Microsoft Announces Lumia Denim Software Update With Camera Enhancements

Microsoft has announced a software update for its Lumia devices. Lumia Denim brings improvements to the digital assistant Cortana to the operating system, among other things. In addition, there are speed improvements when taking photos.

Lumia Denim is the successor to the Lumia Cyan update. Denim brings Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1 to Windows Phone on Lumia’s, as well as the ability to activate Cortana with voice control. Users must say “Hey Cortana” for that; Google has the similar voice command ‘Ok Google’ for Google Now.

Microsoft has also updated the camera app. It is now called Lumia Camera instead of Nokia Camera and should be able to take pictures faster. With a long press on the camera button, Lumia’s that support it allows the user to shoot 4k video at 24 fps, with 8.3 megapixel frames being saved separately. In addition, the features Auto HDR and Dynamic Flash have been added, and Microsoft has adjusted the image processing algorithms, which should improve the quality of photos.

The Lumia 830, Lumia 730 Dual SIM and Lumia 735 come standard with Lumia Denim and the new Lumia 930, Lumia Icon, Lumia 1520 and Lumia 830 also get the software. Other eligible Windows Phone 8 devices will receive the update at the end of 2014.