My grab from the latest photo & video industry news |
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The National Institute for Dementia Education. Photos vs. dementia. We all know: photos are great for expressing emotions, sharing experiences, creating personalized gifts, expressing oneself artistically, and reliving our memories. But there are also dementia mitigation benefits, according to a new study conducted by a coalition of organizations, including the National Institute for Dementia Education, the CERTUS Institute, photo app developer Vivid-Pix, Tellegacy, and holistic care management company, achi.
The preliminary study found that Photo Reminiscence Therapy (pRT) can improve the quality of life for those living with dementia or related forms of memory impairment. In particular, pRT can minimize social isolation and improve medication compliance and general cognitive performance.
The study also suggests that pRT stimulation may reduce apathy depression and inaccurate memory recall. Download the study here.
Cloudinary. Raises over $100M at $2B valuation. Photo & video processing company Cloudinary raises a whopping $100M+ from Blackstone at a $2B valuation – more than 20x last year’s $90M in revenues. Cloudinary offers a range of APIs, widgets and SDKs for storing, transforming, optimizing, and delivering visual media assets. Its algorithms process between 500 and 2,000 pieces of content a second. ( Cloudinary’s video processing tools are described in our DIY Video Creation Apps report).
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The metaverse – what’s in it for me; what’s in it from me
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When:
March 15
8:00 am - 9:30 AM Pacific Time
(17:00 - 18:30 CET)
What: Live, virtual, no recordings
***$9 Super Early Bird tickets expire TODAY, Wednesday Feb. 16.***
Program: Panel discussion, Show & Tell demos, Attendee networking & discussion
Attendees: Startup founders and corporate executives in the photo & video ecosystem, as well metaverse-specialized solution developers.
Sponsor:
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Picsart. Launching API. Past Visual 1st presenter Picsart is making some of its editing tools, such as one-touch background removal, image upscaling, and advanced filter capabilities, available through an API. For now, the API will be offered by invitation only, but the company plans to expand the API offering to new partners in the coming months. No word yet about the costs.
Samsung. Smaller or larger pixels? Have both. The Galaxy S22 phones announced last week not only come with the usual yet again improved camera improvements (how about 10x optical zoom?), but also with a new image processing technology called Adaptive Pixel. The Galaxy’s 108MP sensor features a lot of pixels in a small space, which works well in bright light, but can struggle in dimmer conditions. An alternative mode combines multiple pixels into a larger pixel, which performs better in low light. Why not offer both? That’s apparently what Samsung’s new Adaptive Pixel technology does: it combines two images, one that's full-resolution and a second one that has better noise performance. The flipside? You’ve guessed it: the images are much larger in size.
EyeQ. Renewed app, subscription. Following an industry trend from single licensing to subscriptions, EyeQ relaunches its renewed Perfectly Clear mobile app, featuring its signature slider bars that are set per photo based on algorithmic and AI technologies. One single slider can provide up to 9 intelligent corrections depending on the photo or video. The app currently offers 29 creative photo filters with more soon to be released to subscribers. Subscriptions are $3.99/month or $19.99/year.
TouTube Shorts. TikTok, here we come. In a race to keep up with TikTok, YouTube’s short-form platform adds a slew of new features, including new video editing and creative effects features, additional monetization capabilities, and the ability to reply with video comments. YouTube Shorts have now enjoyed over 5T all-time views, according to the company.
[more industry news below]
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Update: announcing our March 15 Visual 1st Spotlight
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Alon Grinshpoon will show how echo3D's 3D-ready cloud platform manages & delivers 3D/AR/VR content to apps & devices everywhere;
Kirandeep Kaur will present ip.labs' innovative photo print product offering for metaverse spaces;
Matt Tokarz will demo Everdome's technology platform for creating hyper-realistic metaverse spaces;
Neha Singh will show how Obsess' metaverse shopping platform enables retailers to create virtual stores and virtual worlds.
Click here for more info on the program, including our fireside chat presenter and panelists.
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Popsa. Raising $. Congratulations to previous Visual 1st presenter, photoprint product provider Popsa, which raised $12M in a round lead by Gresham House Ventures and with participation of existing investors Pembroke VCT, Octopus Investments and Guinness Asset Management. The new investment round doubles the all-time capital investment in Popsa.
Veed. Raising $. UK-based video editing app developer Veed raises $35M in its first round from no one less than Sequoia. Veed currently has 1 million users and annual recurring revenues of $7 million. Besides basic cutting/cropping/merging editing tools, Veed covers a wide range of features, including audio and video editing features, various video effects, subtitles, and optimized output for specific platforms such as YouTube. Its enterprise video features also include recording and teleprompter text creation.
Milk Video. Look who’s talking. Video app Milk Video now automatically detects the unique speakers in a video, and provides visual markers as to where they appear in the video timeline. This enables Milk Video users to select templates based on the faces that are visible and get recommendations around the start and end time when these faces are visible in the video.
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