Users of older Eye-Fi cards can now upgrade their cards to obtain hotspot access for the same price as Eye-Fi Pro/Explore X2 users. Originally developed for the X2 family of cards, Eye-Fi’s hotspot plan allows customers to use their cards with a personal subscription to a Wi-Fi hotspot provider, such as Boingo, BT Openzone, T-Mobile, Orange and Swisscom. Early adopters of Eye-Fi cards who purchased the Eye-Fi X1 card have previously been unable to upload photos onto photo sharing websites, such as Facebook and Flickr. These cards can also be upgraded to include this feature, removing the need to purchase a new X2 model. Service upgrades will be available through Eye-Fi users’ Eye-Fi Center accounts.

The Complete National Geographic features 121 years of the iconic magazine’s content. Available in a box set of six DVD-ROMs and on hard drive, The Complete National Geographic includes every printed page of the more than 1,400 issues, including over 200,000 photographs, from October 1888 through December 2009. The 6-DVD-ROM Set costs $79.95 and the Hard Drive version $199.95.

Getty Images has completed its sixth annual photojournalism grants programme by announcing the names of those who have been selected to receive the grants. The winners include working photojournalists Stefano De Luigi, Miquel Dewever-Plana, Edwin Koo, Darcy Padilla and Jerome Sessini, while the student awardees are Bryan Anselm, Julie Glassberg, Julia Marie Rendleman and Paris Visone. Each of the five photojournalists will receive $20,000, while each of the four student winners will be awarded $5000. Aidan Sullivan, vice president of photo assignments, Getty Images, commented, “I am delighted that our editorial photography grants programme continues to empower photojournalists and enable them to bring these important visual essays to the world’s attention. This year’s judging panel carefully considered the 260 applications and proposals we received from professional photojournalists, along with the 48 student proposals, from around the world and we are thrilled with the winners selected for 2010, whose projects deal with a range of compelling and complex issues.”

The European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA) has announced the winners of its 2010-2011 Awards. In the Photo category, there were 16 sub-categories from best photo software (Apple Aperture 3) to best zoom lens (Tamron SP 70-300mm F4-5.6 Di VC USD). Other award-winning products include the Canon EOS 550D and EOS 7D, the Nikon D3S (pictured) and AF-S Nikkor 300mm F2.8G ED VR II, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-G2 and TZ10, the Olympus µ Tough-8010 and M.Zuiko Digital ED 9-18mm F4-5.6, the Sigma 17-70mm F2.8-4 DC Macro OS HSM, the Sony ? NEX-5 and Cyber-shot DSC-HX5V, the Samsung EX1, the Fujifilm Finepix HS10 and the Epson Stylus Pro 3880. For more information including product descriptions, head to EISA’s website.

Website: EISA Photo Awards 2010-1011

Talenthouse has teamed up with celebrity photographer Gavin Bond and JPGmag.com, to open a worldwide search for aspiring photographers.  The search is aimed to give one lucky photographer the opportunity to learn the tricks of the trade and work with Gavin on set during one of his upcoming celebrity photo shoots. Photographers are asked to visit Talenthouse and submit a photograph by 9 September 2010 that best evokes the theme of up his upcoming shoot, “Passion”. Besides working with Gavin on set, the selected photographer will also receive travel and accommodations to the shoot which will take place in either Los Angeles or New York. They will also see their winning submission appear on JPGmag.com.

Website: Talenthouse

Uma Paro, Como Hotels’ Bhutanese retreat, is offering the chance to explore the Kingdom of Bhutan, camera in hand, guided by experienced Bhutanese photographer Ugyen Wangchuk. This seven night trip is an in-depth exploration with guided tours each day visiting different parts of the country taking in two distinctly different valleys, Paro and Punakha. Each day Ugyen will help the group, up to 12 people, discover the culture, villages, temples, wildlife, history and Himalayan scenery that go to make up Bhutan. Taking place from 2-9 November 2010, the photography tour ‘Bhutan Through a Lens’ costs £3,360 per person, including 7 nights in Uma Paro and 2 nights in Kathmandu. The tour is organised by Indian Explorations.

Aurora Expeditions have created a special photographic expedition for 27 photographers of all levels to spend a week on the Antarctic Peninsula. Accompanied by two professional photographers, David Burren and Martin Bailey from LuminOdyssey, passengers will spend time exploring the historic and rich wildlife at Vernadsky Station, taking in the spectacular rugged coastline from Lemaire Channel to the Gerlache Strait. For digital photographers, David and Martin will explain how to process and organise images with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3. Prior to the voyage, the two experts will be available to advise participants regarding their photography equipment. During the passage to Antarctica they will present classes and seminars to help prepare passengers for the Peninsula & Falkland Islands, and these will continue throughout the voyage. Prices start from US$9350 and include ship accommodation, all meals onboard, all shore excursions, lectures, medical services, port charges and taxes.

A group of young Hungarians, sponsored by industry big-shots Epson, Microsoft and Sony, have created the world’s highest-resolution 360° panoramic photograph to date. Shot from a 100-year-old observation tower built on the highest point of Budapest, the stitched panorama is over 590,000 pixels wide by nearly 121,000 pixels tall. In order to take the necessary number of photos in the least amount of time, the creators of the record-breaking image mounted a pair of Sony A900 bodies - each outfitted with a Minolta AF 400mm f/4.5 APO G lens and 1.4x teleconverter - on a sturdy stand complete with a custom-designed robotic head. Even with this setup, the image capturing stage of the project took over three hours to complete. The source images were then stitched with Autopano Giga software on a Dell Precision T7500 Workstation with 2 quad-core Intel Xeon processors, 24 gigabytes of RAM and 6 terabytes of storage capacity. The stitching process took two full days and resulted in a 200GB KRO file, which had to be converted into PPM format and split into three parts for retouching in Photoshop..The final panorama can be viewed at the website below.

Website: 70 Billion Pixels - Budapest (make sure to have the latest version of Silverlight installed)

The Consumer Electronics Association has announced that registration is open for the 2011 International CES, the world’s largest consumer technology trade show. CES attracts more than 120,000 of the top executives, retail buyers, content providers, entertainment executives, venture capitalists, engineers, government officials and media from more than 130 countries. Registration for the 2011 International CES is free to industry professionals through 30 September. A registration fee of $100 will go into effect starting 1 October, and the fee will be $200 effective 31 December. Attendees, exhibitors and media can register today at the website below.

Website: CES

Pictage has recently bought ShootQ, a web-based software company offering a business management solution for photographers. “ShootQ exists to help photographers create purposeful, profitable businesses. As a small, bootstrapped company, it has been difficult to achieve our vision with limited resources. While watching the Pictage management team in action, we discovered kindred spirits who are devoted to making photographers’ lives easier. We are convinced that Pictage and ShootQ will grow together to enable photographers’ success,” says Andrew Niesen, CEO and co-founder of ShootQ.

Website: Pictage

Datacolor has announced the first in a series of upcoming webinars designed to demonstrate the simplicity of achieving optimum monitor calibration. Hosted by Datacolor Education Manager, Joshua Fischer, and Manfrotto Distribution Product Manager, Will Holowka, the first webinar will discuss Datacolor’s entire line of Spyder3 monitor calibration products with step-by-step instructions on how to achieve accurate colour on your monitor. Guests will have the ability to interact with the speakers, allowing for first-hand input for their calibration queries. Taking place on 16 June from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM EST, the webinar is accessible at the website below.

Website: Datacolor Webinar

Scott Kelby has announced his Third Annual Worldwide Photo Walk scheduled for Saturday, 24 July. Billed as “the world’s largest global social photography event in the history of photography itself”, Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk takes place on the same day around the world where photographers of all walks of life and skill levels gather together, usually in downtown areas to socialize, learn new tips from each other, and explore their corner of the world through photography. There is no fee to participate but pre-registration is required.

Website: Worldwide Photo Walk

The Technical Image Press Association (TIPA) has announced the winners of the 20th round of the TIPA Awards. Among the award-winning products are the Nikon D3s, Pentax K-x, Canon EOS 550D and EOS 7D digital SLRs, the Leica M9 digital rangefinder camera, the Canon PowerShot G11, Casio Exilim EX-G1 and Sony Cyber-shot HX5V compacts and the Fujifilm FinePix HS10 superzoom camera. This year, there were two new categories, “Best Compact System Camera Advanced” and “Best Compact System Camera Entry Level”. The winners of these new categories are the Panasonic Lumix DMC-G2 and the Olympus E-PL1 (pictured), respectively. To see the entire list of award-winning products, from photo kiosks to backup systems, head to the website below.

Website: TIPA Awards 2010

Paradigm Global Partners, an investment company, has announced its acquisition of Ilford Imaging Switzerland GmbH. The Paradigm acquisition will maintain the financial stability of the company and provides a sound platform to manage future challenges, the company said in a statement. Reflecting on the change in ownership Lars Sommerhauser, Chief Operating Officer, commented: “The last few years have been tough for the imaging business as a whole, including ILFORD. This announcement has injected a renewed sense of energy and excitement within the company and provided the business with focus and direction. We are committed to servicing the global market where there is a demand for the premium quality products that we manufacture and this will necessitate a strengthening of our business units in the USA and Asia.”

The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), joined by other trade associations and individual photographers, has filed a class action copyright infringement suit against Google. The suit relates to Google’s allegedly illegal scanning of millions of books and other publications containing copyrighted images and displaying them to the public “without regard to the rights of the visual creators”, ASMP says. The trade associations decided to file the class action after the Court denied their request to join the currently pending $125 million class action that had previously been filed primarily on behalf of text authors in connection with the Google Library Project.

South Africa in Pictures is a one-hour documentary in which British Photographer Rankin discovers contemporary South Africa. Airing in Spring as part of Wonderful Africa, BBC Four’s Southern Africa Season, the film follows Rankin through a series of encounters with some of South Africa’s most significant photographers from a range of photographic disciplines, including David Goldblatt and Alf Kumalo. Kumalo shares his experiences as one of the first black professional photojournalists for Drum Magazine, while Goldblatt - a documentary photographer with a career spanning more than five decades - talks about creating intimate and insightful portraits of South African communities.

BrandProtect and ImageSpan today announced that they have partnered to extend services that empower content owners to protect and expand their global brand, reach and revenues. ImageSpan’s LicenseStream will be combined with BrandProtect’s LinkWalker, which identifies where brands, company names, images, audio, video, and/or trademarks appear online. The addition of BrandProtect with LinkWalker – which visits about a billion Web pages per month – to the LicenseStream ecosystem extends the ability of users to track and respond to unauthorised uses of a full range of content. “LicenseStream and LinkWalker give customers from a range of industries both an enhanced layer of protection and the ability to move beyond content protection into monetising assets,” said Michael Kiefer, general manager, BrandProtect.

RCP-Technik GmbH has bought the Rollei brand, which it had been using under licence for almost three years. Photoscala is reporting that the transaction has been completed with retrospective effect from 1 January 2010. Also, RCP-Technik has just opened its first international subsidiary in Hungary, with a Turkish office scheduled to open on 1 April 2010 in Istanbul. These moves indicate that the purchase of the Rollei brand is part of the company’s strategy of worldwide expansion. Photoscala has been informed that DHW Fototechnik, a company that manufactures limited-edition batches of Rolleiflex TLRs and medium-format Rolleivision slide projectors, has been granted the right to continue using these derivative brand names into the future.

Via Photoscala

Jobo AG, a German company founded in 1923 and today best known for its digital photo frames, card readers and storage devices, has been declared insolvent. Photoscala is reporting that insolvency proceedings have been initiated against both Jobo AG and Jobo Labortechnik GmbH & Co., and a lawyer, Hans-Gerd Jauch, has been appointed as provisional liquidator. (Pictured above is the Jobo Nano 8 Pro digital photo frame introduced barely more than a month ago.)

Via Photoscala

The team of expert landscape photographers at Light & Land has announced a new tour to the Isles of Scilly. A unique island paradise located just a short hop off the Cornish coast, the beautiful archipelago of Scilly lies low in the crystal clear water and provides a feast of photographic opportunities – from tranquil white sandy beaches to exposed granite shores with crashing waves. The tour is based in St Mary’s, the main island of Scilly. For more information on these workshops contact the Light & Land office on 01432 839111.

Website: Light & Land