The Polaroid Fotobar in Delray Beach, Florida.

I can’t remember the last time I picked up a proper camera and took a photograph; every picture I take these days is on a smartphone. The problem with that is, I usually end up transferring them to my Mac, and then that’s where they stay. Forever. Making good quality prints isn’t as easy as it should be.

Polaroid is hoping to change that. The company has announced that is to open a bunch of new Fotobar stores across the United States that are dedicated to printing your smartphone snaps. You can pop in, upload your pictures, edit them, and then print them.

Once a staple of any vacation, the postcard has since faded into obscurity due to the advent of technology and instant sharing. One company meshing the best of both worlds, Touchnote Ltd., has a popular app on both Android and iOS that allows users to turn photos into personalized postcards and have them sent for around a $1.49 per postcard. In celebration of the 2012 Olympic Games, both Touchnote and Samsung want users to have the luxury of sharing their amazing moments via a postcard without having to visit a local London gift shop. That’s why Samsung is sponsoring a promo that will allow users to send free Touchnote postcards up until August 31st.

When HTC unveiled their future lineup of top-tier smartphones at Mobile World Congress, they heavily boasted about the phone’s camera. They claimed it would rival any digital camera and that it would deliver a camera experience in a way never seen on phones before. They made a pretty big deal over their new ImageSense software as well as the custom ImageChip, f/2.0 lens, HDR technology, and super fast capture. The incessant hype led to a wave of praise and anticipation. Users instantly began dreaming of the professional headshot profiles they’d be posting to Facebook. Kidding aside, they did make it sound awesome, and when they posted a set of pictures from the HTC One X to Facebook, it validated our praise.

Google has recently filed for a patent that may just have early navigators rising from the dead to sue for royalties. This new patent would allow a user to have their location determined by landmarks around them. It would work by having a user take a picture of a landmark, upload it to Google, and then receive information about their location. The whole idea sounds impractical considering you can just fire up your Google Maps/Navigation but Google claims it can come in handy when in a foreign country and finding signs or assistance in your native language could be difficult. I’m not buying that and I have my own theory.

At this year’s Mobile World Congress, HTC unveiled their future One series lineup of smartphones boasting some impressive camera specs. HTC improved every part of the camera from lens to software, and even went as far as to integrate their own custom HTC ImageChip. With a new f/2.0 lens, HDR technology and their new ImageSense camera suite, HTC set out to create a smartphone camera that could quickly capture any moment, in any condition, with superb results. The claims were grand, the results… well, see for yourself.