[shuttertalk]

According to Wikipedia, the JPEG standard was publicly released in 1992 which makes it over 18 years old - and is still the mainstream standard today for images. Google has announced a new image format - WebP (pronounced weppy) which is supposed to yield 40% better compression than the ageing JPEG, while preserving the same resolution and detail.

I've got a feeling that it's aimed more for the web (web graphics and pages, etc.) but who knows - maybe Google has the clout and influence to be able to push this new standard through.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/s...rmat-webp/

[EnglishBob]

Why not a new format from a search engine.... GIF's were started by Compuserve back in the 80's.

[matthew]

Hmm. The problem as I see it isn't that there isn't anything better than jpeg - .png, jpeg200 come to mind - it's that they haven't been better enough to make people switch. Many people have a hard time resizing an image for email, or don't understand why a thumbnail downloaded from Farcebook won't give them a good 4x6 print. Microsoft hasn't made any headway with WMP (now known as "HD Photo" in an effort to maintain buzzword-compliance). Google might have some weight to back it up, but I have my doubts.

[Toad]

So true - look at how difficult it has been to get wide spread acceptance for DNG as a *standard* RAW format - and everybody except the camera manufacturers wants that...