Image Compression Advancements

In the flurry of blog posts that represented my late-May Windows Hardware Engineering Conference coverage, one tidbit that I didn't mention was that Microsoft is now advocating a new image format based on its Windows Media Video compression work. Much as WMV (and its peers, such as H.264) can deliver equivalent quality to now-archaic MPEG-2 at reduced bitrates, Microsoft claims that Windows Media Photo will deliver equivalent quality to JPEG at half the file size. I'll be watching to see if Microsoft is as successful at securing Windows Media Photo support with camera manufacturers as it was in the past at getting portable audio player vendors to expand beyond MP3 to WMA.

In other image compression news, the US Patent Office recently ruled that Forgent Networks' patent claims on JPEG are invalid. The GIF format is now also patent-unencumbered.