Microsoft's hawks its Vista 'JPEG replacement'

MICROSOFT HAS lifted the kimono of its new digital picture format which it hopes will kill off the JPEG.

Called Windows Media Photo, or WiMP, as we hereby dub it, will first see the light of day when it is supported by Vista.

WiMP's programme manager Bill Crow is hoping that the new standard will encourage people to upgrade to Vista.

Speaking to News.com, Crow seems to think that one of the biggest reasons people upgrade their PCs is to play with digital photos.

The new format does seem to do some things pretty well. Crow showed off an image at 24:1 compression that contained more detail in the Windows Media Photo format than the JPEG and JPEG 2000. Saner compression figures had the WiMP doing quite well too.

The Vole is hoping is that WiMP will be soft on the fact it is smart. It allows such things as rotating the image without the need to decode it and subsequently encode it again, he said.

One big problem could be licensing, about which, however, the Vole has barely muttered a dicky bird. µ

L'INQ
Microsoft shows off JPEG rival