Gadgetwise: Getting the Right Light in a Photo

The eye can see a much greater range of light and dark than a camera can, which is why windows look like glowing boxes in daylight photos taken indoors.

That is where H.D.R. (High Dynamic Range) photography comes in. It takes a series of overexposed, underexposed and properly exposed photos and then mashes the best parts together to cover a full range of light. It makes images that are much closer to what the eye actually sees.

But there have been barriers to using H.D.R. The primary issue is that moving subjects change position from shot to shot in the series and appear blurry in the final images. That limits H.D.R.’s use to still-life photography conducted under careful conditions with a steady tripod.

But a new H.D.R. software program from Unified Color, called HDR Expose 3, does two things well that other H.D.R. programs generally don’t (especially the H.D.R. software built into cameras). One is to line up pictures from slightly different angles, which eliminates the need for a tripod. If you’re taking hand-held H.D.R. photos, though, be sure your shutter is set to a fast speed, burst mode and auto bracketing — and you’ll still have to be as steady as possible.

The other thing that it does is make moving objects, like people walking through the frame, solid instead of a blur. In the software, you pick the frame in which you like the positioning of the people (or kites, clouds, animals — whatever is moving) and the program compares that frame with others. It eliminates the elements that are in different positions from the frame you picked when it mashes them together.

H.D.R. has been criticized for the otherworldly look it can impart. Expose 3 settings allow it to be much more subtle and natural, though it also has a “grunge” setting that delivers striking effects.

There is a little bit of a learning curve to the product, which is available either as a stand-alone program or as a plug-in that works in other programs like Adobe’s Photoshop. The video tutorials on the Unified Color Web site are a big help, especially because the software isn’t foolproof — you need to learn a few manual fixes.

The stand-alone version of HDR Expose 3 is $120, or you can buy a $90 version called 32 Float V3, which adds Expose 3’s features to Photoshop. ROY FURCHGOTT

Op-Ed Contributor: How the U.S. Got Broadband Right

Such criticisms are misplaced. If he is confirmed, Mr. Wheeler will have the good fortune to be arriving at the F.C.C. at a time when the United States has gained a global leadership position in the marketplace for broadband.

More than 80 percent of American households live in areas that offer access to broadband networks capable of delivering data with speeds in excess of 100 megabits per second. Almost everyone in the country has several competitive choices for high-speed broadband service (with wireline, satellite and wireless options). Verizon offers 14.7 million consumers, in parts of 12 states and the District of Columbia, speeds up to 300 megabits per second via our FiOS network, which is poised to provide even greater speeds in the future. Companies like AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner Cable are also investing in their infrastructure.

Fifty-six percent of American adults have smartphones that give them access to mobile broadband data and video. Our country is the center of a booming mobile ecosystem in which new devices and applications are being used to do everything from personal health monitoring and e-commerce to tracking deliveries and saving energy.

Contrast this with the European Union, where innovation and investment in advanced networks have stagnated under an onerous regulatory regime that limits investment and innovation, and where today only about 2 percent of households have access to broadband networks with 100-megabit-plus speeds. “Once, Europe led the world in wireless communication: now we have fallen behind,” Neelie Kroes, the European Union official responsible for broadband policy, said in a speech in January. “Europe needs to regain that lead.”

The United States built its lead because companies invested nearly $1.2 trillion, over 17 years, to deploy next-generation broadband networks. These investments, which began with the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, were neither accidental nor inevitable; they were a result of deliberate policy decisions by Congress and by Democratic and Republican administrations alike to protect consumers while encouraging companies to invest in nascent technologies that are now flourishing.

President Bill Clinton’s administration decided not to impose, on the Internet and wireless technologies, century-old regulations designed for copper networks. Michael K. Powell, the F.C.C. chairman during President George W. Bush’s first term, presided over the decision to exempt new fiber-optic networks from the old regime of price controls and rate-of-return regulation. The fast deployment of 4G LTE mobile broadband networks across the country might not have happened had Julius Genachowski, the most recent F.C.C. chairman, imposed a heavy-handed regulatory approach toward the technology.

Regulatory restraint has resulted in a robust broadband market, but today some self-styled policy advocates insist that America’s broadband marketplace is badly broken and that the only solution is to revert to Depression-era regulations, like government rate setting and price controls or rules dictating what types of competitive offerings broadband providers can offer consumers. These ideas, however, are part of the rigid bureaucratic approach that European regulators like Ms. Kroes have correctly identified as stifling.

Since 1996, as America encouraged the growth of its broadband industry, European regulators have adopted policies that generally limited network infrastructure deployment to a single facility in a given country or region. Other companies were allowed to “resell” broadband services to consumers, but only if they used the same infrastructure. This “retail” competition resulted in prices that may have covered the costs of operations but left little capital or other incentive for companies to invest in improving these networks. In other words, a decade ago the European broadband market may have looked healthy from the standpoint of consumer pricing, but after 10 years of underinvestment, European households (only half of which have access to networks capable of speeds of even 30 megabits) have far fewer broadband options and innovations than their American counterparts.

Regulatory prudence is the only way to keep up the momentum in broadband innovation. We are just beginning to see the potential of innovative cloud-based services, smartphones and tablets to transform education and job training. A recent study found that cloud computing could save enough energy to power Los Angeles for a year, the equivalent of 23 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. The broadband ecosystem is more than service providers and carriers. Our regulatory system needs to protect consumers while allowing market participants — developers of mobile applications and operating systems, handset manufacturers or operators of mobile virtual networks — to innovate.

There is no telling what will come out of this next wave of change. For its potential to be fully realized, however, it will be critically important for the industry to work with regulators — led, we hope, by Mr. Wheeler — to continue the bipartisan policies that have made our fast-changing industry a global leader.

Op-Ed Contributor: How the U.S. Got Broadband Right

Such criticisms are misplaced. If he is confirmed, Mr. Wheeler will have the good fortune to be arriving at the F.C.C. at a time when the United States has gained a global leadership position in the marketplace for broadband.

More than 80 percent of American households live in areas that offer access to broadband networks capable of delivering data with speeds in excess of 100 megabits per second. Almost everyone in the country has several competitive choices for high-speed broadband service (with wireline, satellite and wireless options). Verizon offers 14.7 million consumers, in parts of 12 states and the District of Columbia, speeds up to 300 megabits per second via our FiOS network, which is poised to provide even greater speeds in the future. Companies like AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner Cable are also investing in their infrastructure.

Fifty-six percent of American adults have smartphones that give them access to mobile broadband data and video. Our country is the center of a booming mobile ecosystem in which new devices and applications are being used to do everything from personal health monitoring and e-commerce to tracking deliveries and saving energy.

Contrast this with the European Union, where innovation and investment in advanced networks have stagnated under an onerous regulatory regime that limits investment and innovation, and where today only about 2 percent of households have access to broadband networks with 100-megabit-plus speeds. “Once, Europe led the world in wireless communication: now we have fallen behind,” Neelie Kroes, the European Union official responsible for broadband policy, said in a speech in January. “Europe needs to regain that lead.”

The United States built its lead because companies invested nearly $1.2 trillion, over 17 years, to deploy next-generation broadband networks. These investments, which began with the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, were neither accidental nor inevitable; they were a result of deliberate policy decisions by Congress and by Democratic and Republican administrations alike to protect consumers while encouraging companies to invest in nascent technologies that are now flourishing.

President Bill Clinton’s administration decided not to impose, on the Internet and wireless technologies, century-old regulations designed for copper networks. Michael K. Powell, the F.C.C. chairman during President George W. Bush’s first term, presided over the decision to exempt new fiber-optic networks from the old regime of price controls and rate-of-return regulation. The fast deployment of 4G LTE mobile broadband networks across the country might not have happened had Julius Genachowski, the most recent F.C.C. chairman, imposed a heavy-handed regulatory approach toward the technology.

Regulatory restraint has resulted in a robust broadband market, but today some self-styled policy advocates insist that America’s broadband marketplace is badly broken and that the only solution is to revert to Depression-era regulations, like government rate setting and price controls or rules dictating what types of competitive offerings broadband providers can offer consumers. These ideas, however, are part of the rigid bureaucratic approach that European regulators like Ms. Kroes have correctly identified as stifling.

Since 1996, as America encouraged the growth of its broadband industry, European regulators have adopted policies that generally limited network infrastructure deployment to a single facility in a given country or region. Other companies were allowed to “resell” broadband services to consumers, but only if they used the same infrastructure. This “retail” competition resulted in prices that may have covered the costs of operations but left little capital or other incentive for companies to invest in improving these networks. In other words, a decade ago the European broadband market may have looked healthy from the standpoint of consumer pricing, but after 10 years of underinvestment, European households (only half of which have access to networks capable of speeds of even 30 megabits) have far fewer broadband options and innovations than their American counterparts.

Regulatory prudence is the only way to keep up the momentum in broadband innovation. We are just beginning to see the potential of innovative cloud-based services, smartphones and tablets to transform education and job training. A recent study found that cloud computing could save enough energy to power Los Angeles for a year, the equivalent of 23 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. The broadband ecosystem is more than service providers and carriers. Our regulatory system needs to protect consumers while allowing market participants — developers of mobile applications and operating systems, handset manufacturers or operators of mobile virtual networks — to innovate.

There is no telling what will come out of this next wave of change. For its potential to be fully realized, however, it will be critically important for the industry to work with regulators — led, we hope, by Mr. Wheeler — to continue the bipartisan policies that have made our fast-changing industry a global leader.

Walking Dead: Carl, Andrea, The Governor - Who's Right?

Warning: Spoilers for "Welcome to the Tombs" follow...

The Walking Dead Season 3 finale has left many fans wondering why the creators made the 'who lives, and who dies' decisions that they did for the Season 3 finale, and how those choices will play into the upcoming Season 4. We've already published an interview with creator Robert Kirkman speaking about the finale and teasing 'radical changes' in Season 4.

We had the chance to speak with producer Gale Anne Hurd recently to talk about how they decide who lives and who dies on the series, if they felt the need to "explain" or justify Andrea in her final moments, why they stayed in the prison rather than move to Woodbury, and the zombies coming out full force in Season 4.

IGN TV: So the big topic of conversation following the finale was the choice to keep the Governor alive and kill Andrea. Can you talk about how those decisions were made? Did the fan response play into it at all? There was some criticism of her character.

Gale Anne Hurd: To be honest, if you pay attention, everyone’s gonna have a favorite and a least favorite. People are always gonna want villains to be killed, heroes to live. Personally, I’m a huge fan of Andrea’s from the comic book. I’m a huge Laurie Holden fan, so I’m partial to her. But at the same time, the decisions that are made on the show are really based on how -- death is never just a response to criticism or “Oh, we want to do something shocking.” That’s never the case. It really is based on how a death will affect the future storytelling. In other words, when Lori died, we got to see how that affected Rick and Carl. Their responses have really fueled the season. And with the death of Andrea, seeing Michonne for the first time show her true emotion and to see that her character has come full circle -- that was her family, and she has to say goodbye to her family, but I think we’re going to see how her death affects not only Michonne, but everyone in the prison community. I think also, what it helped do was inspire Rick to welcome in the Woodbury survivors.

IGN: Because he felt like that would have been something she would have wanted?

Hurd: Exactly.

IGN: Alternatively, keeping the Governor alive, was that about the strength of the performance? Or is it that he provides a strong counter to Rick and what he brings out in him as a character?

Hurd: The Walking Dead will never do what’s expected of us. You always expect that the big bad will be killed in the finale. It’s really unlikely we’re going to do that. I think that there’s more to be done with not only the character, but with the conflict that we get to see, the difference in leadership between the Governor and Rick.

IGN: It sort of illuminates where somebody could go in that kind of a world.

Hurd: Exactly.

IGN: in those final moments with Andrea, did it feel like in the writing of it, that the desire was to redeem the character, have her explain where she was coming from with Milton?

Hurd: I think part of the what the show is, is that it’s a character-driven show. It’s a show in which there are often monologues, whether it’s the Morgan scene with Rick in 12, some of the scenes going back to the second season between Daryl and Carol talking about Cherokee Rose -- you know, people do open up, and they talk about their journey. They talk about what’s affected them. So I don’t think that is in any way different from what we’ve seen on the show before. Truly, if you know you’re dying and that there’s no way out, no hope, I think that traditionally people do get off their chest what’s concerned them and how they’d like to be remembered.

IGN: In that moment, it did seem like maybe there was hope. It felt like maybe she could have gotten out of it and killed him in time.

Hurd: Yeah, but she knew that at some point he was no longer going to be sentient. Either he died and the period of time that it takes to come back as walker varies from a few minutes to even more than a day -- so she had no idea how long that process was going to take.

Continue for more on the Governor, if Carl was right and what's to come on The Walking Dead...

F.C.C. Urges a Right to Unlock Cellphones

For consumers, being able to take their iPhone or any other type of handset with them when they switch carriers could make it easier to take advantage of lower rates once an initial contract is fulfilled. That might mean more price competition and more choices for cellphone customers.

The administration and the F.C.C., under Julius Genachowski, announced that they will urge Congress to overturn a ruling last year by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress that made it illegal for consumers to unlock their cellphones, opening the software that restricts most phones from working on another carrier’s network.

Most consumers probably are not even aware that there is a process that would allow them to keep their current phone when they switch from one national carrier to another — but only after they have satisfied their initial service contract. The freedom to keep a phone regardless of the carrier has become a popular cause in technology circles, and an online petition to the White House gained more than 100,000 signatures in a month, prompting a response.

“If you have paid for a mobile device, and aren’t bound by a service agreement or other obligation, you should be able to use it on another network,” R. David Edelman, a senior White House adviser for Internet, innovation and policy, wrote in a blog post on the White House Web site.

“It’s common sense,” he said, and it raises concerns about consumer choice, competition and innovation.

Without a change, the potential consequences for unauthorized unlocking, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, are stiff: a $500,000 fine and five years in prison.

Wireless phone companies say they do not understand what the fuss is about. The big carriers each have policies that allow for phone unlocking on request once a user has fulfilled the initial contract terms. And, the carriers say, there are plenty of places to buy an unlocked phone to be used on a pay-as-you-go basis.

“We’ll unlock your device if you’ve fulfilled the terms of your service agreement,” AT&T, one of the largest wireless carriers, said in a statement Monday. “And, if you bring an unlocked device that will work on our network, we’ll sell you a SIM card and service.”

The key, therefore, is whether a cellphone designed to operate on one company’s network will operate on another company’s system. Unlike in Europe, cellphone systems in the United States do not all operate using the same technology, meaning a phone from one carrier might not easily transfer to another.

Michael Altschul, a senior vice president of CTIA — The Wireless Association, a trade group representing cellphone companies, said the national wireless carriers only insist on a phone remaining locked for the duration of the service contract so they can recover some of the cost of their subsidy that reduces the purchase price of the phone. Consumers have long been able to buy phones that already are unlocked, but that usually requires paying full price, which is often several times the subsidized price at which carriers offer phones along with a two-year contract.

For example, an unlocked iPhone 5 can be bought from the Apple store for $649; the same phone bought from AT&T costs $199 if the buyer accepts a two-year contract for wireless service.

The ban on unlocking a cellphone became an issue with the passage in 1998 of the copyright act, which among other provisions makes it illegal to circumvent digital protection technology. Unlocking a phone requires altering the software that restricts use of the phone to a certain carrier’s network, and runs afoul of the act.

But until recently, the copyright office had granted an exemption for mobile phones, subject to review every few years. Last year, however, the copyright office did not renew the exemption, prompting protests from the tech community.

The Library of Congress issued a statement Monday saying it agreed with the Obama administration that the issue of whether consumers should be able to unlock their phones “has implications for telecommunications policy” and that it should be reviewed by Congress and the administration.

Because the Library of Congress, and therefore the copyright office, are part of the legislative branch, the White House cannot simply overturn the current ruling. But both the White House and the F.C.C. urged Congress to take up the issue.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 6, 2013

An article on Tuesday about efforts to allow consumers to unlock their cellphones, and thus be able to take the phones with them when they change carriers, misstated the year the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed. It was 1998, not 1988.

State of the Art: Google Maps App for iPhone Goes in the Right Direction - Review

As everybody knows by now, Apple got lost along the way. It was like a 22-car pileup. Timothy Cook, Apple’s chief executive, made a quick turn, publicly apologizing, firing the executive responsible and vowing to fix Maps. For a company that prides itself on flawless execution, it was quite a detour.

Rumors swirled that Google would create an iPhone app of its own, one that would use its seven-year-old, far more polished database of the world.

That was true. Today, Google Maps for the iPhone has arrived. It’s free, fast and fantastic.

Now, there are two parts to a great maps app. There’s the app itself — how it looks, how it works, what the features are. In this regard, few people complain about Apple’s Maps app; it’s beautiful, and its navigation mode for drivers is clear, uncluttered and distraction-free.

But then there’s the hard part: the underlying data. Apple and Google have each constructed staggeringly complex databases of the world and its roads.

The recipe for both companies includes map data from TomTom, satellite photography from a different source, real-time traffic data from others, restaurant and store listings from still more sources, and so on. In the end, Apple says that it incorporated data from at least 24 different sources.

Those sources always include errors, if only because the world constantly changes. Worse, those sources sometimes disagree with one another. It takes years to fix the problems and mesh these data sources together.

So the first great thing about Google’s new Maps is the underlying data. Hundreds of Google employees have spent years hand-editing the maps, fixing the thousands of errors that people report every day. (In the new app, you report a mistake just by shaking the phone.) And since 2006, Google’s Street View vehicles have trawled 3,000 cities, photographing and confirming the cartographical accuracy of five million miles of roads.

You can sense the new app’s polish and intelligence the minute you enter your first address; it’s infinitely more understanding. When I type “200 W 79, NYC,” Google Maps drops a pin right where it belongs: on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Apple’s Maps app, on the other hand, acts positively drunk. It asks me to clarify: “Did you mean 200 Durham Road, Madison, CT? Or 200 Madison Road, Durham, CT?”

Um, what?

And then there’s the navigation. Lots of iPhone owners report that they’ve had no problem with Apple’s driving instructions, and that’s great. But I’ve been idiotically misdirected a few times — and the trouble is, you never know in advance. You wind up with a deep mistrust of the app that’s hard to shake. Google’s directions weren’t great in the app’s early days either, and they’re still not always perfect. But after years of polishing and corrections, they’re right a lot more often.

The must-have features are all here: spoken driving directions, color-coded real-time traffic conditions, vector-based maps (smooth at any size). But the new app also offers some incredibly powerful, useful features that Apple’s app lacks.

Street View, of course, lets you see a photograph of a place, and even “walk” down the street in any direction. Great for checking out a neighborhood before you go, scoping out the parking situation or playing “you are there” when you read a news article.

Along with driving directions, Google Maps gives equal emphasis to walking directions and public transportation options.

This feature is brilliantly done. Google Maps displays a clean, step-by-step timeline of your entire public transportation adventure. If you ask for a route from Westport, Conn., to the Empire State Building, the timeline says: “4:27 pm, Board New Haven train toward Grand Central Terminal.” Then it shows you the names of the actual train stops you’ll pass. Then, “5:47 pm, Grand Central. Get off and walk 2 min.” Then, “5:57 pm, 33rd St: Board the #6 Lexington Avenue Local towards Brooklyn Bridge.” And so on.

Even if public transportation were all it did, Google Maps would be one of the best apps ever. (Apple kicks you over to other companies’ apps for this information.)

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 14, 2012

The State of the Art column on Thursday, about a new Google Maps application for the iPhone, misstated the type and, because of an editing error, the number of businesses for which interior views are available. It is 100,000, not 100, and the number includes many kinds of businesses, not just restaurants.

Gadgetwise Blog: Choosing the Right Headphones

Headphones are the least expensive and most effective way to improve your sound system. They take room acoustics out of the equation, give you perfect stereo separation, and need not be expensive to be good. (They can be expensive, though; some headphones cost thousands.)

The best values in headphones I’ve tested this year hit a sweet spot at around $100. And you can get quite a lot for that price.

First, there are several varieties of headphones. There are earbuds, which hang in the ears but don’t plug the ear canals; in-ear headphones, which fit snugly in the ear canals and block outside sound; on-ear headphones, which sit on your ears but do not create a seal; and over-ear headphones, which encompass the ear and seal out environmental sound. Some over-ear headsets also have sound-canceling technology, to further isolate the listener from outside sound.

The RHA MA450i earphones.

Earbuds do not offer very good sound quality, and over-ear sound-canceling headphones are pricey. There is also a misconception about sound-canceling sets; they reduce only the droning sound of jet engines and wind rush, not the noisy seatmates chatting on a phone.

If you want to shut down extraneous noise, the best way to do it inexpensively is with an in-ear headset. Most have flexible rubber or foam tips that seal out sound. Of those I’ve tried recently, the RHA MA450i, at $50, is the value winner. The sound was detailed and easy to listen to without fatigue, making the MA450i suitable for subway commuting or a cross-country flight. As a plus, it is iPhone friendly and has a microphone and control buttons built into the cable.

The best value in headphones I’ve heard this year — maybe ever — came from the Grado SR 80i, which provides detailed and balanced sound at a bargain basement $100. These headphones fit over the ear but have an open-air design, meaning they will not seal out environmental sound; they act more like an on-ear headset. That also means that if you crank them up, you may overshare your tunes with neighbors.

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