Computer assisted cheating:

A very interesting entry on Cnet today about a new software that lets you find the appropriate fill in images that can fit into an original image. Beyond the obvious usage for frustrated news photographers who think there is not enough smoke or explosions, it has a great potential for creative.

One experiment used the vast Flickr image database but this would be a very add on tool to any large commercial stock databases. One sign that photography is slowly maturing.

[1] Article here

New, free and useless:

Completely unrelated but still interesting this click-free flash animation : [2] CNtower

Istock acquires Hulton:

Getty’s decision to put the highly lucrative Hulton Archives in Istockphoto is not just an astonishing decision, it is also a smack in the face of Corbis. Quite unknown to most people, Getty and Corbis share a lot of the same images ( see [3] Corbis results for Hulton) from the Hulton Deutch collection after an extremely bad deal made by Corbis years ago. By pricing these images at Microstock prices, Getty is now undercutting Corbis dramatically and forcing the Bill Gates owned company to react accordingly. Will Corbis follow suit ? will they add Bettmann Archives too ?

Considering the talented team of Getty’s management, I am assuming that they strongly believe they will get back in volume what they will be loosing in price per image with this move. I am also assuming that they have already recupped the high cost of scanning all these images, because at $1 dollar an  image, this would not be a profitable move.

[4] more info here