TinEye is a new photo-specific search engine that holds a lot of promise for photographers interested in tracking the use of their work.  Still in private testing, the idea is that by uploading, entering the address of, or right-clicking on (in Firefox) a photo, TinEye will scan the internet and present any matches it finds for that photo.  The technology does not just return similar items, but only (theoretically) the same exact photo.  It is also smart enough to return results for photos that have been cropped, resized, edited, and altered.  At this time, the number of photos indexed is extremely small relative to the total number out there, but the technology shows promise.  Personally, I would love to see TinEye adopt a Google Alerts type of system in which a photographer could have TinEye monitor their website and automatically notify them if their photos are being used elsewhere.

DropBox provides extremely simple synchronization between one or more computers and the internet.  The premise here is to be as completely seamless as possible and, in that, DropBox succeeds.  For me, I don’t know that it’s something I will use.  It only has two gigabytes of available space, so it’s not practical as a backup tool, which is what I would ideally use this type of technology for.  Nevertheless, for anyone who regularly transfers files from one computer to another, this may be a lifesaver.

I don’t need to say much about the recent release of Firefox 3 that hasn’t been said many times already, so I will simply say that I’ve been using it since release day (during which the browser was downloaded over 8 million times) and it’s great.  Two of my favorite add-ons weren’t supported at first, but both FxIF and Sirius Player were updated within 24 hours.  I also discovered the excellent FireNES add-on, which embeds thousands of Nintendo games into Firefox.

SmugMug just released SmugVault, a partnership with Amazon’s S3 data storage technology that allows SmugMug users to upload files of any type.  This is a much more backup-oriented data solution that I will have to look into as it develops.  If only this type of storage were available with the simplicity and automation of DropBox.

Last, but not least, I bought tickets for the opening day of The Dark Knight in IMAX!