Computer scientist Russell Kirsch, best known for inventing the pixel, passed away August 11 at his home in Portland, Oregon, at the age of 91. He created the first digital photograph in 1957. He made this image by scanning a picture of his son on a rotating drum scanner and storing the scanned data in a raster, thus giving birth to the pixel.
https://petapixel.com/2020/08/13/russell-kirsch-inventor-of-the-pixel-passed-away-this-week/
GraphicsGale by HumanBalance Ltd, a long time popular pixel art editor, as just changed its licensing from shareware to freeware on June 18th!
This is more or less old news now, but as I've only found it recently, I thought to share this with you :)
C64 gets revamped!
Featuring a new graphics card, but you can still emulate (aside from windows) the old C OS on it!
Comes with a keyboard that won´t get stuck, a DVD drive and top of the line processors.
Check it all out here: Commodore 64 ,Commodore phoenix
Microsoft GIF Animator is a free GIF Animator that is compatible with MS Paint. Download the software free here.
TinEye is a nifty reverse image search engine that will check images that you feed it and see if it matches any other images in its database. Pretty useful for finding RIPs on PixelJoint. Despite it still being Beta, it works pretty well.
Check it out here.
Every tech seems to downgrade (upgrade?) to pixel art at some point. This time it's Google Maps.
Fans of late-80s-era BBS's (or hey, just nerds in general) owe it to themselves to check out Christine Love's new mystery/romance game, Digital: A Love Story, set entirely in an operating system in 1988. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
And what does that mean? It means no blurry pixels when images get resized!
Download it here:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/personal.html
FireFox 3.5 had the unfortunate side-effect of blurrying images when they got resized (and this ruined the pixelly-goodness). 3.6 FINALLY fixes this problem.
From the depths of Nifflas' Support Forum (nifflas.lpchip.nl/index.php) comes Dataflashsabot's "Patronizingly Simple Transparentizer". Just load your picture,
click the transparency color, and it's transparent. Now, nobody has any excuse to leave in a white background!
Click here to download: www.box.net/shared/spuanqlykq
"Google Inc., owner of the most- visited Internet search engine, is developing a computer operating system based on its Chrome Web browser, taking aim at Microsoft Corp. in its strongest market.
The system will be designed at first for low-cost laptops called netbooks, Google said in a blog post. The company is in talks with partners on the project and computers running the software will be available in the second half of 2010.
The plan escalates Google’s rivalry with Microsoft, which extends to Web search, browsers and business applications such as word processing and spreadsheets. Windows, Microsoft’s flagship product, runs about 90 percent of the world’s personal computers. Google is also trying to spur Web-ad sales after reporting its first sequential revenue drop as a public company.
“There is a possibility that the new OS can break the paradigm Microsoft and Intel created over the past 20 years,” aid Yukihiko Shimada, a computer analyst at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Co. in Tokyo. “There is plenty of business opportunity for Google in this market.”
Google said it’s working with computer makers to introduce a number of netbooks next year, without identifying any of the companies. The Chrome OS will be open-source, meaning the program code will be open to developers, Google said. The software will work on top of the Linux operating system."
News sourced from http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aMhGHdEO.gEw I thought it would be nice to share it with everyone else. Hopefully this new Operating system will be able to get up high enough in the market to be as openly avaliably as Microsoft's Windows Vista/7. 
As of the official implementation of Gecko version 1.9.2, there will be a tag implemented that chooses the resizing algorithm used on a page, allowing you to choose between Nearest Neighbor (direct resize, no blur), Bilinear Filtering (low quality blur, which is currently used), or Bicubic Blur (high quality blur, what photoshop uses). Meaning that we'll no longer have blurry pixel art when we resize.
https://developer.mozilla.org/En/CSS/image-rendering
This is the official documentation. It'll be stuck in along with HTML 5, meaning that you can probably try out the new tags in the current Firefox 3.5 beta.
The tags to be added into the CSS styles are as follows:
img[src$=".gif"] { image-rendering: -moz-crisp-edges; -ms-interpolation-mode: nearest-neighbor; }
img[src$=".png"] { image-rendering: -moz-crisp-edges; -ms-interpolation-mode: nearest-neighbor; }
For an invidual image you'd use this code (can be factored into the BBcodes in the forum, and the display for individual images on the site):
<img style="-ms-interpolation-mode:nearest-neighbor" alt="images/WhateverAlt.jpg" src="images/Whatever.jpg"/>
The code will be fully implemented in Firefox 3.5, but as mentioned above, you can try it out now in the beta version.
Finally it come to an end: the great work made by PulkoMandy and Yrizoud, the two lead developers of grafx2, finally completed the TODO list left by the Sunsted Design team that in 1999 abandoned the project.
Grafx2 is a bitmap program born to emulate Deluxe Paint or Brilliance, now it can run under most of the operating systems available today, like Linux, Mac OS X, Windows and even Amiga OS among many others.
The program is stable and filled with a lot of tools and functions, it's shipped with a great palette editor and it's freeware and open source!
Check it out on its home page!
Dan Didrick's X-Finger prosthesis replaces digits lost to wear and tear with fully-mobile artifical replacements. Moreover, it does so without any electrical components at all! Find out more here.
"The "extremely critical" Excel vulnerabilities are found in Microsoft Office 2000, Office 2003 and Office XP, as well as in Office 2004 for computers running Apple's Mac OS, according to a separate advisory from security company Secunia.
Attackers are sending e-mails with malicious Excel attachments and are hosting Web sites that house Office files that attempt to take advantage of the security flaws, according to Microsoft. Once an attacker exploits the vulnerabilities, they can gain control of a person's system remotely."
This effects EVERYONE with Excel, even Macs... Be sure to check the security advisory from Microsoft and get all needed updates!
So here we go... The good, then bad, and the ugly on Microsoft Windows Vista. This is by no means an extremely in depth review, if you want one of those, go to CNET.
Jeffrey Brett Goodin has been found guilty for running a phishing site that stole people's personal information.
He is the first person in the US to be convicted under the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act (as well as 10 other counts, including wire fraud, misuse of the AOL trademark and attempted witness harassment), and faces a sentence of up to 101 years in federal prison.
Does this mean that we are coming nearer to some form of resolution to the spam epidemic? Or does this mean scammers are going to find more sophisticated ways of deceiving their victims?
New fish have been discovered over in the South Pacific! So far I've heard/read that they've found walking sharks, and shrimp that look like praying mantis'!
A new movement is raising in the USA against possibles actions planned by the main Netservers, which threaten to regulate a web traffic based on $$$. To lead this movement for free Net, are selected three Net "stars" very-well known: Tron, Peter Pan and an odd woman who I don´t kown about. Click on "the video" to see the protest song (there are some guest stars).
A new software called Gizmo Project now allows users to phone another person via (Cellphone/Homephone) right from your computer.
You can call long distance to 60 countries for free!
It's a pretty neat program you can call computer to computer, computer to phone, or phone to computer.
Definitely a must try. Gizmo Project website.
Citizens of the United States would be smart to throw idiotic representatives like Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens out of office before they have a chance to destroy Net Neutrality.
I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?
Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.
This moron couldn't find his ass with both hands. Please call or write your representative (especially if you live in Alaska) and let them know that this aggression will not stand.
Incredibly freakin' huge meteor smacks the Earth. See who wins...
The video is in Japanese, but there is a translation.
Sounds kind of like run-of-the-mill tech gossip, but once you see the multi-touch interface in action you'll do anything you can to bring it to your home. Anything.
Some dedicated technology enthusiast in the Netherlands has nearly every freaking device in his home available for monitoring on the internet. Electricity, gas, hot water, security cams, washer/dryer, fridge -- even his toilets!
I hate to ever bring up the whole Mac/Windows/Linux Pandora's box (I have used all three and don't understand a fanatical devotion to any of them), but Apple's new advertisement with Intel is so stupid on so many levels.
I'm not sure why Intel feels the need to call millions of their customers braindead sheep in the new Mac ad. It just doesn't seem like good business sense.
Nintendo really seems to be pushing the interactive experience with their controllers lately. Their new interactive floor tech would certainly change how we play games (assuming it's affordable enough for the average gamer). Too bad this tech isn't run by a smuttier company than Nintendo. The possibilities are endless.
I saw some signs on the subway, prompting readers to visit this site. Since I always do whatever the ads tell me to, I gave it a visit. Boy was I in for a surprise! Not only can I calculate my impact on the environment, but I get to watch some isometric pixel art while I do! No matter how niche your interest be (whether it's gay porn involving midgets dressed as historical leaders or discovering your carbon footprint while watching tiny pixel people) chances are you aren't alone on the internet!
Robots can officially replace me at work. Those sons of bitches at Honda continue to improve that little rascal Asimo and they've got the video to prove it. Asimo can now run at 6 km/h, push carts around, receive/carry/drop a tray and his spiffy little "turn on the spot" move is the envy of robots everywhere.
Scientists have recently been working on trying to extend the lifespan of organisms and they claim that they have had a breakthrough. They say they can now extend an organisms lifespan to 5 times longer than normal, which means a Human could live for 500 years. See here for the full story.
I usually don't get too excited about product design, but these spiffy little flash drives really got me thinking. Companies like Apple have pushed industrial design with elegance and we are all better off for it (those nasty beige PC cases were a blight on society). Unfortunately, there just hasn't been much improvement in making tech products with personality. "Elegance" can sometimes just be code for "boring".
Why can't tech equipment be colorful and fun?
Oh, the wonders of technology. For those of you looking to reenact the Princess Leia hologram messages from Star Wars there's now a spiffy heliodisplay that lets you interact with your monitor in a three dimensional fashion. Another kicking UI that'll let you play with your hands is this tactile display (kind of like Minority Report).
If either of these technologies ever becomes widespread the smutty possibilities are endless.
Blizzard might have accidentally stumbled upon the disaster modeling market. Apparently the virus unleashed on virtual players in the World of Warcraft MMORPG might have some practical applications.
Hopefully Blizzard will get moving on an earthquake disaster model soon because I think we're due for a big one in California any day now.
While I still don't fully understand all the nuts and bolts of the recent Wired article covering the breatkthrough in quantum computing, I can tell this is going to be big. Possibly bigger than the recent Nick and Jessica split. That's right, I said it.
I know this is probably old news, but I honestly had no idea just how elegantly the QRIO could move. Check out this robot ballet video to see the future of exotic dancing.
There's a ton of videos of robots doing various wholesome activities at onlyrobots.com.
The first part of this article describes it better then I could:
"Star Wars fans Web hunting for a downloadable game of the sci-fi flick are unknowingly infecting their computers with a worm that gives them rogue Google results authored by hackers.
Detected in the wild last week, the P2Load.A worm lies in wait in the free version of “Knights of the Old Republic II,” and spreads through the peer-to-peer file sharing programs Shareaza and Imesh.
Security experts at Panda Software rate the potential damage of the infection at four stars, the highest level, based on the worm’s two attacking features both enabled through modifying the HOSTS file on a user’s computer."
Two words people... VIRUS SCAN.
When I log in this morning (to WordPress) I notice alot of feeds about Google Blog Search. The first thing that comes to mind is that Google is adding another button in their searches (Like the web, feeling lucky, and image), but no, it is a whole new feature from Google. As if Gmail, Google Talk, Google Maps, Google Desktop, Google Suggest, and the other countless features weren't enough. I don't see why Google couldn't add this as an extra feature on their search engine, why another BETA release? Show me one feature that has gone out of BETA.
Other than that, let me tell some of you who haven't heard what it does exactly what it does. It searches blogs, just blogs, and nothing else. When Googlebots are crawling over the WWW, it reads your meta data and goes through your RSS and Atom feeds, if it identifies your site as a blog, it indexes the information it finds and puts it into the blog search database. This is all done from your feed data. That's it. Not really an amazing feature, all it really is is a huge aggregator with a search feature.
California is on its way to outlawing online hunting and fishing popularized by the live-shot.com website. The site allows people to shoot and kill live animals remotely. Is it just me or does this seem completely sadistic? It's sad that an actual law has to be passed to prevent knuckleheads from killing animals with their mouse during their coffee break at work. Play some Minesweeper instead you redneck freaks.
Attention all cartographers and explorers: your services will no longer be required. 
Google Earth is no ordinary map tool... you can view 3-D maps of terrain and buildings, zoom around the world with a click of the button, save points of interest and so much more. It's a hoot.
Holy flirking shnit! Graphic powerhouses Adobe and Macromedia are joining forces. I wonder which apps will get favor under this new arrangement. Hmmmm.
Check out Adobe's press release for more info.
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