In a side-by-side comparison, one could argue that pics from the iPhone 3GS look better than those from a Droid. That doesn’t mean you can’t make the Droid photos a little better. Adobe released a mobile Photoshop app for the iPhone a few weeks back, and the same title hits the Android Market today. The free software is limiting in terms of what picture qualities you can change, but I find myself using it on most of my pics. In fact, just yesterday I tweaked this little number using Photoshop for iPhone.

Harvesting the feed corn

What I like about the app is how simple it is. You just choose what function you want and then slide your finger left to right for the adjustment. You can save the photo locally or save and upload to Photoshop.com where you have 2 GB of free storage.

For a while, I was using a webcam and Orb software to spy on my cats while I was out. The solution worked well, but was fairly limited. And I got frustrated seeing all of the cat shenanigans in my home office — these two felines bat at each other like Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots when we’re not around. Since my webcam is fixed, I really can’t see what’s going on off-camera though. When the Astak folks pinged me last week about their brand new $299 wireless Mole camera with tilt and pan, I said I’d be happy to take a look at a review unit.

The Mole arrived late last night, so I’ll have to put it through the paces for a few days yet. From a specification and features perspective, it sounds pretty impressive. Like many standard webcams, the resolution isn’t all that high — we’re talking QVGA and VGA at up to 30fps here. But, it’s a standalone camera so it doesn’t need to be tethered to a stationary computer. The Mole has integrated Wi-Fi so it works as long as there’s a wireless signal. And if you need to extend your viewing beyond your network, there’s an SD card slot to record what the Mole sees and hears. The Mole can also upload videos directly to YouTube which I’ll test, but I’m not sure I’d use that feature all too much.

As far as remote access, you can view the live stream from any Internet connection. Astak says that it even works on the iPhone, so I’ll have a look-see on my 3GS. Remote tilting and panning is also supported: the vertical tilt range is 120-degrees while the horizontal panning is a wide 270-degrees. 15 LED lights help the Mole see in the dark and there’s a motion sensor feature too. When the Mole detects movement, it can email or tweet. I see a number of good uses for the Mole, so I’ll get it set up and take a closer look. Kitties — you have been warned!

Pocket-sized HD video cameras are all the rage, and JVC is leveraging years of camcorder experience with its newly released PICSIO. The little camera takes full 1080p video at 30 fps and can shoot 8-megapixel stills. The PICSIO has USB connectivity and can shoot video to YouTube and iTunes directly in MOV format. It sports a 2-inch screen and a 4x digital zoom for recording action on the go. The camera’s battery is charged via USB, and recordings are stored on removable SDHC memory. The PICSIO comes in a variety of colors for the fashion-conscious videographer. $199.

Adobe Photoshop.com hit the iPhone as a free install from the iTunes App Store today. The software (iTunes link) provides only the basics for editing, but ties into Adobe’s online service that I stumbled upon during my 60-day web challenge last summer. After editing photos on the iPhone, you can upload them to your Photoshop.com album in the cloud, or you can view those albums on your handset. Adobe offers 2GB of free photo storage with the service.

I used the app briefly and it offers enough features for the download to try:

• Crop, rotate and flip
• Exposure, saturation, tint and black & white
• Sketch and soft focus
• Effects of vibrant, pop, border, vignette blur, warm vintage and rainbow

Most of the effects are utilized by swiping your finger — a left swipe reduces an effect while a right swipe increases it. I took an iPhone photo from a recent trip to Bushkill Falls with Barb and liked the final results. Here’s the original pic with the various menus and effects to give you a visual idea. Is it the best photo editing app on the iPhone? Doubtful. But for casual photo users that want to snap and edit pics for online viewing moments later, it’s quite usable.

I’m probably in the minority here, but I only connect my iPhone via USB once in a blue moon. Basically, I connect the phone to my MacBook to change up the music or to get a software update. That’s probably once every two to three months. With today’s wireless technology, I simply don’t like to connect a phone with wires. Of course, that leads to other challenges — like when I want to get a photo or screenshot off of the iPhone. I’ve been going the dreaded email route up to now, but after watching this video of WiFiPhoto over at Gear Diary, I’m sold. The $0.99 price didn’t hurt, either!

WiFiPhoto lets you pick and choose photos on your phone and then transfers them in full size over an ad-hoc wireless connection to your PC or Mac via your browser. Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer are all supported: you simply type in the IP address of your iPhone, which is provided by the app. It’s simple and effective, plus it avoids clogging up my Inbox while cutting out the “save downloads” step that I so often have to do. The software will also autorotate pics or create a zip file of multiple photos. Here’s a few pics I transferred, along with a shot of the interface.

Novatel is marching ever onward with the MiFi line of 3G W-Fi routers. The Verizon MiFi I’m using is still my gadget of the year, and we’re already in October. When Novatel first announced the HSPA version of the MiFi, I questioned the logic of adding features to a gadget that I felt had the benefit of being a simple-minded device. Today, Novatel has announced an agreement with Eye-Fi for applications preloaded on every MiFi except those on Verizon and Sprint. I must confess I’m still unsure if this application business is something that’s really needed.

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I’m nearing four months of Palm Pre ownership but I’m still carrying two phones with me. Why? Several reasons, but one of them is that my Pre can’t record any video. The hardware of the Pre is certainly capable, but there’s no software support for it. Although I expect we’ll see a webOS upgrade within the next week or so, I don’t think Palm will have added such support, either. Enter some clever developer types armed with command line knowledge, pointed out at PreCentral.

The webOS Internals group shares that knowledge on their wiki if you’re into rooting your Pre and living in a Terminal. I’ll wait to see if there’s a simpler way to fire up a video camera on my Pre, but many adventurers aren’t waiting. They’re either running some command lines or installing an early, test application file. There’s some basic video and sound captures coming right from the Pre as a result, but the files currently appear to be playable only in very specific apps due to the file format and container. The Pre’s camera and processor should theoretically handle 720 x 480 video capture, but I’d expect Palm to only offer VGA recording, if any, in the future.

Sprint is taking convergence to the next level with the InstinctHD built by Samsung. Obviously, folks would expect CDMA device is more than any average phone at $250 after rebate and commitment — you’ll need an Everything Data plan for the InstinctHD. There’s Opera Mobile 9.7 for the web, Wi-Fi, and stereo Bluetooth support. But there’s a twist to the 5 megapixel camera sensor.

With it, you can capture pics and video in high definition. Couple that with the integrated TV-out connection and that user generated content can be viewed in high def on an HDTV, right from the phone. While you can’t view that content in high def on the phone — the 320 x 480 display clearly doesn’t support 720 lines of resolution needed for HD — the InstinctHD essentially doubles as a 720p handheld camcorder. I’d have to see the output to determine if it rivals that of my Kodak Zi6 or another high-def pocket shooter, but it’s appealing nonetheless.

Even if currently available, dedicated cameras are a shade better than the InstinctHD, it’s only a matter of time before we see more handsets with this feature. And as that happens, there’s less of a need for those single-purpose devices. If I were Kodak, Creative or Cisco — the folks who bought PureDigital, makers of the Flip — I’d be scrambling to add some killer features to my camera right about now. My instincts, not to mention Sprint’s, tell me that decent HD quality capabilities are about to explode onto the phone scene.

Sprint’s InstinctHD launches on September 27 at Best Buy Mobile and will be available in Sprint stores starting on October 11.

It appears to most of us that the memory card industry has gone to smaller physical formats while boosting capacity. But if you mention that to a pro-sumer or professional photographer, he or she might tell you otherwise. That’s because some higher-end digital SLR camera bodies still use the venerable Compact Flash format for storage. My Canon EOS Rebel T1i uses an SD card, but if I stepped up to the next Canon body, the 50D, I’d be using a CF card.

SanDisk isn’t neglecting this higher-end camera market. It just released information on its new SanDisk Extreme Pro line, which offers fast reads and writes of up to 90MBps. That helps reduce the delay between shots, although many cameras these days can buffer frames to a point. These new Compact Flash memory cards are now shipping in capacities of 16, 32 and 64GB. That sounds like quite a bit of memory for a digital camera, but RAW image files at high resolutions can eat up space quickly. And with some of these cameras, like my Canon T1i now offering high-definition video recording, what sounds like “too much” memory soon becomes “not enough.”

Canon says the price range for the three Extreme Pro capacities is between $300 and $800, with exact pricing set by retailers. If that’s too rich for your blood — or your camera — SanDisk has a less expensive line that might work for you. Dropping the Pro label is the SanDisk Extreme series. These slow the read and write throughput to 60MBps and offer 8, 16 or 32GB of storage. While the speeds drop by 33 percent from the Pro line, the pricing can drop even more. Expect to see the Extreme series cost between between $130 and $375, depending on the retailer and capacity.

Creative just announced their second generation Vado HD camcorder but details are light on what “second generation” features might entail. The pocket camcorder still appears to record video in 720p format, looks simple to use and is available in some new color combos and memory capacities. There’s added support for direct movie transport into Mac OS X iMovie  as well as new Vado Central software for the Mac, too. But if you were holding out hope for any advanced features, this press release will still have you hoping.

The new Vado HD is available for pre-order in a 4GB white with green accent color combo or 8GB black with red accent. Pricing is $179 and $199 respectively. After using a similar Kodak Zi6 pocket camcorder with no internal memory — it uses standard SD cards — I highly recommend dropping the extra $20 if you’re interested in a Creative Vado HD. Snapping those high-def videos uses up storage very quickly and without any expansion slots, you’ll likely find the additional $20 well worth the extra 4GB on the more expensive model.