A misty panorama looking westwards over the Tees Valley towards Middlesbrough from Godfalter Hill. The image doesn’t do it justice but this is still an industrial landscape.
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Planet Irlam Community Festival - rain did somewhat put a downer on the day. Some interesting street artists and performances though.
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Planet Heaton - covering Heaton Hall and the parkland.
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Planet Crescent - a panorama of the Crescent in Salford. Somehow despite being the middle of the day the traffic wasn’t getting in the way. Taken with the high resolution version of PhotAF for Android.
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Planet Brooks Bar - not really much too see when it is a five way intersection. Note to self; panoramas do not work well at major road intersections. I still can’t find a good Android substitute for Microsoft’s Photosynth application - which appears to be the most sophisticated panorama app available (but only available on iPhones - somewhat surprisingly). The claim is that the closed system of the iPhone helps to bring the capabilities of Photosynth to work consistently - something not possible on Android’s more varied and complex collection of devices. Fair point but surely just a development challenge rather than an absolute barrier.
However, I did just realise that I’m using the free version of PhotAF an upgrade might help.
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➞ Endless London
Of course if you are not a fan of the London experience then any interaction with the city will seem endless. This rather clever piece of graphic design offers 32 separate images of iconic London architecture and street furniture that seamlessly interconnects to form an multitude of cityscapes (as seen in live in London).
One of the many quite interesting products from the people at Shelf.
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St George’s Square in Huddersfield. In the middle of the image is the George Hotel which is the claimed site of origin for Rugby League - when a group broke away from Rugby Union to form the Northern Rugby Football Union. I didn’t see many Australians or New Zealanders who might have had an interest but it doesn’t seem to really figure on the tourist map. The panorama also includes a statue of Harold Wilson (to the left of the Hotel) - who was born in Huddersfield. Behind the statue is the frontage of the train station - the building dates back to 1847 which must make it one of the oldest passenger train stations still in use and is also one of the grandest stations I think I have ever seen (perhaps except for that time in Tartu?).
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Camera: Samsung GT-N7000I got a new phone yesterday. To celebrate - and to give the camera alongside some of the interesting Android HDR apps available on the Android Market - I grabbed a shot of the Manchester skyline. One thing I am noticing straight away is that while ‘free’ and 69p apps are commonplace on iTunes it is noticeably a different story with Android.
The majority of ‘free’ apps on the App Market are variations of the old tryware model. Depending on how lucky you are and how carefully you examine the functions list you might get something you can use. Equally the Android apps seem to have no real upper limit. While £1.99 and £2.49 verge on premium on iTunes, a wide range of Android apps seem to hit the £9.99 and higher market and these are not the gold, bling, ‘cause-I-can type of App but fairly straightforward tools such as replacements for the built-in functionality of most modern phones such as the email client or camera.
As a consumer that’s all a bit rubbish for the average Android phone owner. But in terms of a sustainability business model with sufficient incentives for innovation maybe the Android Market is closer to the mark. Which platform is most likely to host a ground-breaking application with a very tightly defined audience of specialist users? I think I could hazard a guess.
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Planet walker - a planet panorama from outside the Walker Gallery including St George’s Hall. Tricky lights in the mid-afternoon winter sun was definitely confusing the iPhone app and causing it to think twice about being bothered to focus. The group of teens circling around while I was doing this didn’t help either - but curiously I managed to completely keep them out of the panorama.
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A rather fuzzy planet panorama photo of Piccadilly Gardens. Quite low light and the sun was setting over the buildings which wasn’t helping.
