of the Eiffel Tower for yourself. You see the Eiffel Tower is part of public domain and it’s okay to take shots of it during the day. However, at night it is illuminated by different light shows and those are considered copyrighted works of art. So, “reproducing” or taking photos of them and sharing them online will need to have the permission of the artist.

This issue was brought to light when EU Observer pointed out that Belgium and Italy also have copyrights on public buildings like the Belgian landmark Atomium. While you probably have little to fear when it comes to enforcement, it is still good to know these things.

Source: EU Observer | Via: SlashGear

Google tipped to unbundle Photo Gallery from Google+

Google has previously consolidated its Android photo and video gallery into an app called photos. A report from Bloomberg claims this might come to an end soon and we might not see the Gallery app anytime soon. Google will reportedly separate its photo services from Google+ so anyone can access them without having an account on their social network. This reported photo service will be considered a self-serving entity, much like how Instagram is separate from Facebook. If these rumours are true, we think it would be a good idea so that more people will gain access to more photo features on their Android devices.

Source: SlashGear