Graphics Archive

Microsoft seems to be making its move into a market that it's left alone for a long time: It's new software, code named "Acrylic," professional design program that combines pixel-based painting and vector graphics. It is supposed to be somewhat based on the Creature House Expression product Microsoft bought in 2003. There's a new Community technology Preview available.

A brighter picture and less wires are some of the advantages to a new display standard for PCs, TVs and projectors being reviewed by the Video Electronics Standards Association, or VESA. Called DisplayPort, it allows for more colors, better resolution and refresh rates, and connections involving fewer cables.

Yesterday, the Open Sword Group released a beta of Pixen v3. "Pixen is the best program for the pixel artist using Mac OS X. Pixen is specifically for small-scale or pixel art; it shines better there than any other application. Not only that, but Pixen carries no price tag: it's open source under the MIT license and absolutely free." As far as I know, this is the only application of it's kind, with no equivelant on either Mac, Windows or Linux.

Fujitsu has developed a new thin film display that maintains its image and color even while being bent. It also contains built-in Nonvolatile memory to keep the image stable.

Macromedia has released a beta version of the 8th incarnation of their web content player, Flash. This beta version is only available for Windows and Macintosh.

GUIdebook has an interesting set of screenshots and information about Photoshop. It lists screenshots of various windows and dialogs of all the versions released in the past, for Mac and Windows. Definitely worth a look.

I have written an editorial/analysis about the spatial metaphor and surrounding debate. My perspective is one I've not seen represented much in the debate so far.

Why did computers come to adopt the GUI as their primary mode of interaction, and how did the GUI evolve to be the way it is today?

What's the best way to: a. Improve usability in software applications? b. Review usability of existing software? c. Generate, encourage and review new ideas on software UI design? d. Make all this research work freely available to everyone (open source, proprietary, etc.)? e. Connect with all developer groups and individuals out there to share this work with them? Read more to find out.

I've always found Global menu bars (ala Mac) to be bad usability-wise. They have numerous problems. I've always found that having a single menu bar at the top of the screen as Macs are both confusing and inefficient. Menu bars like that are leftovers from when Mac OS was primarily a single process operating system, and it should have been ditched long ago.

Beginning in 2006, Microsoft says it will ship with its operating system and other software products six brand new typefaces created especially for extended on-screen reading.

Since usability seems to be a major topic on the OSNews forums, I think time has come to clarify some common misconceptions. Usability is not about selecting the fanciest Theme from kde-look.org, it's not about 'Reading the F*** Manual', it's not about having all application share the same looks, it's not about nice front-ends to obscure command line programs, it's not about newbie-friendliness, it's not about apt-get install foobar and it's not about setup.exe.

Here's an article in Technology Research News about interfaces that allow direct gestural interaction with virtual objects contained in volumetric displays, in which output occupies a volume of space, like a crystal ball.

Jef Raskin, co-creator of the Macintosh and author of The Humane Interface, has received a $2 million dollar boost to his Humane Environment project (now know as RCHI). You can download an early version from the projects website, and Raskin hopes to finish the project within 18 months. Will this be a paradigm shift in user interfaces?