graphics

Best image-manipulation tool on the market, and free!

GIMP is a well-known photo manipulation tool that has been ported to the Mac operating system environment. Gimp for Mac is a free app that installs easily. Gimp for Mac is a relatively unique tool. It can be used as a paint program, or as a photo retouching tool, or as an image composition and manipulation program. It is hard to categorize Gimp for Mac except to say you'll probably want it if you do a lot of work with images.

The Gimp for Mac interface opens with a folder and file directory tree in the left pane, a … Read more

Fun video chat

Usually if you use your iSight camera with one program, you can't use it with another. ManyCam Virtual Webcam helps change that as soon as you install it. This handy app removes many iSight camera restrictions and provides multiple ways to enhance the overall Webcam chat experience, with some helpful (and some silly) features you'll absolutely enjoy.

After installing the application, ManyCam takes control of your iSight camera: it will become the video source of the chat programs you use, such as Yahoo Messenger or Skype. Now, if you want to make your video chat more fun, you … Read more

Graphics 'indistinguishable from reality' in 10 years, says Star Wars dev

By the time 2022 rolls around, graphics will have advanced to the point where they are "indistinguishable from reality," says Industrial Light & Magic visual effects supervisor Kim Libreri.

ILM is working with LucasArts on upcoming third-person shooter Star Wars 1313, and in a new video interview with CVG, Libreri said it will one day be nigh impossible to spot the differences between real-time rendering and live action.

"It's an interesting time because with modern computer graphics hardware, the way it's going, it's gonna be pretty hard to tell the difference between something that … Read more

Microsoft explains how Windows 8 smokes Windows 7

Microsoft spelled out acceleration improvements in Windows 8, in a blog post Monday. Needless to say, Microsoft says the overall experience is a lot snappier.

The latest Building Windows 8 entry, penned by Rob Copeland, the group program manager at Microsoft's graphics team, is titled Hardware accelerating everything: Windows 8 graphics.

Some context is first provided at the top in order to illustrate how Window 8 "builds on the well-established foundations of DirectX graphics" in Windows 7.

In Windows 7, we expanded the capabilities of DirectX to provide a common hardware-accelerated graphics platform for a broader range … Read more

Older 64-bit Macs out of the picture for Mountain Lion

Apple recently issued the golden master release of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion to developers and testers, indicating that if no outstanding bugs are found in the current build then it will very likely be the final release of the operating system that will soon be issued to the public. Through the testing of the four preview releases of Mountain Lion, developers have noted that even though the operating system is 64-bit, Apple has excluded some early 64-bit-capable Mac systems from being included.

While this limitation was at first suggested as a possible temporary limitation during the initial phases … Read more

Intel not joining graphics chip alliance

Intel will not join a chip-related alliance aimed at making it easier for software developers to take advantage of the compute power locked up in graphics silicon.

Advanced Micro Devices, ARM, Imagination Technologies, MediaTek Inc., and Texas Instruments announced the Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation on Tuesday.

Here's how Lisa Su, an AMD senior vice president, described it in a phone interview with CNET.

"The point is, even if you put a really powerful CPU next to a really powerful GPU, if these [chips] don't interact and the applications don't know when it's better to … Read more

HTC to move forward with S3 Graphics acquisition

Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC says it plans to go ahead with its planned purchase of computer graphics company S3 Graphics.

HTC had announced last July that it planned to buy the California-based company for $300 million. S3 was an attractive takeover target for HTC, as its 270 patents had stood up well in disputes against Apple. But HTC got cold feet over its acquisition of S3 last fall, when the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled in favor of Apple in a patent dispute between S3 and Apple.

The company said in November that it was reconsidering its options. Now … Read more

Canvas 14 creates sophisticated tech illustrations

Canvas 14 from ACD Systems is an enterprise-class technical illustration program. With it, you can create, refine, and publish sophisticated illustrations, animations, and documents.

It combines the drawing and illustrating features of a premium graphics app, the 3D modeling and drafting capabilities of CAD, and the collaborative capabilities of a productivity suite in one surprisingly intuitive package. A quick-start guide, copious documentation, and a helpful sidebar called the Canvas Assistant made getting to know this capable but complex software easier than we expected.

To try Canvas 14 for free, you must select that option during installation and complete the process … Read more

What I'd like to see in Apple's next MacBooks

The looming presence of a WWDC keynote doesn't usually spark dreams of laptop hardware, but this year's a little different. Apple hasn't released a MacBook in all of 2012. It's already June. And, Intel's latest Ivy Bridge processors have been showing up everywhere, including a bumper crop of new Windows ultrabooks.

Here's what I'd like to see in Apple's next MacBooks, both from software and hardware. … Read more