According to new research commissioned by Mozy, an online backup service, a third of Brits have lost precious digital photos forever due to a computer failure. The research has revealed the average Brit has over 1,500 photos or videos stored on a computer. A fifth of all respondents do not back them up at all, and over a quarter only backup data on a CD, USB stick or external hard drive. Mozy argues that a house fire or similar accident is just as likely to destroy these media and devices as a PC, and offers its MozyHome online backup service to those worried about data loss.

Website: An overview of consumer backup habits in the UK and Ireland

The United Nations Development Programme have teamed up with Olympus and the Agence France-Presse (AFP) Foundation for the second annual ‘Picture This’ photo contest. Aimed at showing the world the inspirational work that is being done in many countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) the contest, titled Picture This: We Can End Poverty, is open to amateur and professional photographers worldwide. Entrants may submit up to three different photographs, focusing on progress towards one of the MDGs, preferably in a developing country. The deadline for entries is midnight EST 16 July 2010. The first prize winners in the professional and amateur categories and the “People’s Choice” winner will be flown to an awards ceremony and launch of an exhibition in September in New York. Prizes to be won include various Olympus digital cameras and kits, from the Olympus Mju Tough-8000 to the E-P2.

Website: Picture This

AKVIS has released ArtWork4.0, which transforms photos into paintings using various techniques. Version 4.0 introduces the linocut style, meaning photos can now be converted to an image in the style of a linocut print. A linocut is made by carving a raised pattern into a piece of linoleum, which is then used with ink to print that pattern onto paper. Linocuts are known for their characteristic expressiveness, strong contrast between black and white, and rich, exuberant strokes. According to AKVIS, it is an ideal effect to use with photos of architecture or nature scenes. In addition to the new linocut style, the program offers three more painting techniques including comics, oil painting and pen&ink. AKVIS ArtWork Home License (plug-in or standalone) sells for $72. Registered users can upgrade to version 4.0 free of charge.

Website: AKVIS

The Golden Hour: A Photographer’s Life and His World is a new book about Herb Ritts’ life and legacy. Among the most esteemed and well respected fashion and celebrity portrait photographers, as well as an acclaimed director of music videos, Herb Ritts’ images ranged from Masai warriors and angelic underwear models, to Olympic athletes and one-named superstars. Author Charles Churchward, a long-time and distinguished art director at publications including Vogue and Vanity Fair, spent the last five years interviewing Ritts’ family, and scores of his photographic subjects, business associates, curators, staff, closest confidants, and friends. Apart from text by Churchward, the book contains more than 200 photos by Ritts. Published by Rizzoli, The Golden Hour will be released in October priced at $65 / £40.

The SD Association has announced two new high-speed performance symbols for the fastest SDXC and SDHC devices and memory cards. The first symbol (UHS-I) identifies products with businterface speeds up to 104 Megabytes per second for greater device performance. The second symbol (UHS Speed Class 1) identifies SD memory cards and products with a performance option allowing real-time video recording.

Alien Skin Software has announced the immediate availability of Exposure 3, the new version of its photography effects plug-in for Adobe Photoshop. New features include 64-bit support for Photoshop CS5 on both Macintosh and Windows, tight Lightroom integration that does not require Photoshop, aging effects and vintage films such as Technicolor and old Kodachrome, and more. Exposure 3 sells for $249; owners of any version of Exposure may upgrade for $99. Do note that Exposure 3 requires one of the following host applications: Adobe Photoshop CS3 or later, Adobe Lightroom 2 or later, Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 or later, or Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X3.

Website: Alien Skin

A British Life in a Mountain Kingdom: Early Photographs of Sikkim and Bhutan is the first exhibition of photographs by 19th century British government officer John Claude White. A pioneer of mountain photography, White was given the chance to live amongst some of the world’s most formidable mountains in 1888 when he was assigned to the Sikkim-Tibet Boundary Commission, tasked with mapping and surveying the regions’ borders. The cumbersome photographic equipment with which he traveled—including a large format camera and glass plate negatives—is a testament to his dedication to photography. In hist time, White’s images offered the world rare glimpses into these isolated Himalayan lands, illustrating his articles on Tibet, Bhutan and Nepal for National Geographic Magazine. A British Life in a Mountain Kingdom: Early Photographs of Sikkim and Bhutan will be on view in the Rubin Museum of Art from 6 August 2010 to 10 January 2011. The museum is located at 150 West 17th Street, New York.

To celebrate its tenth birthday, PhotoBox has launched a photography contest called ‘Around the World in 80 Days’. The company is asking photo enthusiasts across the UK to submit their best holiday snapshots and travel photographs from their favourite countries. In the first two weeks, you can submit photos taken in African countries - then the competition moves on to the Americas, Antarctica, Europe, Asia and, finally, Oceania. 6 winning photos from 6 continents will be selected from the entries, with the winners receiving the holiday of their lives to each of the continents featured in the contest.

Website: Around the World in 80 Days

Canon UK has announced that its Pro Photo Solutions show will be returning again on 26th and 27th October 2010 at the Business Design Centre in Islington. Designed to be the largest and most comprehensive consumer focused exhibition of Canon’s imaging products, the show’s aim is to educate and inspire visitors and demonstrate to them how Canon’s technology can be used by professionals in their workflow to generate increased revenue and business. Entrance to the show will be free for all those who pre-register online.

Transcend has launched its first 64GB Class 10 SDXC memory cards. Featuring transfer rates of up to 25 megabytes per second, Transcend’s new Ultimate SDXC cards are capable of storing 640 minutes of Full HD video footage, the company says. The cards come with a lifetime warranty.

Wildlife Photography is a new book from Rocky Nook, written by photographer and environmentalist Uwe Skrzypczak. The author wrote the book with several goals in mind—to teach the technical aspects and the workflow of digital wildlife photography; to show the beauty of East Africa and his beloved Serengeti National Park, and to educate about its habitat; and to provide a guide for the photographer who is planning to go on an African photo safari. Topics covered include equipment and accessories, conditions on the road, composition, light, migrations and mating seasons, habitats and animal behaviour, river crossings and more. The 240-page book is available priced at $39.95.

“According to a leading scholar of 19th-century American photography, many works in a landmark retrospective of Eadweard Muybridge at the Corcoran Gallery of Art may not be by Muybridge at all.” So begins a letter we have received from Alexis Anderson of ArtInfo, a premier art news portal. A large body of Muybridge’s work, along with pieces of equipment he used to create his pictures with, have been accumulated in the exhibition; which will travel to the Tate Britain in September and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in February. It turns out that Weston Naef, a former J. Paul Getty Museum curator, thinks many of the photographs on display were actually taken by Muybridge’s friend Carleton Watkins, and sold to him for publication. Tyler Green of Modern Art Notes (MAN) has just started a week-long series on the emerging debate, with the first part being a Q&A with Naef himself. Interested readers should follow the link below to check out his introduction to the three-part interview.

Website: The newest Eadweard Muybridge mystery on MAN

DxO Labs today unveiled DxOMark 2010, the new version of its website, which adds raw-based lens performance measurements to its existing database of camera sensor measurements. Initially covering about 540 cameras-lens combinations, with dozens to follow each month, the DxOMark database is based on measurements performed on raw images. To complement the lens and camera sensor measurement database, DxOMark also proposes fifteen Scores to help users to quickly assess and compare the intrinsic raw performance of lenses and cameras. These Scores are based either on photographic use cases such as Travel, Portrait, Landscape etc., or key optical metrics such as resolution or distortion.

Website: DxOMark

Rizzoli is to publish a monograph of photographer Mika Ninagawa’s work in October 2010. Mika Ninagawa has become a cultural superstar in Japan since her début only a decade ago. Distinguished by gorgeously saturated colours and stylised compositions, her photographs are widely exhibited in Japan and abroad. Her portraits of international personalities including Cameron Diaz, the late Isabella Blow, Dita von Teese, Chiaki Kuriyama and Beyoncé, plus her elaborate, fantasy-infused landscapes and still-lifes illustrate how and why her vibrant aesthetic has been influential in the fashion world. The 352-page hardcover includes 300 of her photographs and sells for $75/?45.

Toshiba is collaborating with Trek 2000 to promote the former’s new SDHC memory card, which features wireless capabilities. The two companies have established an industry forum called the “Standard Promotion Forum for Memory Cards Embedding Wireless LAN”. Toshiba’s new, Wi-Fi enabled 8GB memory card can recognise and communicate with the same type of card in another camera, and allows users to upload and download photographs to and from a server without any need for a cable connection or a card reader. Supporting raw data transfer and the IEEE 802.11b/g wireless LAN standard, Toshiba’s new product looks set to become a major competitor to Eye-Fi’s well-established line-up of Wi-Fi enabled memory cards.

The Master Photographers Association (MPA) has announced the winners in the first round judging of the 2010 Kodak/MPA Wedding and Portrait Awards. The prizes in the wedding category go to Stephen Yates (who won three awards), Steven Taylor and Scott Hogg. In the portrait section the winners are Nicholas Frost, Gary Patterson with two awards, Lindsey Brooker and Tony Marsh. They now go forward to the final judging in September 2010.

The See-View 3D Image Browser for for the iPhone/iPod Touch lets users feel their way through their image collections. Instead of relying on keywords, the complex algorithms sort the photos by colour, shape and content. Users can rotate, zoom, spin and select their photos in real time on a 3D-like display to find what they are looking for. Developed by UK-based See-Fish Technology, See-View has been launched worldwide on the App Store and is currently being adapted for use on the iPad.

Website: See-View

Photojojo has teamed up with The Impossible Project to offer a limited number of vintage Rainbow SX-70 OneStep Polaroid cameras bundled with two packs of PX 100 instant film. There are only 50 kits available, so those interested in the deal may want to act quickly. The camera-film bundles go on sale on Thursday the 24th and will be available exclusively through the Photojojo Store.

Website: Photojojo Store