arstechnica.com — Microsoft's ongoing attempt to establish its own photo format as a JPEG alternative (and potential successor) took another step forward today when the JPEG standards group agreed to consider HD Photo (originally named Windows Media Photo) as a standard.
Aug 1, 2007 View in Crawl 4
tippisAug 2, 2007
Akk! Forgot one thing:Also, as mentioned above, the "HD" part stands for "High Definition" -- and while this has come to be synonymous with "high resolution" in this HDTV / HD-DVD age, "definition" simply means exactness and fidelity (and let's face it, calling it HiFi Photo would just make people's heads spin). Resolution is one way to improve on definition, but not the only way: improved colour precision, larger colour gamuts, and cross-platform colour representation profiles also make sure that the image you see properly represents what the original creator (be it an artist or nature itself) intended.
quikboyAug 2, 2007
How very mature. Especially add the old '$' in place with the 'S'. Because we all know that pretty much every company has to make profits. Real mature.
grumpyrainAug 3, 2007
@ted (diggs nested comments are screwed)Precisely, and if it were proposed by Google then it would be getting diggs like an iPhone article.I think the important point here is that the JPEG committee is unlikely* to sign a blank cheque if they ratify this standard. Microsoft will not be able to lock it down to Windows etc. Sure they could create a new format as the successor with a terrible license, but this would not be automatically ratified.* I am sure they would have learned from their JPEG2000 fiasco by now. JPEG2000 is superior to JPEG in all areas except EXIF, yet it tanked because they would not provide any guarantees against submarine patents.
adolfojpAug 3, 2007
Eh... not quite. Microsoft knew of the increasing popularity and promise of Java. Microsoft also knew that Java had made many sacrifices in performance / look and feel / OS integration in their attempt to make it truly cross platform. They hired Anders Hejlsberg to make an implementation of Java that hooked directly to the Windows API to give it native looks and performance. Their implementation was called J++ and Microsoft got into a lot of legal trouble for their efforts. When that happened they decided to ditch the project and give Anders and his team an opportunity to create a new development platform for Windows and .NET was born. C# is the bastard child of C++, Java and Delphi. It is years ahead of Java and is considered by many to be the best statically typed programming language there is.
brundlefly76Aug 3, 2007
What are you talking about?There are currently 159 portable players which support Microsoft DRM music, and none of them are Microsoft players except the Zune. There are 8 stores which sell Microsoft DRM music, and none of them are Microsoft's.There is exactly one music store which sells Apple DRM music, and that is Apple iTunes.There is exactly one portable player that plays Apple DRM music, and that is the Apple iPod.Microsoft would be GLAD to have Apple have wma support on the iPod, and Toshiba, iRiver, etc, would LOVE to support Apple AAC DRM music on their players - Apple is the one that will never let either one happen.Similarly, Apple will never let you run MacOS on your non-Apple PC, nor will they ever let Dell, Toshiba, or anyone else sell a Mac.They are completely locked down and proprietary from top to bottom.