instagram

TSA fills Instagram feed with photos of guns and grenades

Short on good Instagram feeds to follow? Well, the Transportation Security Administration certainly has a colorful new account.

Peppered with images of Bowie knifes, handguns, grenades, and more, this account specifically features "prohibited items found at TSA checkpoints."

The TSA recently opened its Instagram account and posted its first photo on Saturday. The inaugural image is a collage of fireworks with the statement "#Fireworks don't fly. (On planes)." One of the photos in the collage also shows brass knuckles.

Other images in the feed include a bayonet and throwing knife discovered at the Long Beach … Read more

The 404 1,296: Where we take our filters to the grave (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Help Kickstart a documentary on the cultural impact of "Back to the Future."

- How movie theaters keep cool through summer's scorching months.

- A Web site that exposes Instagram frauds that use #nofilter.

- Kanye, the new Steve Jobs, gets Jobs-signed Apple mouse.

- How Xbox fans in Japan earned the nickname "Gropers."

- Pebble smartwatch coming to Best Buy starting July 7.… Read more

Embed Instagram photos or videos on your Web site

Embed Instagram is a tool brought to you from the Digital Inspiration blog. It is free, easy to use, and can add a 612x612 photo or video alongside your writing. You can also edit the dimensions if you need a smaller version to fit Web site formatting.

Step 1: Open Instagram in your Web browser and navigate to the photo or video you want to share. Copy the URL in the top address bar.

Step 2: Next, open a new tab and head to the Embed Instagram Web tool. Paste the URL in the box and click Generate Embed Code. … Read more

Spammers show they give a fig about Instagram, launch fruit-based attack

Instagram went bananas Saturday.

A company representative confirmed in an e-mail today that the photo-sharing network had been hit by a spam attack -- an attack, we might add, that was perhaps a bit more colorful than usual.

It seems the photo-sharing network became flooded with photos of fruit, which were accompanied by a link to a marketing page for a fruit-based diet regimen.

Om Malik over at blog Giga Om reported on the smootie-ization of Instagram earlier, saying the link pointed to a bogus BBC News page with the headline "Tropical Fruit Burns 17 Pounds in 22 Days. … Read more

Trayvon Martin trial spawns insensitive Instagram from defense lawyer's daughter

If you happen to be involved in a trial that has severe racial overtones, you should perhaps know that mockery might not be the most appropriate mode of expression.

Don West, lawyer for George Zimmerman -- the man accused of murdering Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla. -- began his client's defense with a knock-knock joke, so perhaps the stage was already set for a different sort of theater.

You might imagine, though, that if you're a West family member, you'd temper your need to, say, leap to your favored social network to add to that mockery, with … Read more

Instagram takes bite out of Vine in first week

Facebook's Instagram video announcement last week went a long way in hurting its chief competitor Vine, a new study has shown.

According to data compiled by Marketing Land using Topsy, a tool designed to analyze social media shares, the number of links shared on Twitter to Vine videos fell off a cliff after Instagram's new video-recording feature was announced on June 20. And since then, things have remained quiet for Vine.

According to Marketing Land's findings, Vine's Twitter shares hit 2.5 million on June 19. After Instagram's video service launched, that fell to 1.… Read more

Record silent Instagram videos

I love animated GIFs. They're quick, there's an art to them, and as obnoxious as they might be visually -- they're silent.

My big problem with this whole Vine and Instagram video boom is that the end product is often unintentionally noisy -- sometimes even jarring. I used to browse my Instagram feed like I was walking through an endless art gallery made by my friends. But now it seems like every few posts there's a video sucking down my bandwidth and assaulting my ears with a cut-up of ambient noise.

Close your eyes and your … Read more

Star Apps: Seth Green on Hipstamatic

Superstar Seth Green is perhaps best known for his work on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," three "Austin Powers" films, "Party Monster," "Family Guy," and his Emmy Award-winning, stop-motion-animated series "Robot Chicken."

What many fans might not know is that Green, who will soon appear on-camera in the upcoming feature "The Identical," the upcoming miniseries "Delete," and on fall's Fox comedy series "Dads," is quite the pro behind the camera as well, as his online photo album demonstrates. Green opened up about his HipstamaticRead more

Rumor Has It: How much better will the iPhone 5S' better camera be?

Last week, Facebook announced video capabilities for Instagram, which nobody was surprised about. But I was a little surprised that the presentation ended with that. I was sure that the company would also announce its answer to Google Reader. Lo and behold, recent rumors suggest that Facebook still has a Reader of its own up its sleeve.

Google could be working its own version of Pinterest, called Google Mine. It would be integrated with Google+, and it could have its own Android app. Of course!

And finally, there's that little gleaming unicorn that everyone is speculating about, the iPhone 5S. Recent rumors suggest that it'll have a boosted camera, jumping 12 megapixels from the iPhone 5's 8. What do you think of those specs? Does it sound likely? Leave a comment below, and don't forget to vote in the poll!

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The White House joins Instagram

Add Instagram to the list of social platforms that the White House is using to share presidential updates with the public.

The official account for President Barack Obama's administration arrived nearly a week after the launch of Instagram video. Yet, the White House decided to break in its brand-new account Wednesday with a photo. How very retro. The first photo depicts the Marine One helicopter taking off as the First Family leaves for a trip to Africa, and potentially sets the tone for a more intimate, "unfiltered," look at Obama's affairs.

A new way to see … Read more