Ina Fried

Recent Posts by Ina Fried

A Lytro in Hand Helps Bring Mobile World Congress Into Focus

While the first Lytro cameras are just now making their way to customers, AllThingsD has spent the past two weeks putting the device to work.

The light field camera has been our quiet companion at this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and, before that, on a reporting trip to Finland. We’ve been writing about the camera since the technology was first unveiled last fall and even managed to take a few pictures at CES.

But having the Lytro and its living pictures full-time has provided a unique way to tell the story of the world’s biggest cellphone conference.

For those who need a quick primer, Lytro’s camera uses a new type of imaging that offers a number of advantages, including the ability to refocus pictures after they are taken, to shoot without focusing first and to take images in very low-light conditions without the need for a flash. (For more, check out Walt Mossberg’s review of Lytro’s camera.)

We’ve been stealthily trying to capture as many scenes from Barcelona as possible, all while being surrounded by a million tech enthusiasts, bloggers and journalists.

We managed to pull it out briefly at Microsoft’s Windows 8 launch as well as at a number of other press conferences and booths. Only a few times did we get caught by people who actually knew what we were carrying.

Anyway, below are some of the highlights. I also had the camera in hand during last week’s visit to Finland, including shots at Nokia and Rovio. But I’ll save those for tomorrow.

In the meantime, here are some of the shots from Barcelona. Remember to click around the Lytro pictures to change the focus. All of these have some fun variability.

The first shot is one of Sony’s new Xperias. Click on the phone screen to bring that into focus.

The HTC One (click on different parts of the screen)

Intel’s mobile coming-out party

Ericsson’s booth

The scene at Wednesday’s Windows 8 preview event

The view from Hotel Miramar, site of the Windows 8 event (try clicking on the wine glass)

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There’s a lot of attention and PR around Marissa, but their product lineup just kind of blows.

— Om Malik on Bloomberg TV, talking about Yahoo, the September issue of Vogue Magazine, and our overdependence on Google