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The latest on Acorn
Just about a week after its release, Acorn (Gus Mueller's sparkling little image editor) is looking a 1.0.1 release dead in the face. Mueller hasn't updated it officially yet, but he has released development builds of both VoodooPad and Acorn over on his site.The newest Acorn release will include a JPEG compression/quality slider when saving, as well as a number of bug fixes (everyone loves those, right?). If you want to try it out now, you can hit the dev build, but the rest of us will be happy waiting for an official release I'm sure.Mueller has also created a wiki just for Acorn, and it's got a few nice tips and tricks, a plugin section, and a writeup on the Acorn file format. It's pretty barebones at the moment. but hey, it's a wiki, and it just started. Give it some time (or some contributions of your own), and it'll likely soon be an invaluable guide to all the Acorn users out there.
Get your Microsoft HD Photo plug-in for Photoshop
With the speed of evolution in computing, standards and the web, have you ever wondered why we've been stuck with JPG as an image format for so long? Microsoft sure did, and after about 5 years of mulling the question, the company has produced what sounds like a very promising replacement: HD Photo. Offering greater support for new digital imaging trends like HDR (High Dynamic Range), HD Photo boasts the same or better image quality than JPG in half the file size. While Microsoft has patents on some of the technology in HD Photo, they are surprisingly allowing anyone to license it for free for use in apps and devices like photo editing software and digital cameras. To learn more than you might ever want to know about HD Photo, check out its Wikipedia entry or episode #51 of TWiM (This Week in Media), one of my favorite podcasts in which the crew sits down with Bill Crow, Microsoft's Program Manager for HD Photo. Be careful with that one though - TWiM's cast is composed of some incredibly knowledgeable, hard-core media geeks, and they eventually get their geek on with Crow as they delve into the discussion. Long story short: excitement is steadily building for HD Photo, as it is shaping up to be quite the revolutionary image format that could (hopefully) knock JPG off its pedestal some day. Fortunately, the HD Photo team have taken another step in spreading the format by releasing a Photoshop CS2/CS3 plug-in for PowerPC and Intel Macs running Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. The plug-in can be downloaded from Microsoft, and it for some odd reason expires on December 31, 2007. If you know your stuff when it comes to image formats and you give this plug-in a spin, let us know what you think in the comments. [via Macworld]
Microsoft's HD Photo format considered for new JPEG standard
Microsoft announced recently that the Joint Photographic Expert Group (JPEG) is contemplating standardization of its "HD Photo" format for still images (tentatively named JPEG XR), which was introduced with Vista. Originally called Windows Media Photo, the new format apparently offers higher compression efficiency, better image fidelity, and more flexible editing options in both lossy and lossless varieties than previous technologies. The news has been met with favorable reactions from camera makers like Hasselblad and Foveon, and JPEG says they believe the standard will "foster breakthrough, innovative products and services in the photography and printing industries that will have widespread value for consumers around the world." The deadline for consideration is in October, but it could take another year to see the standard published.
Microsoft formally launches HD Photo
Microsoft formally launched HD Photo, a new file format for digital images, at the big Photo Marketing Association trade show that's going down in Las Vegas this week. Not exactly a surprise, since they've been talking about it for a while now (you may recall that HD Photo used to be known as Windows Media Photo), but the big news is that they're pushing it hard with a plug-in for Photoshop (for both Windows and OS X) and native support for the new format in Vista. There's no doubt that HD Photo is a more efficient imaging codec than JPEG -- the older standard is most definitely showing its age -- but JPEG is more or less the defacto standard that everyone has rallied around and it'll take a lot to get people to switch. As far as we know no manufacturers have announced plans to ship digital cameras that shoot in HD Photo (even as an option along with JPEG and/or RAW), and even though Microsoft is being pretty liberal with licensing terms for HD Photo, they still own the patents on it and aren't planning on donating the standard to the public domain any time soon.
Smartparts adds 5.6-inch and 10.4-inch digital photo frames to lineup
Smartparts is expanding its offerings in the ever-popular digiframe market by offering two new models just in time for the holiday rush. The 12- x 10-inch option (SPDPF104) boasts a 10.6-inch 640 x 480 resolution LCD, 350cd/m2 brightness, 250:1 contrast ratio, MP3 playback, video output, and a nifty wireless remote to control the action from afar. The smaller sibling (SPDPF56E) rocks an 8- x 7-inch frame, which packs a 5.6-inch 320 x 234 resolution display, 300cd/m2 brightness, and 150:1 contrast ratio. Both units support automatic slideshows, AVI / JPEG playback, USB 2.0 ports, and a built-in flash card reader supporting SD, MMC, and MS cards, while the big brother plays nice with SM, CF, and xD flavors as well. The acrylic-framed SPDPF104 will set you back $249.99, while the wood-flanked SPDPF56E will run you just $99.99, and both are available right now.
Pontus EN-3700 in-car sat nav also rocks the tunes
We're no strangers to the Pontus line of consumer electronics devices from Japanese manufacturer Edia, and now the company has announced yet another in-car nav unit that's heavy on the multimedia features but light on the internal storage -- and by light, we mean that it has none. Therefore, the EN-3700 gets all its maptastic goodness from the included 1GB card (its predecessor, the EN-3500, only shipped with 512MB), though you also have to pack your MP3, WMA, JPEG, and BMP files in with whatever maps you need to store. As for the screen, it's a 3.5-inch little touchscreen number with a QVGA display -- not bad, but since they're cutting corners in the storage department, we'd expect a little more for our 74,800 yen ($642). If you're looking for a way to navigate your way around Japan (or just locate one of the seemingly abundant McDonalds locations) and this sounds like the right GPS system for you, you should be able to snatch one up sometime this month.
Newman's do-it-all, swivel-screen M790 DAP
You'd think that we would have heard of a company that's made (or perhaps rebadged) literally hundreds of DAPs and PMPs since 2004, but until we came across the swivel-screen M790, we'd never caught wind of a Chinese manufacturer called Newman. Most of its products are simply cookie-cutter devices that resemble so many of the other products we've featured on these pages, but the M790's unique design and large-ish 2.5-inch screen convinced us to give it another look. As with many foreign products of its ilk, this DAP's exact specs are a little hard to come by, but we do know that it sports a QVGA resolution, built-in speakers, a camera of some undetermined pixel count (machine translation pegs it as a 20 megapixel shooter, but frankly we're a bit suspect), and support for MP3, WMA, JPEG, and unspecified video files. Storage on this one is a paltry 512MB (expandable through the SD / MMC slot), but that's just as well, as it'll take a pretty long time to load up even that amount of data over the sluggish USB 1.1 connection. Also along for the ride are your typical assortment of dictionaries, games, voice recording, audio line-in, and the all important timekeeping functionality. It seems like you can pick up the M790 sometime this month (maybe even right now!), but it's obviously not available in the US, so factor in the cost of a plane ticket to China along with however many yuan this happens to be retailing for.[Via Anything But iPod]
MediaGear HD2GO photo viewer / personal media player
Looks like Epson might have a competitor in their niche market of devices that are photo viewers first and personal media players second. MediaGear's HD2GO is strikingly similar to Epson's Photo Fine devices with its large, 3.6-inch screen, 20GB hard drive, CF slot, and MP3 playback. This market might be for you if you fit the description of a hardcore mobile digital camera user that needs a spot to dump all of your pics and view 'em on a larger screen but also need the occasional video playback option. Just make sure you keep to your photography work as video playback sucks down the battery life to a minuscule 4.5 hours on the HD2GO. The real difference here, however, is that the Epson P-4500 might have a larger 80GB hard drive and a cleaner look, but it retails for $640, quite a bit more than the $295 that the HD2GO will go for when it hits the streets in September.[Via PhotographyBLOG]
Sorell DN10 GPS/DMB-enabled Korean PMP
We haven't featured a foreign PMP on these pages in awhile, so for those of you hungry for a feature-filled device that you'll never get your hands on, we proudly present the Sorell DN10. With only 1GB of internal flash memory, the DN10 isn't going to win any capacity awards, although an SD card slot allows you to jack that total up to a still-low-but-acceptable 3GB. Features, then, and not storage, are what should draw Koreans to this model, as it boasts a 3.5-inch screen and both a GPS receiver for navigation and DMB tuner for watching OTA programming when they get sick of the two movies that they were able to cram onto the device. Filetypes supported include AVI, DivX, XviD, WMA, MP3, and JPEG, and pricing comes in at under $400 (measured in won, of course).
Philips sues Kodak over patent infringement
It's been a mixed day over at Philips: on the one hand, they had the pleasure of announcing a new offspring, Liquavista, but now they've been forced to air some dirty laundry concerning fellow consumer electronics manufacturer Kodak, taking the NY-based company to court for allegedly infringing upon a sixteen-year-old patent. Philips claims that while several digital camera manufacturers license the JPEG compression technology protected by patent number 4,901,075 (refer to the schematic above for all of the technical details), Kodak refuses to do so, even though many of their products supposedly take advantage of the "Huffman codeword" magic outlined within. Financial details of the suit have not been made public, but Kodak doesn't sound like it's going to budge, saying that it will defend itself "vigorously."[Via Reuters]
Samsung's YM-P1 20GB PMP available for pre-order
It's hitting our shores a little later than expected, but you can finally queue up for the US version of Samsung's hot little YM-PD1 personal media player (pictured), the YM-P1 (the absence of the "D" refers to the lack of a DMB over-the-air DTV receiver). Since we've been following this model for some time, you'll no doubt recall that it features a 4-inch widescreen TFT display, sports in-line recording to a 20GB hard drive, and supports a gaggle of formats including MP3, WMA, OGG, AC3, MPEG-4, DivX, XviD, AVI, WMV, JPEG, and BMP. You can also jack up the memory a bit via the SDIO slot, listen to and record FM radio, and even play some videogames (although the controls don't look all that well-suited for serious gaming). SamsungHQ spotted the P1 available for pre-order on Datavision's website at $370 (where "Our prices are too low to advertise!"), although there is no mention of when the devices will actually be shipping, so don't toss your Archos aside just yet.
