I found myself walking aimlessly around downtown Richmond this week. It’d been a horrible last few days at the day job and a suddenly found myself wondering, what if I could take a photo of someone and do whatever I wanted to with it at this very second? What if I could take a picture of that skyline and enhance it just a bit? It’s once again time to talk things you can do with that camera on that back of your Windows Phone, and don’t worry this won’t be the same applications we covered last time.
Microsoft Research, among other things, spends an awful lot of time brainstorming and playing new ideas to see how they work outside the company. They’ve done everything from strange social network projects to random desktop applications. Face Mask is one of Microsoft Research’s latest projects and boils to one simple premise: Take pictures. Have fun with said pictures. Than upload pictures that you’ve taken and had fun with. The app includes everything from party hats and randomly changed jokes masks to automatic face detection. (I’m a big fan of sombreros myself.) Face Mask is completely free.
When we talk about cameras on smartphones we go on and on about how apps can enhances pictures, and add character to your photography. What we never hear anyone talking about are the amazing things some Windows Phone applications are doing with video. Timelapse Pro is such an app. For $.99 you can record small time lapse video of without even having a to bring your computer into the equation. Simply record your time lapse and upload it to developer Max2’s servers or Skydrive to share with friends or view on other devices. Timelapse Pro does have a feature-complete free trial which allows you to use all of it’s features with the exception of exporting your videos.
This last app is near and dear to me. You see, when it comes to birthdays, anniversaries, and the like – I’m a complete moron. I forget them all with incredible ease, and usually I’m in no position to make a trip to my Hallmark. Enter Santosh Sahoo’s aptly titled Greeting Cards. It has built in e-cards for every occasion, and even allows you to take photos and include them in your cards. Greeting Cards is completely free.
And that wrap on this week’s Windows Phone App Flow. If you’ve got suggestions on apps we should include in future editions or apps of your own you’d like us to take a look at send them on over! My Twitter handle is @harlemS. Until then, keep your fingers on that shutter button!