Admittedly only on-topic in the most remote sense, Mark asks you to read his editorial on the DDJ web site, in which he raises the modest proposal that we do away with the music industry.

Gerald Gibson Jr. has posted an article to the CodeProject site showing how to decompress zip files using the Windows Shell API

Topaz Labs Unveils Topaz Vivacity V1.0, advanced image enhancement Photoshop plug-in that reduces image noises with little loss of details; eradicates JPEG/JPEG 2000 compression artifacts; sharpens and corrects edges without overshooting and noise amplification; and creating amazing effects.

eWeek: In a surprise move, IBM has dropped its patent counterclaims against SCO. IBM had claimed violations of its data compression technology patent among other things.

Located in Lyon-France, TTF develops solutions for CAD data interoperability (TTF Foundation libraries), native-to-native translators and multi-CAD DIGITAL MOCK-UP and Collaborative Engineering solutions (Project Reviewer). They announced a new project, PRC II, for better Data Compression than their current PRC technology.

Macnn: Apple Computer along with approximately 40 other companies are still in hot water over the Jpeg patent infringement case. Judge Jeremy D. Fogel passed the ruling along in favor of Forgent Networks.

Patently-O: In an interesting case, LizardTech’s patent on Discreet Cosine Transform has been deemed invalid. Reason: “Single Embodiment Of Claim Element Fails To Describe Element Generically”

Thomson S.A., holder of plenty of patents of their own, is being sued for failing to license MPEG audio compression patents.

NEC announced a Mobile phone document viewer which works by transforming the document to images on server and transferring them to phone. They have used a proprietry image format to make this possible.

VoiceAge Corporation, provider of speech and audio compression solutions for mobile and internet applications, announced the AMR-WB+ hi-fi audio compression technology developed jointly by Nokia, Ericsson and VoiceAge for the Helix digital media platform.