[ILUG] jpeg patented...

[Ronan Waide]

On July 19, kevin+dated+1027480289.5c6047 at ie.suberic.net said:
> http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/020711/110249_1.html
> 
> oh, and look, sony already caved:
> 
>     http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/020610/100215_2.html
> 
> it generated over 1000 comments on /..  might be an idea to look into
> png's.  in the meantime it will be amusing to see who they'll go after
> next?  how many jpeg rendering/creating apps/os's has ms distributed to
> their customers since 1986?
> 
> kevin

Having skimmed over the patent, it appears to be describing a sort of
image compression algorithm which gels more or less with the JPEG
mechanism. Since I don't quite understand how jpeg works (it's hard
math, and I'm just a dumb comp. eng.) I don't know how exactly it
matches up to JPEG. I'm more curious as to whether it covers MPEG,
because it /is/ described in the context of video streams rather than
stills, and I had a vague impression that the MPEG and JPEG
compression techniques were similar. One of the patents it references
also seems to hint at MPEG.

Let's all use PNG, eh? *cough* *wheeze*

Cheers,
Waider.
-- 
waider at waider.ie / Yes, it /is/ very personal of me.

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