Brian Fitzgerald's Radio Weblog

Monday, June 9, 2003

They're back: 'V' to invade NBC again
A picture named vlogo.gif

LOS ANGELES, California (Hollywood Reporter) -- Twenty years after NBC's hit sci-fi miniseries "V" invaded the small screen, the network is bringing the aliens back with "V: The Second Generation," a three-hour TV movie from the original creator Kenneth Johnson. [CNN]

Yes! I loved that show. I don't remember the NBC regular-season series very well, and I think it spawned another lesser-network sci-fi flick that wasn't very good, but the mini series was great. I was in elementary school when it was on and me and some friends had a club that was based on 'V'.
5:18:19 PM

Bell tolling for PNG graphics format?
A patent underlying the popular GIF format is set to expire soon. That could make PNG, created as a royalty-free alternative, obsolete--unless other issues come into play. [CNET News.com]

The PNG format has never really taken off and that is very unfortunate. The PNG format, while not providing file sizes as small as GIFs or JPEGs, does provide small file sizes while removing the confusion of which graphic format to use and providing features that neither GIF nor JPEG offer such as alpha channel transparency. The only thing that PNG is really missing is a way to provide animation as GIFs do. Apparently this is possible with another related format called MNG, but few browsers support it. Combining alpha-channel transparency with animation would allow us to get past the cheesy animations that are common today and move on to truly great looking animated graphics such as those common in the OS X operating system.
11:47:52 AM