Avoid text-heavy blog entries and/or dress up your website with multimedia used according to the creators’ specifications.
Here are free resources you can use, including some of my favorite go-to sites such as Everystockphoto, Stock.XCHNG, and Creative Commons-licensed images that can be found using search engines and Flickr.
I hadn’t seen this wiki before of copyright-friendly resources from teachers and librarians. It contains a number of government and non-profit organization sites.
See Mashable’s post for the complete list including a number of free audio sources such as the Internet Archives’ open source audio.
The Flickr search results page has been redesigned to help us find our way through the billions — count ‘em — of photos and videos now on the site.
At the blog’s suggestion, I tried a search of my own and selected the new “View” controls that “allow you to display the results in different sizes and formats. Both small and medium views have an ‘i’ icon on every thumbnail — click it to see more detailed information about a particular photo. We’re also doing some whiz bang stuff in the small view to take advantage of as much space as you have on your screen, just try resizing your browser to see,” they say.
You can see a summary of the information used for a search just above it. In the large image, I have searched for “sunsets” that have a Creative Commons license (go to advanced search and scroll to the bottom to select this option), and here I am showing the small thumbnails. You can select other options to narrow your searches, for instance to a date range.
In the smaller image you can see what appears on the right side of the search results page — there are links, depending on the search, to groups, photographers, tag cluster, and places.
Skip the high (or medium) priced photo editors and try one of these freebies suggested by ReadWriteWeb.
Their post has an example photo that they “fix” using the various applications so you get an idea of what works well with each. RWW describes the apps’ features and rates each compared to what you can do with $600 Photoshop. For example, Photofiltre rates a 5 compared to Photoshop’s 10.
I was pretty intrigued by Photosynth when it was first introduced to the public in Auguast, 2008, but I admit to being a fan of Google Earth over Microsoft’s Virtual Earth.
There’s always room for an interesting new twist, however, and today Microsoft announced the integration of Photosynth with Virtual Earth. The foks at TechCrunch are lauding the step.
By using Microsoft’s Silverlight technology it is possible for users to port their Photosynths to Virtual Earth, running on both Macs and PCs. The company suggests the combo is a must for tourism agencies as well as businesses who want to add a “cool visual layer” to their stores, outlets and offices. The example they provide (one image below) is of a house for sale.
The latest release of Photosynth introduces commercial licensing, privacy controls, and one-click highlighting for viewers to easily explore synths. TechCrunch points out that getting users to install and use both Virtual Earth and Silverlight will be a challenge. So far they have eluded the mainstream.
News is spreading quickly that Google Street View has been launched in the Netherlands and a number of sites in the U.K. Now there is 360º street level imagery for Amsterdam, London, Rotterdam, Manchester, Liverpool and several other cities in these countries — 25 cities in all! Listed below as of post time:
If you want to view street level imagery for all these new locations – go to Google Maps and drag the Pegman icon to one of the new cities in Europe.
The BBC claims that 22,369 miles of roads have been imaged in the UK alone, which has taken a year to complete. Interestingly, says Google Sightseeing Blog, Google appears to have begun to run camera cars in more rural locations, as well as countries that still have no coverage at all.
Video uploads for all Flickr users Flickr now lets all users, whether they ride for free or pay $25/year (Pro accounts), upload brief video clips. Those with Pro accounts can upload high-definition videos, but video length is capped at 90 seconds for everyone. Flickr videos can be geo-tagged to indicate location.
Approximately 3 million pictures and videos are uploaded daily to the site which is visited monthly by 73 million people worldwide.
New iPhone app for Amazon’s Kindle
iPhone has introduced the Amazon Kindle iPhone application which can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store. If you are out and about with some time on your hands and want to keep your book — or book collection — with you on a small device, this app will make you happy.
If you don’t own a Kindle, you will need to buy ebooks from Amazon through a web browser on your computer or iPhone, says Mathew Miller at ZDnet. Check out the post for his video showing ebooks on both Kindle and iPhone.
FCC Chief nominee is Net neutrality backer
President Obama has nominated Julius Genachowski as the nation’s top telecommunications regulator, picking a campaign adviser who has divided his career between Washington, D.C., political jobs and working as an Internet executive.
Genachowski is likely to continue the Democratic push for more Net neutrality regulations, which are opposed by some conservatives and telecommunications providers. He was a top Obama technology adviser and aided in crafting a technology platform that supported Net neutrality rules. [via Slashdot]
I confess to being partial to both Google Maps Street View and Panoramio, which features photos contributed by users.
Now Panoramio photos have been precisely-matched to Street View images in some popular locations, giving you a richer viewing experience as you explore places on Google Maps.
Watch the YouTube video that shows you how it works.
Yesterday Google launched the Prado layer in Google Earth allowing you to explore highly detailed photographic images of fourteen of the Prado Museum’s masterpieces, reported Google Lat Long Blog.
The Prado Museum is the first art gallery to provide access to and navigation of its collection in Google Earth, allowing art historians, students and tourists to zoom in online and explore the works in fine detail because of the very high resolution photos. Let’s hope this starts a trend.
The Google Earth Prado layer also includes 3D models which allow you to fly around the Prado buildings to experience the museum as if you were actually there.
To enjoy the Prado, open Google Earth (you can download it here if you don’t have it), check the 3D buildings layer on the bottom left panel, type in Prado in the “fly to” search box, and access the masterpieces.
Places, tools for online learning
Robin Good’s site says, “In this collection you will find the best resources and hundreds of tools relevant to your personal growth, learning and educational resources, as well as to social media, video and business that Dr. Siemens has picked, collected and reviewed for you.”
You’ll find online tutorials and how-to sites, free places to learn online, places for educators, top tools, social media starter kits, tools for video creators, and more.
Winners of Crunchies announced
Readers nominated and voted for their “best of” choices in several categories.
Check out the whole list, including the runners-up, here.
Best games to look for in 2009
Wired Blog Network names eleven top games that players can anticipate in 2009.
Games for Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation3, Windows, and Mac are included.
Google has added new choices to its “any content” drop-down menu for image searches allowing you to choose the style of image you want: news, faces, clip art, line drawing, photo content.
Previously face and photo styles were the only search limitations available.
Avoid text-heavy blog entries and/or dress up your website with multimedia used according to the creators’ specifications.
The Flickr search results page has been redesigned to help us find our way through the billions — count ‘em — of photos and videos now on the site.
They include:
Video uploads for all Flickr users
Places, tools for online learning
Google