Source: PC Magazine
Written By John C. Dvorak

Today’s announcement that Apple will be phasing itself to the Intel architecture comes as no surprise to this writer since it’s simply a smart move. I also first got wind of this deal back in 2003 and expected it to have been announced this January. I missed it by one keynote and 5 months.

Source: Luminous Landscape
Written By Andrew J. Roman
Foreword by Michael Reichman

By now most readers are familiar with what is currently the most important issue facing photographers this decade. That is – the closed, proprietary, and proliferating number of RAW file formats. Even more distressing is that there are now camera makers who are encrypting some of their RAW data.

How Long will Digital Photography Last?

The long-term preservation of traditional photographic medium (AKA Cow Hooves) has a tradition backed by research and known “Best Practices”. Given dark storage and reduced temperature environments, silver based photographic materials can be preserved for hundreds of years. Given a sub-zero environment the time is estimated to be thousands of years. But, what about digital photography?

Source: engadget
Written By Peter Rojas

For this week’s Engadget Inteview, journalist J.D. Lasica spoke with Steve Heiner, the head of Nikon’s digital single lens reflex systems, about how Nikon is faring in the transition to a digital world, its new line of D70S and D50 cameras, and the hullabaloo about Nikon’s encrypting white balance metadata in RAW image files in some of its cameras. Or at least he tried.

Should a company be able to control the way content you have created is stored? Simon Bisson looks at moves towards open file formats. . .

Here’s a Newsweek cover from 100 years into the future: an aerial view of the United States with California split off from the mainland and floating in the Pacific. The headline: “California Island: More popular than ever 62 years after the Big Quake.” And here’s Sports Illustrated 100 years hence: “Hell Freezes Over! Cubs Win 2105 World Series.”

Editor’s Note: Photographer and author Thom Hogan has done an in-depth review of the new Nikon D2X. Known as a respected authority in photography-both film & digital, Mr. Hogan’s views and reviews carry substantial weight in the Nikon community. As a result, it’s notable that Mr. Hogan has both considerable praise for the camera (with some criticism) but also goes to considerable length to offer his opinion of the recent White Balance encryption issue as well as Nikon’s response. PSN encourages interested readers to read the entire review but we were struck by the following:

If anyone understands the ins and outs of RAW, it’s Dave Coffin, he has reverse engineered the RAW formats of almost every digital camera on the market and provides his code (dcraw.c) freely for anyone to use.

Almost a year to the day after filing patent infringement lawsuits against 31 companies, including Adobe Systems Inc., Apple Computer Inc., Dell Inc. and IBM, Austin, Texas-based Forgent Networks Inc. last week said that its wholly owned subsidiary Compression Labs Inc. has filed suit against Microsoft Corp. for alleged infringement on the patent for JPEG file compression.

Digital Image Preservation Through Open Documentation

A Massachusetts programmer says he has broken a proprietary encryption code that has effectively forced some Nikon digital camera owners to use the company’s own software.

In a post on Adobe’s User to User Forum for Camera Raw, Thomas Knoll, chief engineer for Camera Raw and the original author of Photoshop (developed along with his brother John Knoll) has stated that Nikon has taken the unusual step of encrypting the white balance information contained in NEF files written by Nikon’s new D2X and D2Hs cameras.

Thomas says in his post: “They (Nikon) decided to ENCRYPT the white balance data inside the NEF file for these cameras. Previously, the white balance data was stored in non-encrypted format, and was readable to third party raw converters using simple reverse engineering of the file format.

A message posted on April 14, 2005 on the Adobe User To User Forum for Camera Raw by nunatak (screen name) said:

“hi everyone …

just wondering if there were any Nikon shooters whom agreed?”

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