Microsoft will soon submit a new photo format to an international standards organization that it says offers higher-quality images with better compression, the company said on Thursday.The format, HD Photo—recently renamed from Windows Media Photo—is taking aim at the JPEG format, a 15-year-old technology still widely used in digital cameras and image applications.Both formats take images and use compression to make the file sizes smaller so more photos can fit on a memory card. During compression, however, the quality of the photo tends to degrade.Microsoft said HD Photo’s lightweight algorithm causes less damage to photos during compression, with higher-quality images that are half the size of JPEG. The format can also accommodate “lossless” and “lossy” compression, two methods of compressing photo data with different effects on image quality. Microsoft said adjustments can be made to color balance and exposure settings that won’t discard or truncate data that occurs with other bitmap formats.Although JPEG is aging, it has been modified to help keep it up to date. The latest JPEG 2000 format features better image quality while also supporting lossless and lossy compression. The original JPEG supported only lossy. Time will tell whether HD Photo can supplant JPEG by gaining the support of printer, camera and application vendors. But Microsoft is supporting the format in products such as its Vista and XP OSes and has already gained an important vendor ally.In the next two months, Adobe Systems and Microsoft will release plug-ins for CS3 and CS2 versions of its widely used Photoshop program for Vista, XP and Apple’s OS X. Also, Microsoft has built an HD Photo Device Porting Kit so hardware manufacturers can support it.-Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service (London Bureau)Related Link: Microsoft Signs First E.U. Protocol LicenseeCheck out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content brandpost Sponsored by SAP What goes well with Viña Concha y Toro wines? Meat, fish, poultry, and SAP Viña Concha y Toro, a wine producer that distributes to more than 140 countries worldwide, paired its operation with the SAP Business Technology Platform to enhance its operation and product. By Tom Caldecott, SAP Contributor Dec 04, 2023 4 mins Digital Transformation brandpost Sponsored by Azul How to maximize ROI by choosing the right Java partner for your organization Choosing the right Java provider is a critical decision that can have a significant impact on your organization’s success. By asking the right questions and considering the total cost of ownership, you can ensure that you choose the best Java p By Scott Sellers Dec 04, 2023 5 mins Application Management brandpost Sponsored by DataStax Ask yourself: How can genAI put your content to work? Generative AI applications can readily be built against the documents, emails, meeting transcripts, and other content that knowledge workers produce as a matter of course. By Bryan Kirschner Dec 04, 2023 5 mins Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence feature The CIO’s new role: Orchestrator-in-chief CIOs have unique insight into everything that happens in a company. Some are using that insight to take on a more strategic role. By Minda Zetlin Dec 04, 2023 12 mins CIO C-Suite Business IT Alignment Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe