Say Goodbye to Exes in Your Photos -- Forever

How many times have you wished a certain someone wasn't photobombing a great picture of you from the past? Now, a new app from Scalado lets you remove the offending face forever.

This interesting photo-taking system, called Remove, will allow you to selectively remove people (or objects) from a photo. Remove automatically highlights and deletes whatever you want removed from a captured photo. And it's the world's first object-removal software for mobile devices.

How does it work? Basically, the software interpolates a “clean” version of the scene by examining its moving, live objects. This allows it to separate the wanted objects from the unwanted ones.

Scalado, a world-leading provider of high-performance imaging technologies, applications and services for the mobile industry,will demonstrate a working version of Remove at MWC, a major telecom event, in Barcelona this year. After that, it should launch for iOS and Android soon.

Legos Get the Augmented Reality Treatment

Augmented reality games are all the rage these days, so it's about time that a Lego app was pulled in on the fun.

Life of George is a free app for the iPhone that puts an awesomely nostalgic spin on augmented reality. (Disclaimer: Playing Life of George is not entirely "free." Keek reading.)

LoG challenges users to build fairly simply Lego models, like a palm tree or a girl, as quickly as possible. Once a player builds the model, he or she takes a pic of their creation using their iPhone camera. The app IDs the shape of the model and assigns points based on speed and accuracy.

There are more than 12 groups of models to choose from (with themes like aliens, Hawaii and New York City), and players can go head-to-head with each other.

Yep, it's fun for all ages. And I'm sure you're ready to whip out your Legos and start playing. The only problem? While the app is free, the accompanying Life of George Lego set is $35. And the only way your iPhone will recognize your models is if they're photographed with the special Life of George cardboard background.

Boo to that. But woo to Legos!

'Parker' App Means You'll Never Again Circle For a Parking Spot

Next time you're running late for work, class or the theater, let Parker help you find a parking spot. All you would have to do is look to your smartphone.

The Parker app links to wireless sensors to inform drivers of open parking spots. Unfortunately, you can't use Parker until your city has opted to install the sensor network. (Go online to request it in your city.)

But once the sensors are in place, you'll save plenty of time and headaches, while your city reaps the benefits of fewer traffic jams, less pollution and more revenue from the detection of illegally parked cars.

The View From Above: In Hard Focus Round-up (September 19, 2011)

Augmented Reality + Gesture Recognition = Winning: Aurasma, an Augmented Reality app we’ve mentioned before, has quietly been rolling out a new technology that allows people to manipulate virtual images viewed through the app. While many Augmented Reality companies are working to create increasingly complex advertisements and prompts, build out their AR library of real world objects, or add game components, Aurasma is taking a step further by incorporating another layer of interaction that can bring a Kinect-like experience for users. See the video above, posted by Wired. We love the virtual soccer game.

Immersive Labs makes like ‘Minority Report’ with facial recognition ad technology:  TechCrunch reports that a new startup and alumnus of New York TechStars’ recent class, Immersive Labs, is getting seed funding to pursuit their vision of using facial recognition to tailor digital signage and advertising displays. The technology currently identifies and selects advertisements based on factors such as gender, age, distance and time spent viewing ads, many factors found valuable to online and mobile advertisements. With some positive (yet vague) initial feedback on viewer attention, Immersive Labs hopes to push into markets this fall. 

Augmented Reality app reveals layers of past history: People behind the project ‘What Was Here’ have created an iOS app that draws from online research to reveal the past around you. The project website collects, tags and catalogs photos –from grandma’s trip photos to your most recent mobile uploads – which you can then view in Augmented Reality via the app. As Engadget reports, the project needs contributors, so feel free to upload those dusty prints from the attic.

Earthquake Fears? Don't Worry: Soon Your iPhone Will Warn You

Three earthquakes in three days. It's enough to spook even the most cynical cynic.

But never fear: Your iPhone will soon alert you to earthquakes. Well, if you live in Japan.

For now, the alerts are only available to iPhone users in Japan who have access to beta versions of iOS 5. However, word is that Apple will make the alert capabilities available to everyone soon.

Japan's current earthquake warning system notifies people up to two minutes before a quake hits. As countless people can tell you, in an emergency, that can be the difference between life and death.