Cnet News has a report out today that Microsoft is set to launch a new image file format to rival and replace the web and email standard, JPEG. The format, if I have this correct, is going to be called, Windows Media Photo. Umm, is it April 1st? WiMP? Oh yeah, I can hear those art directors buzzing. No more of that old, “Can you send me a couple Jpegs?” Now it’ll be, “Do you have a couple WiMPs you can send over?” or “No, a WiMP will be fine.”
The format should reportably be half the size of current Jpegs, but will equal the resolution and sharpness. Sounds great, but I have to agree with an observation that Thomas Hawk made, in that with HD, CF, and DVD’s all holding Gb of data, the space saving factor is marginal for most people. Maybe if you’re hoarding zillions of images like Getty, Flickr, or MySpace…
But come on folks, can’t we just see the future. MS unveils WiMPs, and as per their new monacher, they come out behind schedule, only work with a few programs, cause a ton of bugs and crashes, and 24 months later we’ll get WiMPS 2.0.
