While playing with my new HP Photosmart R927 camera, I noticed some that it had some interesting built-in effects, such as the comparison of original to result below. Other effects include watercolor, borders, color adjustments, retro, vintage, and even a slimming control. But the coolest feature is the built in photo adviser, which analyzes your photo and offers advice for better shots in-camera.


TV photo

No doubt all of this is made possible by the exponential growth in memory and processing power. Increasingly, even the most mundane devices are getting processing capabilities that rival the desktop computers of a few years back. My TV has a USB port to upgrade the operating system, my cell phone runs Java, my router runs Linux, my short-lived Epson printer repaired old photos and spit out shiny new ones with a single click. The focus of current development is making devices more functional and independent. What’s next? I think the next great challenge will be to make them all talk to each other, seamlessly and without wires.