 | May 1, 2000 |
Electronic shoeboxes
TRENDS: Photo sites look like a killer app
Digital photography sites are popping up all over the Internet, luring consumers with free photo storage and the ability to share and manipulate their snapshots.
Intel is in on the act with GatherRound.com. To differentiate itself, GatherRound.com lets users create 360-degree images. Members use a special free version of MGI Software's PhotoVista to create panoramas of everything from vacation vistas to office interiors. Intel plans to incorporate MGI's recently introduced PhotoSpace technologies—a set of server-side image-manipulation tools—later this year.
Intel isn't the only heayweight involved in this convergence of the Internet and photography. Hewlett-Packard is investing in Web photography to drive sales of its scanners, digital cameras, and printers. The company recently announced an update to its "scan to Web" image-uploading technology, which allows HP ScanJet users to scan photos directly to HP's www.cartogra.com site, MyFamily.com, or Zing.com.
Zing.com is the latest partner to join HP's program and will be the first site to support version 1.2 of the scan-to-Web technology. The new version allows users to scan and upload photos at higher resolutions than the 72 dots per inch currently available online. The new version will also let users capture multiple photos at once; the software will scan the entire scanner bed and upload each photo as a separate file. The new version of the free software should be available in May at www.scanjet.hp.com.
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