Collect virtual passport stamps with VisaStamper

by Meg Nesterov on

It’s a favorite ritual for many travelers to leaf through their passport (often while waiting in an immigration line), reminiscing on each stamp and the destination it represents. When a passport is lost or expired, losing all those hard-earned stamps can be tragic. VisaStamper is a new website that creates a virtual passport, with photo-realistic stamps for each place you visit. The site currently has passport stamps for every country, with city-specific stamps for the US, UK, Australia, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Ireland & Germany, and more every day. You can share your passport stamps on Facebook and Twitter, and collect “points” for each stamp in your VisaStamper passport.

VisaStamper works via your computer’s IP address location, automatically generating a stamp for the country you’re currently in. You can “backdate” your virtual passport by submitting your destination list and dates via email, though an easier form is in production. Apps for iPhone, iPad and Android are on the way in the new year to work via GPS and make sharing even easier.

Sign up and start collecting at VisaStamper.com (you can check out my stamps here) and visit them on Facebook. Happy (virtual) travels!

Lonely Planet launches Wenzani travel app for iPhone and iPod touch

by McLean Robbins on

Travel guide favorite Lonely Planet has joined the app game with the launch today of Wenzani, a free app for for the iPhone and iPod touch. Wenzani – a Zulu greeting which means “what are you doing?”- brings together recommendations from Lonely Planet and other top travel publishers along with local experts, and users’ social networks.

“It’s creating a personalized guide on-the-go,” said Jenny Fielding, Wenzani’s CEO. “Wenzani is designed for the social generation, allowing users to tap into leading content from multiple expert sources with socially curated recommendations.”

The app contains three main features. The first? Recommendations drawn from Lonely Planet, Frommer’s Travel and DK Eyewitness, along with other expert sources including BBC Travel, Time Out, and Hearst. It’s the first time we’ve seen competitors come together to form one broad-based app, something we’re excited to explore. Wenzani also promises “content according to context and relevancy, taking into consideration the user’s location and their social network, so that the information is constantly updated while on the go.” Soon, Wenzani will filter by other factors such as weather, time of day, and whether the user is a local or visitor, so it becomes even more tailored and relevant to the users’ needs in real time.

This is something we’ve always wanted to see- I don’t want to go on a walking tour by the lake if it’s 30 degrees and rainy! The third portion is the social media integration which allows users to connect with their friends and other travelers in order to share their own personal experiences and recommendations. Users can browse their friends’ entries and recommendations, create their own listing to add into the guide, or ask a question to the community (e.g. “Where should I get sushi in midtown Manhattan?”) to get immediate answers pushed onto their mobile device. Wenzani also has a Facebook web app to allow users to integrate recommendations from Facebook into the guide.This seems like it will be the most or least useful portion of the tool, depending on how connected and active your social network is in the area where you’re traveling.

From what we can tell, this app promises to be a powerful addition to the suite of travel tools we already have handy on our iPhones. Apps for Android and other platforms will launch in early 2012.

Introducing Wenzani from Wenzani on Vimeo.

Smartphone app reveals new mysteries in Stonehenge landscape

by Sean McLachlan on


Recent excavations around Stonehenge have shown that the famous monument didn’t stand alone in the landscape; it was part of a network of monuments that developed over time.

One of the most enigmatic is Bluestonehenge, a mile away from Stonehenge and only excavated a few years ago. It was a stone circle much like Stonehenge, although now all that remains are the holes where the stones were placed around 3000 BC. Fragments of rock in the holes show the stones were originally bluestones, imported from Wales and also used for the inner circle of Stonehenge. In fact, some archaeologists believe they were removed from Bluestonehenge and incorporated into Stonehenge around 2500 BC.

Now a new analysis using a smartphone app (of all things!) indicates that Bluestonehenge might have originally been an oval. Past Horizons reports that archaeologist Henry Rothwell was working on a smartphone app about the Stonehenge landscape when he noticed something strange about the known holes of Bluestonehenge and those that hadn’t yet been uncovered. When he made a reconstruction of the site using the existing holes, they didn’t form a neat circle, but rather an oval.

In fact this oval is the same orientation and shape as Stonehenge and another site in the area–Woodhenge. Both Stonehenge and Woodhenge are aligned on the mid-summer and mid-winter solstices, and if Rothwell’s reconstruction is correct, then Bluestonehenge is as well. This makes a whole network of monumental sites stretching across centuries of history, all aligned to work as prehistoric calendars.

[Photo courtesy Steve Walker]

Lights, Camera, iPhone: iPhoneography for Travel Videos

by Jen Pollack Bianco on


Travel photos are great, but these days where viral video memes are the cultural norm a mere picture with the 900 pound Marlin you caught on vacation just doesn’t cut it anymore. When it’s all about the money shot, it’s time to shoot video. Thanks to cool new technology and iPhone apps, you can be on vacation and in the director’s chair at the same time.

There are apps that let you edit in the field (or stream) and slap it up on YouTube via your mobile device, all with the ease of a few finger swipes and a decent wifi connection. Just remember that your awesome iGadget has its limitations, particularly poor sound quality and a tendency for shakiness. So here’s a rundown on a few Apps that can help you turn your potentially boring travel movies into bite sized tasty morsels of travel porn.

High Tech, Lo-Fi: 8mm Vintage Camera

Hipsters know the best thing about cool new technology is how easy and fun it is to make things look old and crappy! 8mm is the video capture App that shows just how right they are. This app is excellent for recording video and adding that veneer of nostalgia with a selection of filters. It even lets you insert a well-timed film snag, a manufactured glitch that adds to the charm of the finished piece. There is even an 8mm HD for iPad version, should you have some “vintage” video from your old Flip or other camera that you want to spruce up. A bonus asset is that the 8mm App has one of the highest quality recorded sound capabilities out there (as good as it gets within iPhone limitations). If it’s windy or you find that you don’t need dialogue, just replace your original soundtrack with sound effects, or music from your iPod.Silent Film Director is an essential entry level app and not as old fashioned as it sounds. Its Pro mode has a user friendly interface and is perfect for assembling clips you’ve already shot and adding simple titles and a basic sound track. You can add or layer filters. Pimp your clip by altering the time line. Try speeding it up or slowing it down. You can also share/upload from within the App. Borrow Quentin Tarantino’s magic equation:

Cool imagery + hyperspeed+ ironic 70’s song = awesome


One key tip in making your iPhone videos: keep it short and sweet, 20 seconds or less. No one wants to watch your two-week vacation play out in real time. Avoid editing complex sequences (and alienating your travel buddies) with your phone. Think of iPhone travel films as video postcards, and aim for emotion and action over perfection.

Go ahead and pull out your iPhone and shoot. If you aren’t happy with what you got on the fly, you can always try to fix it in post. Rad apps like Cinema FXV can help you correct some exposure goofs and add cool special effects. That boring plane ride might be more interesting as a cartoon. This is the app that can make that happen.

Think that the jerky footage you shot is unusable? App it before you hit delete. Not to worry – that bumpy helicopter ride on an overcast day gets much more visually appealing once you slow it down and add the apps negative filter. You can put in titles and soundtrack together with user-friendly ReelDirector and you might discover you’re more talented than Michael Bay.

The downside to shooting on your lightweight iPhone is that it’s hard to keep it steady. If you’re a little shaky you may want to think about investing in a hands free mount . The flexible In Your Face Viewbase is a great option, or try the Joby Gorilla Mobile. These require a little more cash investment but are still a bargain compared to buying a serious video camera.

What if your vacation sucked? I don’t think there is an app for that. But you can learn from Indie Filmmaker Robert Rodriguez and add the fun in post-production. You may not have his visual effects team, but with a few good apps out there to play with, you can turn that endless wait for room service into a fun ode to Mary Pickford in your hotel bathrobe.

iPhoneography: Make your iPhone travel pictures spectacular

by Jen Pollack Bianco on

It’s been said that a picture is worth a thousand words and this is particularly true when it comes to your travel snapshots. Whether you’re back from a business trip or the family vacation from hell, you can regale your friends and family with stories of cool restaurants or the holiday romance you had… but everyone wants to see your pictures. With today’s technology, you can’t claim you didn’t have a camera with you (assuming you have a smart phone) when you stumbled across that supermodel in the Galapagos. So what if your photography skills are non-existent? There are apps for that!

If you’re reading this on Gadling, it’s likely that you (or someone traveling with you) are going to have an iDevice with them. Truly, the iPhone/iPod Touch has the potential to become the must-have travel gadget. Its camera is so stealth and so versatile that you no longer have an excuse for your photos to be anything less than awesome, even if your vacation is a total bust.

If you haven’t yet checked out the exploding world of iPhoneography, here are a few user-friendly apps that are worth investing in and playing with. Whether you work with one or all of them, it’s not an exaggeration to say that these apps are pretty much guaranteed to improve your travel photos.

Camera + $0.99
If you’re looking to improve your photo game in a single app, Camera+ is a great way to go. This is the app of choice for non-photographers or people who don’t care about the technical side of shooting, but who want to make their images look better. Not only is it user friendly, it’s intuitive and almost impossible to mess up — and it also gives you control over the strength of its filters and effects.

From an operational standpoint, the interface on Camera + makes sense and the lingo they use is understandable while the icons are self-explanatory. One can use Camera+ for both image capture and editing, even if they’ve been shot directly on your iPhone’s camera.

This app lets you shoot and be in the moment and fix any mistakes (exposure being the most common one) after the fact. You can download it now and even try to correct that shot you took long before you read this post. It’s easy also easy to share your creations on Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. As a warning: this app has a reputation for being addictive.
AutoStitch Panorama $1.99
AutoStitch Panorama enables your humble iPhone to capture the broadest scenic landscapes and then turn them into modern day postcards. Basically, the clever app lets you take a series of shots with your limited point and shoot lens and then stitches them together into a panorama. If that technology is not cool enough, it also lets you control how seamlessly you want them blended. Here’s a tip: sometimes an imperfect melding of pictures is the best way to go. You can achieve some really cool and artsy images with just a bit of experimentation.

toonPAINT $1.99
If you’ve ever fancied yourself the creative type but just never got around to submitting your portfolio to get into Art School, toonPAINT could be the resolution to all of that angst. It can turn any of the photos taken and/or stored in your iDevice into an illustrated image that you can then color-in as you please. Turn that airport shuttle into a comic or the beach sand into something no one has seen before.

Iris Photo Suite $1.99
Iris Photo Suite is definitely the most advanced of the bunch here, but the key is that it allows you access to over 70 photo effects and then gives you the ability to layer and blend them. This is what turns snapshots into really memorable images. Check out what can happen when you add Iris to the equation after using other apps.

Instagram Free!
A work of art is nothing without its audience. And if you’re itching to share your images with the world via any portal of social media, you should definitely have Instagram in your arsenal. You can take a picture in the app, or add some cool (but limited) filters to an existing photo, caption it and release it to the world via Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr. Instagram also has its own feed and you can check out what the world wide community of Instagramers is up to. Use location hashtags and who knows? Your photos might be big in Japan, even if you’ve never been there.