How Playboy unexpectedly helped create the JPEG

Playboy founder and cultural icon Hugh Hefner's legacy of provocation and sexual liberality has been steering the online conversation since his death Wednesday night. But no matter how you feel about the company and mindset he built, he left behind a surprising gift, one that had an important impact on our digital world.

Namely, a photo from an issue of a 1972 Playboy magazine that was used as a test image during the creation of widely used image processing standards like JPEG and MPEG.

Hefner's magazine published an alluring photo that turned into an invaluable resource for generations of computer scientists. The subtle shot eventually became one of the most widely used test images for image processing algorithms. The model, Lena (sometimes anglicized as "Lenna") Soderberg, whose photo was used for the centerfold of Playboy's November 1972 issue, is now widely known as the "First Lady of the Internet."   Read more...