filters

The French Supreme Court has ruled that Google may have to censor the words "torrent," "RapidShare," and "Megaupload" from its instant and autocomplete searches, according to TorrentFreak.

In its ongoing court case with French music industry group SNEP, Google has been accused of implicitly allowing copyright violations for not filtering out these words. The SNEP alleges that when users type in names of well-known musicians in Google search, file-sharing sites get added on with the autocomplete feature.

"We are disappointed by the court's ruling," a Google spokesperson told CNET. "Google … Read more

It may not beat Photoshop, but Aviary is still one of the most comprehensive photo editors available for Android. What's more, it's incredibly simple to use.

From the get-go, Aviary makes it simple to edit your photos, as it opens up directly to a carousel of all the saved images on your device. From here, you can swipe through your photos straight away or go to your photo gallery and make your selection that way. Otherwise, the app also gives you the option to take a new photo to import into the editor.

Once you make your selection, … Read more

British Telecom became the final broadband provider in the U.K. to block customer access to the The Pirate Bay following an April court order forcing the move.

From about 4 a.m. PT Tuesday (noon British Summer Time), more than 6 million BT customers were faced with a "site blocked" message when trying to access the Magnet-link sharing site.

Some users were surprised to find that Web addresses and IP addresses that still worked on other broadband providers' networks threw up a "blocked" message on BT's system.

It later became clear that BT had … Read more

By now, just about anyone with an iPhone or iPad probably has a ton of images sitting in his or her image library. Most people already know about photo-sharing apps like Instagram and EyeEm, along with photo filter apps like PhotoToaster and FX Photo Studio for that stylized look, but there are still more fun ways to play with your images to produce nice-looking projects.

Diptic (99 cents) is an intuitive app that lets you make cool-looking collages using photos you take with your iPhone camera or what you have stored in your photo library. A new version of the app now adds photo filters and other options, letting you create simple but elegant collages in only a few easy steps.… Read more

Facebook Camera was just released for any iPhone and iPod Touch running iOS 4.0 and later. The new Camera app from Facebook allows you to upload and share multiple photos, whereas the Facebook app restricts you to uploading only one photo at a time. With Facebook Camera you can also crop, rotate, and even add 1 of 14 total filters to a photo. Even having just bought Instagram, Facebook has proceeded to release an app that some would say competes directly with Instagram.

If you're curious about the look and feel of the app, watch the video below … Read more

It's no secret that Apple is not a fan of jailbreaking of its iPhones, but that distaste appears to be extending to the iTunes Store as well.

A search for the term "jailbreak" in the store yields dozens of instances where the titles of songs, apps, TV shows, and even podcasts have been asterisked out. While Apple believes the act of jailbreaking, or bypassing the restriction Apple places on standard iPhones that only allows the installation of applications only from approved sources, is a copyright violation. iBookstore is also affected.

A review of the App Store guidelines … Read more

The U.K. is holding a fiery debate over the free and open Internet and how to protect kids from the perils of online porn. The drama-filled saga has enough cartoonish details and self-serving characters in it to fill out an entire Guy Ritchie film -- sadly, sans the comic relief. Or even cute little dogs.

Even though content filters are available, religious organizations and conservatives think the government needs to force ISPs into default filtering. On this bandwagon, loud and proud, are tabloids such as the Sun and Daily Mail.

Under the default filter plans, customers of internet service … Read more

Certain image formats are better suited to particular tasks than others, so if you do a lot of work with digital images it makes sense to have a program that can easily convert between a variety of formats. AVD Batch Converter is definitely not the fanciest file converter we've encountered, but if you need a no-frills way to convert batches of images from one format to another, it can get the job done.

The program's interface is intuitive, if not particularly attractive. Three panes let users navigate to specific directories, view a selected directory's contents, and preview … Read more

Photofunia is a ridiculously simple photo effects app that lets you drop your photos into funny and interesting scenes, similar to those you might find at an amusement park photo booth. If, say, you want to see what your face might look like on a billboard in Times Square, Photofunia has an effect for that. How about on the cover of Esquire Magazine? Photofunia's got that covered too. With an incredible number of effects available, the possibilities seem endless.

To get started with Photofunia, just fire up the app and start looking for an effect you like. You can … Read more