The World Worm Web

Surf wear maker Rip Curl recently teamed up with Timeslice Films for an ambitious project of shooting surfers in “bullet-time“, the effect that many people first saw in The Matrix. They used a crazy camera array of 52 Canon 5D Mark II DSLRs in order to capture the same shot from 52 different angles, stringing them together for the final footage.

Here’s the finished video:

After refusing a direct order, 16 year old Chen Shi was beaten to death at a boot camp for troubled youth in China. And it’s not the first time this has happened to teenage internet addicts.

A day at a typical Chinese internet addiction boot camp begins with a 6:20am wake up call and morning exercises. The day continues with a strict regiment of military drills, lectures, martial arts training, and sessions with psychologists. Lights out is at 9:30 sharp. Some boot camps employ the use of electric shock treatment, while others, like the Beiteng School in Changsha that Shi unfortunately attended, enjoy beating their students with a plastic pipe, a wooden baton, and handcuffs. And parents pay thousands of dollars for this.

Internet addiction among Chinese youth is a bit of an epidemic—1 in 10 teenage internet users are estimated to suffer from the problem. US internet addiction rates run at 3-8% for the entire population (which, apparently, is mostly comprised of our Giz readership).

Shi’s mother had initially been informed that he was in critical condition after “possibly” suffering from a sunstroke. He had been enrolled in the program due to his fear of hardship, weak willpower, and lack of self-confidence. It seems that a change in attitude, an increase in parent-child interaction, and some harsh regulations are in order to prevent more such deaths from occurring in the future. [TG Daily and CIO]

The Best Photography Apps for Your iPhone

With the quality of cellphone cameras approximating that of yesterday’s point-and-shoots, you can take some amazing photographs on your iPhone. It gets even better with the right apps apps. Here are our favorite photography apps for your iPhone.

Note: For a look at the flip side of the mobile OS coin, check out the best Android apps for photography.

Camera Plus

Your iPhone’s default Camera app is pretty great, but it doesn’t do much to solve the problems that are inherent with cellphone cameras. Camera Plus adds a few helpful features that do. Two of the most notable are burst mode and anti-shake. Burst mode lets you take a series of photographs quickly to help you get the best possible shot, and anti-shake lets you know when the camera is stable so you can avoid taking blurry photographs. The regular version is free, and the pro version will set you back a reasonable $2. [Camera Plus / Pro; iTunes App Store]

Darkroom

One of the biggest cameraphone annoyances—frankly, it extends to consumer cameras in general—is poor low-light performance. Darkroom is an app that seeks to alleviate this pain. It’s specifically geared to take photos in low light. While that’s pretty much all it does, it does it well. Darkroom will wait until your iPhone is steady before it snaps the picture, leaving you with the sharpest possible image. When you’re done, you can save your photo or upload it to an online album.
[Darkroom; iTunes App Store]

HipstaMatic

Hipstamatic is a blast and can be very addictive (so don’t say I didn’t warn you). It’s a camera app that simulates a bunch of analog cameras (mostly of the plastic variety) and creates some pretty stunning effects (check out the HipstaMatic Flickr group for some evidence). While the $2 app includes some starter lenses, flashes, and film stock, you’ll quickly find yourself buying new ones from the in-app store if you’re not careful. While HipstaMatic is, by far, my favorite camera app on the iPhone, do not buy it if you’re not prepared to either restrain yourself or sink at least an extra $5. The fun of HipstaMatic is in making your own camera configurations, but you’ll end up with beautiful pictures no matter what configuration you choose. [Hipstamatic; iTunes App Store]

CameraBag

CameraBag makes photographs look like they were taken with a variety of different cameras. Some of the filters are similar to what you’ll find in Hipstamatic, but there are a couple of key differences. First, CameraBag offers a more diverse range of effects. Second, you can take a picture within the app but preview the effects before saving them. While the entire process takes a bit longer and doesn’t have the quick-snapping fun of HipstaMatic, CameraBag ultimately provides you with a lot more control. It’ll run you $2 to give it a go. If you’re looking for something between Hipstamatic and CameraBag, take a look at lo-mob. It’s very similar to CameraBag in functionality, but provides numerous types of film stocks and camera effects that are closer to what you’ll find in HipstaMatic; it’s also $2. [CameraBag. / lo-mob; iTunes App Store]

DSLR Remote

DSLR Remote is a pretty amazing piece of work. It lets you use your iOS device to snap photos with your DSLR. You can control all its functionality and even access live view mode on certain cameras (note: this is only available in the pro version). It works by connecting your DSLR to your computer via USB and running a server application. Both your computer and and iOS device connect to the same network, letting the server accept instructions from the client. Photos are saved where you specify, and there’s very little lag between shots since everything’s transferred very quickly over USB. For a walk-through of the whole process, be sure to check out our how to on DSLR and iOS wireless photography. DSLR Remote is an affordable $2 for the lite version, and a considerably less affordable $20 for the pro version (although I’d argue it’s worth it). [DSLR Remote Pro / DSLR Remote Lite; iTunes App Store]

Photo Scatter

Taking photos with your iPhone is great, but they’re kind of useless if they just sit on your phone for the rest of eternity. While the built-in iPhone camera app offers a few sharing options, if you want to get your photos on photo-sharing sites, you may want to give Photo Scatter a try. Photo Scatter works with Flickr, Shutterfly, PhotoBucket, Picasa, Twitter, and Facebook (although, at the time of this writing, Facebook isn’t working so well). You set up all the services in advance, and then you can upload photos in your camera roll to any of them with just a few taps. Even better, you can use the app to take photos and upload them immediately after. Photo Scatter is free and is a great app, but it’s worth noting that they’re having a few issues with Facebook and the developers are currently overwhelmed with fixing the issue. It might be a little while before things get resolved, but it’s a free app so it’s not as though you’ll be losing anything by giving it a shot. [Photo Scatter; iTunes App Store]

Specialty Camera Apps

You’ll find far more than three “specialty” camera apps in the iTunes App Store—some of which you’ll find in the honorable mentions, but Pano ($2), ProHDR (Free), and Tilt Shift ($2) are the three we’d download first to bolster our phone’s camera chops.

Pano

Like its name suggests, Pano takes a series of successive photos, then stitches them all into a panorama. As you take your series of photographs, it’ll guide you to help you make sure the edges overlap. While the results I got were better using Autostitch, another panorama-making app, Pano’s stronger feature is that it allows you to take the photos and helps you throughout the process. [Pano; iTunes App Store]

ProHDR

ProHDR brings HDR photography to more than just the iPhone 4, allowing 3GS users to get in on the fun. Even if you’re an iPhone 4 user, ProHDR provides you with a lot more control than the default options offered natively in iOS. You can adjusts brightness, contrast, color, and more after taking an HDR photo, often allowing for better results. Plus it’s free, so there’s no harm in giving it a try. [ProHDR; iTunes App Store]

TiltShift

TiltShift is a little less practical than Pano and ProHDR, but if you like tilt shift photography, it’s a fun choice for your iPhone photography collection. If you’re not familiar, tilt shift photography is made possible by special lenses that use tilt to achieve a selective focus. This usually results in a miniaturization effect that’s much easier to see than explain, so check out this Flickr group for some examples. While TiltShift isn’t a proper substitute for the exceptionally expensive lenses you need to create official tilt shift photography, for a much cheaper price of $2 it comes close enough. TiltShift gives you plenty of effect options, like choosing different shapes for your bokeh (the rendering of out-of-focus areas of the photo, sometimes referred to as “background blur” even though that’s not fully accurate). [Tilt Shift; iTunes App Store]

Honorable Mentions

There are too many awesome photography apps for the iPhone to list here, but we want to give a few more their due. Here are some honorable mentions worth checking out if the short list isn’t enough to satiate your photographic hunger.

• Adobe Photoshop Express – Not the best of mobile photo editors, but it’s free and can handle a few important tasks.
• Blendcam – Blendcam is a photo app that lets you combine multiple exposures easily. It’s simple, focused, and free.
• OldBooth – OldBooth is a $2 app that takes old-fashioned photos. Beyond the aging effects, you can add new hairstyles to make your subject appear to be from a given era.
• Comic Touch – Comic Touch is a photo manipulation app that lets you distort faces in funny ways, add comic-style captions, and email your creations to your friends. $3.
• PhotoCurves / Free – PhotoCurves adds the popular curves color and tone alteration tool to your iPhone. The free version only allows you to work in the RGB colorspace. $2 for the full version will get you CMYK and CIELAB as well.
• Polarize – Poloraize is a free app that generates Polaroid-style photos on your iPhone. You can write on them, too!
• PhotoCalc – If you’re more of a pro, PhotoCalc won’t actually take or manipulate photos, but it will help you calculate exposure reciprocation, depth of field, and flash exposure for your D/SLR.
• Animoto – If you’re looking to make photo slideshows, Animoto is one of the best apps for the task. The app is free, but you can do more with a pro account.

Did we miss any great photo apps you love? Let’s us know in the comments!

Send an email to Adam Dachis, the author of this post, at adachis@lifehacker.com.

Traveling at 415km/h, Shanghai’s latest bullet train has smashed the previous record held by the country last year, by 21km/h. It services the Shanghai to Hangzhou route, which are about 202km apart.

It may be super speedy, but according to locals it’s going to be super pricey too, with the fares costing double what normal trains cost. But what price is getting to the destination in half the time it normally would take? Seemingly, 100 Yuan (about $US15) for a first-class ticket. Sounds like chips to us, but apparently a fare on the slower train is around $US7 in price—a much more palatable price.

Commuters must wait until late October, which is when the new line will open, and when women standing on train platforms with wet hair will suddenly feel the whoosh of a train whizzing past, drying them out. [IB Times via PopSci]

Image Credit: Occam

The most thrilling Microsoft product in years was killed before it ever officially existed. One of its most awesome services elicits more snickers than nods. Microsoft isn’t even in the mobile space right now. Redwood, we have a problem.

Courier:, simultaneously acknowledged and aborted in a bloody mess. Zune, a laughingstock that is in fact fantastic. Microsoft, the world’s most famous software company, effectively sat out of smartphones for the last year (to be charitable) while it carried Windows Phone 7 to term, allowing Apple and Google to divvy up the spoils of the new frontier. It’s a sad, sad turn of events.

But it’s fixable. Microsoft just needs to act like a software company again. All of these amazing things Microsoft creates – like Courier and Zune – and necessary-if-not-so-awesome-things (Office): Develop them for other platforms. In other words, Courier should be an iPad and Windows Phone (Tablet?) app. Zune should be an iPhone and Android and webOS and BlackBerry and Windows Phone app. Why aren’t there official Office apps for the iPhone and BlackBerry again?

Why should Microsoft deliver some of its most incredible creations to enemy platforms? It’s the Kindle model, stupid. The iPad is Kindle’s best worst frenemy. Even though the iPad competes against the plastic, E-Ink Kindle, the iPad is also perhaps the most fabulous delivery vehicle for Kindle the service – a huge part of the reason I stick with Kindle is because I know I can use it on basically any device I own. So, even though the iPad, with its monster sales, could eat into Kindle’s massive ebook marketshare if it was solely a competitor, Amazon neutralised the threat in part by co-opting the larger platform for its own service.

The same principle could work just as neatly for Microsoft: Co-opt iOS and Android to push its own software and services while building the new Windows Phone from nothing. Realistically, a current iPhone owner isn’t going to switch to Windows Phone next month. But if they’re an Xbox Live member who allows themselves to get hooked on ZunePass because they’re able to use it on the iPhone with an unlimited streaming app, much like Rhapsody or Mog—it’s suddenly a little easier to switch to Windows Phone in the near future. In the meantime, there’s another 100 million devices that can suddenly use Zune and see that it’s awesome, or 10 million people who can use Courier (albeit, as an iPad app) and become hopelessly addicted to it. Oh, and hey look, Microsoft does make great software.

Xbox Live, on the other hand, is trickier. It’s Microsoft’s halo brand (no pun intended). There aren’t so many Microsoft fanboys; but there are tons of Xbox fanboys. I’d love Live on the iPhone, like a lot of other people. But, it is an ace in the hole for Windows Phone. That, well, they maybe shouldn’t give up. It’s a reason to switch. Then again, gamers are still a minority compared to say, Office users.

Oh hey! Remember when Apple announced Microsoft Office and IE would come to Macs?

Back then, Apple needed Microsoft. Everyone’s platform did, really. So badly that Apple agreed, as part of the deal, to make Internet Explorer the Mac’s default browser. The crowd heckled. But now, it’s not quite so one-sided.

The rub, for Microsoft, is that everybody else—Google, Apple, whoever—is making it really easy to ditch them. As of now, going back to Microsoft is painful; inertia works against you. Microsoft should make it as frictionless as possible, so slippery you can slide right back into Microsoft’s services like you never left. Letting me have ZunePass on my iPhone, and Courier on my iPad—connected to an amazing cloud service like KIN (RIP)—is how to make that happen. Microsoft, and the products it excels at, on every device I use.

The iPhone and iPod touch are seriously mainstream. They’ve got the momentum and the marketshare, while Microsoft has basically nothing right now. In the same position, Apple sucked it up by putting iTunes on Windows, and made out pretty goddamn handsomely. Otherwise, well, I’m not using them at all right now. Just like a whole hell of a lot of other people.

*this article makes an exception to its point in the case of Internet Explorer

Previously relegated to the Google Toolbar and Feedburner, Google URL Shortener finally has a web site of its own.

Google URL Shortener (Goo.gl) now has a simple web interface where you input a URL and receive a shorter one. Nothing revolutionary here, but in addition to keeping track of your previously shortened URLs Google’s touting the following:

Stability: We’ve had near 100% uptime since our initial launch, and we’ve worked behind the scenes to make goo.gl even stabler and more robust.
Security: We’ve added automatic spam detection based on the same type of filtering technology we use in Gmail.
Speed: We’ve more than doubled our speed in just over nine months.

Here’s an added bonus tip from Googler Matt Cutts: if you add .qr to the end of any goo.gl-shortened URL, you get a QR code instead of the URL. For example: http://goo.gl/LFwS.qr

But if you’re not into the website, there’s always the handy goo.gl Chrome extension, or this goo.gl-supporting Firefox extension.

Google URL Shortener [via Google Social Web Blog]

Republished from Lifehacker