Dream of accessing and viewing your live Cloud Camera feeds on your Windows Phone? It's now reality with mydlink (www.mydlink.com) for Windows Phone, developed by D-Link. Enabling you to tune into the hardware remotely, the app also lets you manage Cloud routers from anywhere using either Wi-Fi or a data connection. Cloud Cameras and Routers by D-Link are part of the mydlink service. They help make lives easier for parents and homeowners with cameras and secure routers that are easy to set up.

The Windows Phone client is a well-designed solution from the popular service and hardware provider, with full support for H.264 video streaming with audio (depending on models). Aside from the expected features and functionality, what else is available in mydlink? You'll be able to save snapshots of the camera's video directly on the Windows Phone, which is always a bonus if there's something you wish to look at another time. The status of Cloud Camera and Routers are displayed for quick checks.

Some other cool features include toggling camera view modes between Night mode, Day mode and Automatic mode. It really is a perfect companion app for those who utilise said products from the company. If you're interested in learning more about Cloud Cameras and Routers, be sure to read up more details over on the D-Link website. They have also released a short promo video:

Here's a list of what this app is compatible with:

• Cloud Cameras: DCS-930L, DCS-931L, DCS-932L, DCS-933L, DCS-942L, DCS-1100, DCS-1100L, DCS-1130, DCS-1130L, DCS-2132L, DCS-2310L, DCS-2332L, DCS-5010L, DCS-5020L, DCS-5211L, DCS-5222L, DCS-5230L, DCS-6010L, DCS-7010L
• Cloud Routers: DAP-1160L, DAP-1360L, DIR-140L, DIR-600L, DIR-600LW, DIR-601L, DIR-602L, DIR-605L, DIR-605LW, DIR-615LB1, DIR-619L, DIR-626L, DIR-636L, DIR-640L, DIR-645L, DIR-808L, DIR-810L, DIR-820L, DIR-826L, DIR-836L, DIR-840L, DIR-845L, DIR-850L, DIR-855L, DIR-860L, DIR-865L, DIR-868L, DIR-900L, DIR-905L, DIR-919L, DSL-2770L, DSL-2870B, DSL-2890AL
• NVR: DNR-322L

You can download mydlink Lite from the Windows Phone Store. Note that this app is for Windows Phone 8 only and more configurations can be found on the mydlink website. Thanks, Amir, for the tip!

Being the OS in third place means Windows Phone is slowly gaining major apps from big brands and companies. If those apps aren’t “officially” on Windows Phone the development community steps up and produces solid third-party offerings. And often those third-party apps are equal or better than the official apps.

Flickr is one of those apps where the official offering is lagging behind what the community deserves from an app. So join me in welcoming Indulged to the Windows Phone platform. It’s a brand new app for us that is poised to be an excellent way to experience Flickr on Windows Phone. Let’s check it out.

Windows Phone is no stranger to great Flickr apps from indie devs. Pixl comes to mind as a great choice. Indulged is brand new to Windows Phone. The app currently sits at version 1.0 and was released a little over a week and a half. We missed the initial announcement of availability from the developer in our Forums. So what’s can you do with Indulged?

• Powerful photo editor with more than 20 filters and effects
• Manage Flickr groups and photo sets
• Subscribe to recommended stream and favorite stream
• Manage your contacts and view their profiles and photos
• Browse EXIF, tags and comments for photos
• Posting comments
• Search for photos and groups

What initially drew us into Indulged was the beautiful UI. You’re not supposed to judge a book by its covers, but we’re all guilty of it from time to time. Thankfully, Indulged sports a fairly nice looking UI that we’re digging. It’s not bad for version 1.0 and we’re excited to see it refined and improved over time based on community feedback.

As far as features go, Indulged does what you’d expect out of a Flickr client. Browsing is pretty fun and quick. You can also upload images and edit them with over 20 filters and effects. Powered by the Nokia Imaging SDK (so no Windows Phone 7.x version).

Indulge is brand new, but there are more features planned for the next update. Here’s what the developer has in mind for upcoming versions of Indulged:

• Live tile
• Lens
• Scene choose in camera
• Filter preview
• Ability to remove photo from set

Download Indulged and try it out. It’s free with no ads. And of course leave feedback below for the developer. It’s an app with a lot of potential that can be better with some good community interaction. Grab it in the Windows Phone Store. You can also use the QR code below or swipe to the right to get it. 

ProShot is a popular photography app for our Windows Phone 8 devices that offers you more control over your camera. An update was pushed out this morning that mainly deals with performance enhancements.

The version 2.6.5 update boosts overall performance of ProShot, Live tile improvements/fixes, manual focus enhancements, along with other various bug fixes and tweaks. Full resolution HD browsing was also added to improve how your photos look from your Windows Phone.

There is also mention in the change log that says "EXIF is back" but we aren't sure what this means. The EXIF information is still embedded in the image file and we couldn't find a way to view the EXIF information from within the app. Maybe an EXIF related bug was squished.

For those using a Nokia Windows Phone 8 device, the manual white balance option was removed because this feature is not supported by the phone's hardware. ProShot is still not currently compatible with the Samsung ATIV S.

If you're looking for more control over your Windows Phone 8 camera, ProShot is definitely worth considering. There is a trial version available for ProShot with the full version running $1.99. You can find it all here in the Windows Phone Store.

Update: Apparently when contrast and saturation options were added in a previous update, the image's EXIF data was removed when the photo was saved.  The 2.6.5 update corrects this issue. - Thanks, Sean, for the tip!

Last week Camera360 hit the Windows Phone Store. It’s a very popular app on both iOS and Android (with an average rating of 4.5 on both platforms). So when we launched on Windows Phone we were very eager to play with it. This is another one of those apps that applies filters to your photos, but it does so in a brilliant and beautiful fashion. Let’s check it out.

A lot of you guys and gals complain about ‘filters’ in the comments. So let’s address that from the start. Why would you want to apply filters to your photos when the images from sensor on phones like the Lumia 920 and HTC 8X are amazing? Easy answer: artistic choice. Everyone has their own interpretation, but if Ansel Adams thought a red filter was good enough for his Monolith image of Half Dome in Yosemite, they’re good enough for you and me. He used a red filter to help heighten the tonal contrasts in that image. That’s a very good reason why a lot of people like to use filters today. However, you can just slap a physical filter onto the front of your lens –it’s not very practical. That means we get apps like Lomogram and now Camera360.

Filters galore

Camera360 has a wide variety of filters (which it groups into six “shooting themes”) to choose from. What’s nice about this app compared to some others is that the effects are displayed in real time while you’re using the camera. It helps you decide which filter works best for a particular scene. Let’s look at the six themes and the filters available within each section.

• Auto: It’s auto, you can edit pictures later, and this is just a fast way to get a shot if you’re in a hurry.
• Portrait: Sweet, Natural, Sunny, Fresh, and B&W
• Macro: Pure, Retro, Elegant, Maple, and Emerald
• Night: Enhance, Foggy, Purple, and Fall
• Food: Dream, Warm, Normal, and Reversal Film
• Scenery: Autumn, Pure, Enthusiasm, Black Storm, and Color Sketch

The on screen controls to switch between the different filters is really slick. On the bottom or side (depending on your phones orientation) there is a dial. That dial is used to switch between the shooting themes. So you might select ‘Food’ if you’re taking a picture of that huge burrito you’re about to destroy. From there you swipe left or right (or up and down) in the center to switch between the filters within that shooting theme. Each time you change a theme or filter the effect is applied instantly to the viewfinder on your screen. It’s great to see what you’re getting. You can always just shoot in ‘auto’ and apply those filters later, but that’s not very fun is it?

Camera360 sample image: Complete with the vignette frame and a bit of thumb for 'artistic' flair.

More controls

While not as full featured as some other apps (like ProShot), Camera360 does provide a full controls on the overlay UI to help you get the look you want. The first is an exposure slider. You can increase or decrease the exposure by selecting it, it’s a handy feature if the in camera metering isn’t getting the look you want for a particular scene. There are also controls to switch between the primary camera and front facing camera, as well as cycling through the flash options. Another cool feature is the ability to add frames to your shots (again, another creative decision). On the bottom right you’ll see a square looking button that lets you cycle through the available frames. They’re a nice little feature to give your photos that cheesy faux-Polaroid feel.

Calendar view and sharing

Like most modern photo editing apps, after you’ve editing a photo you can share to various social networks. And there are a ton of networks to output your photos to. You get Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, SinaWeibo, TencentWeibo, QZONE, Renren, Evernote, Kaixin, and Huaban. You’re probably scratching your head at a few of those. The developers are primarily based in Asia and you’ll notice that when reading the app description in the Store. You can blame Bing or Google translate for a few laughs you’ll get.

The other interesting part of Camera360 is the ‘photo diary’. The gallery view within the app is displayed in date format. It’s a nice layout and you can browse your photos by day. You’ll notice photos from your camera roll showing up in there as well, so if you wanted to edit them with Camera360 even though you didn’t originally take them with the app you totally can. However, if you try editing a photo that you originally shot with a filter in Camera360, that filter stays applied throughout future edits. That’s one scenario in which you might want to lean on the ‘auto’ camera in Camera360 if you plan on trying out various filters.

Wrapping it up

I actually like Camera360 a lot. The layout is really nice and I like the minimal approach to the viewfinder layout. Switching between filters is really fluid, with an occasional lag while the filter is being applied live to the scene. The app shows up in your Lens selection in Windows Phone 8, but you’ll be missing a double wide tile and lockscreen support in this version. Also, in the Android and iOS versions there is support for the newly launched cloud portion of Camera360. While probably coming in a future version, it would have been nice to test it out on my Windows Phone and not iPhone. That actually might have been a good thing though, since the entire site is in Chinese and I can’t exactly read it.

Those little nibbles aside, Camera360 is a great app to get creative with and output to your various social networks. The price is right with the app costing zilch. Unfortunately the app is only available for Windows Phone 8 at the moment and probable future. You can blame the poor camera support in Windows Phone 7 for that since Camera 360 needs to apply the filters in real time.

You can download Camera360 for free right here in the Windows Phone Store, use the QR code below, or swipe to the right in our app.

One app sorely missing with Windows Phone is Photosynth. You already have a desktop application and, to the dismay of some, an iOS app for Photosynth. We've heard that Windows Phone was a top priority with Photosynth and it now looks as if a Windows Phone version is close to being released.

The website GEMIND has stumbled upon signs that Microsoft has been creating accounts on the Photosynth website to test the integration of a Windows Phone app. They have even stumbled on test photo sets on the Photosynth website that appear to be have taken with various Windows Phones.

For those not familiar, Photosynth stitches together series of photographs to create panoramic images. Microsoft stalled on developing a Windows Phone version of the app due to camera API issues. Issues that should have been resolved with the Mango update.

No clue as to how close the development is but based on the dates of the test sets, a Photosynth Windows Phone app might be just around the corner.

We'll echo GEMIND's sentiments on the issue, It's about time Microsoft.

source: GEMIND; Thanks, Rodrigo, for the tip!

For those who like to do some pretty basic editing of photos before you ship them off to your Facebook, Twitter or email, you'll want to take a look at this great little app by XDA member 'menos'.

Think of it as analogous to MS Paint. 

You simply run the program, open an image (.png, .jpg, .bmp) and from there you can crop, draw shapes e.g. circle, speech bubbles (very cool), eye dropper for color sample, resize and it even has an undo button.

The buttons are sort of tiny, so while it worked on my 3.2" eXpo, it was a little difficult. However, devices with 3.6" or larger screens should have no issues.

Overall, considering the price (free, but donation encouraged), this app can go up against the much more pricey "professional" competitors on the market. We give it a big thumbs up as it made my Chinese rice-monster very happy.

Head to XDA forums to download.

Do you remember when MetaCreation's Kia Power Goo first came out in the early 1990s? It brings back fond memories for me. I cannot tell you how many hours I spent gooing scanned photos (digital cameras were only for the super rich at that time) of friends and family. If you missed that craze, let me explain what gooing a picture is. When you goo a picture you can make their eyes as big as a basketball, make their nose so skinny that even Michael Jackson would be envious, and stretch their ears so that they flopped down to their shoulders. Once you get gooing, it does not take much to find yourself two hours later still having fun.

So when I saw Pocket Goo 2, I had to give it a try. I wasn't sure if a WM version of this classic photo manipulation tool would hold up to its self proclaimed comparisons, especially when working on a small screen. Take a look and see if this will become an instant classic must have, or falls flat on its face.

Interface

When I opened up Pocket Goo 2 for the first time, I wanted to try to goo a picture with an eye to how easy it is use without the average user having to use Help. I found it extremely easy to load a picture and start gooing right off the bat. Here is one of the 15 sample pictures they give you start playing with. When you load a picture you can choose what canvas size you want... width and length of the picture can be from 240 to 1024 pixels on each side.

You then simply select one of 5 brushes to work with. You can choose from Grow, Shrink, Move, Swirl Counter Clockwise, Swirl Clockwise. Then you select the size of the brush that includes Very Small, Small, Medium, Large, Very Large.

Then you simply use your stylus like a brush on the photo. To grow the eyes, just select Grow, the size of the brush and move the stylus around in circles around the eyes. The more you move a brush over a part of a photo the more it applies that brush to that area.

Conclusion

Even though you can go to the extremes with each and every brush, I have found that subtle changes are the most effective. Here, I grew her eyes, shrunk her nose, grew her lips followed by moving the edges of her mouth out and into a small smile, moved the top of her forehead and hair up, moved her hair back down the middle and added a twist, then swirled the edge of her hair to make it look wavy. Here is a before and after shot:

Before and after:

Here is another one I did with one of the sample cats included with the program:

Before and after:

The possibilities are limitless. You can make a hundred widely varied gooed pictures from just a single snapshot of a friend or family member. You can also take a picture of a friend with your phone and then load that immediately into Pocket Goo 2, goo them, and the email it to anyone you want to... all under 5 minutes.