graphics

Intel will launch its next-generation Sandy Bridge chip line on January 5 at the Consumer Electronics Show, the chipmaker confirmed today.

The launch will take place at Venetion Hotel in Las Vegas. Mooly Eden, Intel vice president and general manager for PC Client Group, along with "surprise guests, will showcase the world's fastest processor with many new technologies Intel has built into our chips to enhance the 'visual life,'" Intel said in a statement.

Sandy Bridge will--for the first time in mainstream laptops--put Intel graphics technology directly onto the central processing unit (CPU).

With Intel's current … Read more

MemeCode's i.Mage is a compact, flexible image-editing tool that's designed to handle a variety of common tasks quickly, much like simple pixel editors such as DPaint from the Days of DOS. That's prehistory to most users, but i.Mage is actually up to date. What sets it apart is its speed: instead of starting bloated out of the box and then being loaded down with plug-ins, i.Mage launches and loads images quickly. It's got quite a full assortment of tools plus some interesting options.

Launching i.Mage calls up the program's interface in … Read more

For about as long as there's been a Windows, developers have been targeting the disk defragmentation utility for improvement. JkDefrag is a free, open-source defragmentation utility; JkDefrag GUI is a graphical user interface version that makes the powerful tool as easy to use as the built-in Windows feature and its many competitors.

JkDefrag GUI opens with a compact properties dialog that serves as a primary control interface. We selected what Actions we wanted JkDefrag to perform and which of our drives to check from drop-down menus and started the program. A compact view opened, displaying the program's progress … Read more

Do you know where that swoosh on your shoes came from? And just who, exactly, might be responsible for that plummeting ad man who magically avoids a messy death just before the start of your favorite TV show? How about that half eaten apple that may well be on the other side of the screen you're looking at right now? How did that come about?

"Designers do a lot of work in the shadows," says John Fiorelli. "The audience generally doesn't know where all this beautiful work comes from."

Five years ago, Fiorelli set … Read more

Nissan and Original Wraps today launched Nissan Graphics for the Cube, and soon for the Juke, Frontier, and other models.

The decorative wraps come in graphics for side, front, and hood. The decorations are all printed on automotive-grade 3M Scotchprint On-Demand vinyl and are fade-resistant.

The catalog features stars, stripes, polka dots, and flowers, so the images should appeal to tastes ranging from subtle to bold.

Prices range from $100 to $300 with installation.

Over the last few months, we've seen quite a few Nvidia Optimus laptops. Optimus automatically switches between discrete and integrated graphics, powering the horsepower down when not used in order to save a little battery life. It's a similar idea to what's also included on the spring 2010 15-inch MacBook Pro, except Apple never created any branding for the concept.

And there's the rub: it's basically invisible tech, yet Nvidia has branded the concept for greater visibility. Really it amounts to something we'd obviously prefer to have in any laptop with dedicated graphics. Right … Read more

It turns out there was more to Google's WebM technology than just a plan to revolutionize Web-based video. The company also wants to revolutionize still images on the Web with a new format called WebP.

Google plans to announce the new WebP graphics format today along with its research that indicates its use could cut image file sizes by 40 percent compared to today's dominant JPEG file format. That translates to faster file transfers and lower network burden if Google can convince people to adopt WebP.

WebP, like JPEG, lets its users trade off image quality for file … Read more

ImageKlebor from Shoran Software is a free tool that combines multiple image files into a single image. It has a command-line option that makes it useful for automation and pipeline integration, and it's free to use, even commercially. However, most folks will find that ImageKlebor is best suited for assembling multiple images into one picture, such as scans of LP album covers; they're too big for all but the largest scanners, and most folks end up scanning covers in two passes and then trying to put the two together in an image editor. With ImageKlebor, putting chunks of … Read more

Apple has released a knowledgebase article outlining a problem with the ATI X1900XT video cards that were included as CTO options in some Mac Pro systems between August 2006 and January 2008. People using these cards have experienced distorted video output and other visual artifacts, and it appears the problem was in the manufacturing of the video cards instead of an issue that could be addressed by a software or firmware update. Apple is offering those affected by the problem a replacement graphics card, but only if the card matches a specific serial number range by having "V6Z" … Read more